I sit down next to Haley. “They’ll be back soon. He said they were getting?—”
“If you’d quit trying to spear me with your bamboo, we’d have been here an hour ago.” Calvin’s deep voice echoes through camp.
I glance up at Zane, who’s already finished his meal and is holding a chick on his lap. He’s laughing. But when they round the corner caked in dried mud, we all stop laughing.
“What happened?” Haley’s on them, her hands in Rockwell’s muddy hair and then on the side of Calvin’s cracked cheek.
“You know when you were a kid and you worried about quicksand?” Rockwell scrunches his face, and dried mud falls to the ground.
“Yeah, I mean, nightmares for years.” Haley runs her hands over his arm.
Rockwell puts down a good dozen bamboo poles. Green has twice as many.
“Well, think quicksand but mud.”
“Oh no.” Haley smooths dried and cracked mud from Rockwell’s neck. “It’s like you had a mud bath at a really bad spa.”
“A horrific spa.” Rockwell kisses the tip of Haley’s nose, leaving specks of dirt on her face.
“Why would anyone want to dip themselves in mud?” Green growls.
“It’s good for the skin. Opens the pores and all,” I say. “I went to a mud bath house in Indonesia that...” Haley’s blue eyes are wide. She doesn’t need to hear this story. But damn, it was a good time.
Rockwell’s not letting Haley move. His cracked-mud fingers hold her wrist, but his glare lingers on Calvin. “It wouldn’t have been that big of a deal, but Green dropped the machete. And he wasn’t willing to call it a loss.”
“Fuck, without the machete we’d be... yeah,” Sam says. “I’m glad you’re both okay.” He picks up the bamboo Easton dropped and moves it over out of the way.
“I’m taking a swim.” Easton peels off his shirt. “Come with me, Firefly?” He tugs at her hand. She looks back to Calvin, and his bamboo clatters next to Easton’s.
“I’m fine,” Calvin says. Haley nods and walks with Easton down the zigzag trail to the water. We all watch them go. Haley’s black swim shorts and her not-so-white shirt vanish behind the pond fronds.
I point to the decent-sized pile. “Let me guess, you cut the bamboo after you fell in the mud?” Because it’s just like Green to complete a job even when you’re in pain. Fucker needs a smack to the side of his head.
“We were there. And it was the whole reason why we went. We can’t cut all the bamboo around here for the chicken tractor. He wanted to stop at the waterfall to get cleaned off, but on the way out I saw boar tracks. We need to do something aboutthem.” He peels his shirt off and drops it with a thud on the log stool next to him. It’s something I would throw away if we were back in the States. But we’re not.
“We can do it after the holidays.” Odd—we only decided upon them this morning, but they’re ingrained in me already. And I want this to be big for Haley. No, I want this to be big for all of us.
When the ship was taken, it was like a balloon popped. For most of us. Everyone but damn Green. It was like he expected this to happen all along. But then seeing what he saw in the huts... I suppose his sense of doom is logical.
Fuck that, I’m going to live. And as much as I was hyped up for Thanks-o-weenie, I’m even more excited for Island Festival Day tomorrow.
Haley’s back. And the three of us stop and stare. “I want to get some towels.”
Zane tosses her one. Lucky for us, Rocky only bought the best for the boat, because they’re getting a beating.
“Thanks.” She turns to go back to the beach.
“Wait, Haley, you want me to start putting up your garland?” I ask.
“Yeah, that would be great.” She waves over her shoulder on the way the way to the trail.
Calvin takes off with long steps, his large frame rattling the palm fronds as he pushes out into the evening sun, following Haley.
Chapter 21
Breaststroke
Haley
