“Wow,” she muses. “So, tell me again why you were sleeping on the floor of a cave when this shelter was right here all along?”
She walks around the edge, taking in the details of the perimeter. It hasn’t been tended to in a long while, and needs a good cleaning, but is otherwise in good working order.
“They were fighting over it. Eugene inhabited this place last, and he would attack anyone that came within a twenty-foot radius of it. He was the guy that attacked you,” I remind her.
She turns to me and raises a brow but doesn’t ask any more questions.
“Well, let’s investigate,” she says. Then she pauses and looks at me quizzically. “Deal?”
Is this her way of asking me permission?
I nod. “Let me open it up.”
She steps to the side to let me in. I open the door, not surprised to see several large spiders skittering across the floor. Thankfully she stands behind me and doesn’t see. Something tells me she wouldn’t be a fan.
“Wow,” she says. “It’s like really kinda cool in here. Does it offer much protection against the elements?”
“Yeah. We get mostly rain here, but it stays dry.”
“Cy, seriously,” she says over her shoulder. “I can’t believe you had this place up your sleeve and you made me sleep in the cave with bats.”
I smile while I check the door, make sure the foundation hasn’t been weakened by any storms, and when she isn’t looking, make sure that every damn spider is gone.
She sets about to tidying up the place, straightening the stack of wood by the fire pit, and taking up the roughly hewn broom we crafted out of twigs, she sweeps the dirty floor clean.
“It almost makes me look forward to sleeping tonight,” she says, whistling to herself. I’m still turned on after our little session by the cave this morning, and the reminder that she’ll be sleeping tucked up next to my side brings to mind the vision of her on her back.
Christ, I need to get a handle on this rampant need to fuck this woman seven ways to Sunday.
“Get your mind outta the gutter, Cy,” she says, waving the broom at me, but her own eyes are bright, and there’s a pink color to her cheeks. I swear I can smell her arousal from where I’m standing.
“What gutter? I was just thinking about sleep.” I fake a yawn. “Cave sleeping’s for the birds. I’m tired.”
“Suuuure,” she says, then she freezes, broom paused mid-air.
“Did you hear that?”
I stop and listen.
“What’s that sound?” she whispers. “It’s like a deep, low rumble, like giants snoring or something.”
“Thunder, babe,” I say, looking out the doorway as charcoal-gray clouds roll in. I frown at the sky. “There’s a storm coming in, and soon.”
“How soon?”
“No telling, but we should get some food quickly before it hits us.”
She stands the broom up against the wall, and the two of us hike past the beach to where the palm trees sway, heavy with coconuts. We cart back half a dozen to the shelter and get her bag to get more food. I frown as we gather an ample supply of starfruit, guava, and a bunch of callaloo, a green similar to spinach that I recall from my travels. This shit wasn’t here before.
“Oh, yes!” she hoots, pumping her fist in the air, then points to green, oval-shaped fruits. “Mangos. Perfect.”
I don’t rejoice with her, though. I’m grateful for the food supply, and I don’t know how long I’ve been on this island, but it’s long enough that all six of us have explored every inch of this place. And there were no mangoes. No coconuts. No bright green swaths of callaloo. I would know.
“Why do you look so down about this? This is awesome!” She looks at me curiously. “Do you not like mangoes?”
“Harper, I’ll eat anything. It’s just weird that you arrive here and suddenly there’s all this food.”
She shakes her head. “Well, I wouldn’t say ‘all this food,’ she says. “Honestly, some mangoes and coconuts hardly make for an abundance of food.”
“Compared to what we were eating before? It is.”
“Maybe you guys just didn’t know where to look.”
“We spent days and weeks scouring every inch of this place,” I protest. There were days we literally rummaged for grubs just to get something in our belly.
“Maybe they’re just ripe now?” she offers helpfully, gathering the fruit to her bosom. I help her pick some of the ripest ones.
“No,” I tell her. “There has to be another reason.”
She walks back to the shelter, laden with fruit, and yells over her shoulder. “Not sure what you’re talking about, Cy. I think the island’s getting to your head. You’re like this conspiracy theorist, but I’m not seeing it.”
Of course she isn’t. She hasn’t seen what I have.
Large drops of rain fall as if someone just opened up the heavens.