Fit for Love

19. Kendall

Chapter 19

Kendall

“Hey, mate, check that out.” Dottie gestures in the direction of a nearby cypress tree.

Whoa. A horny deer—in multiple senses of that word—is mounting a doe, and they are going at it. Hard. There are sound effects and everything, particularly from the male, with the noise resembling some horrid combination of belching, groaning, snoring, growling, and snorting.

Is that how the seven dwarves got their names? Snow White saw some deer making a beast with two backs and horns?

“It’s rare to see the rut here in the swamp,” Dottie says. “You’re lucky.”

Yeah, for some unknown reason, I don’t actually feel all that lucky. In fact, I could’ve gone my whole life without ever witnessing how Bambis are made—or hearing the word “rut” used in a sentence.

“I hope a gator doesn’t eat them,” I say.

We saw some disturbingly large members of that species earlier, including one that was at least ten feet long.

“No worries, mate. Gators only chow down on fawns or the ones that are a bit crook.”

“Ah.” I figure someone who goes by “Alligator Dottie” would know such things. I swat at my millionth mosquito in the last hour. “How far are we from the secret island?”

“Oh, no worries, mate. You’ve got many more hours of the tour to enjoy.”

Great. I’m going to arrive at our destination as an exsanguinated husk.

“Thoughts?” Dottie asks as we finally pull up to a small pier on the secret island.

“If I don’t see another gator for the rest of my life, I think I’ll be perfectly happy,” I say, heroically fighting the urge to scratch at my mosquito bites.

Dottie chuckles and tells me the real treat starts when it gets dark because there will be frogs singing, fireflies lighting up the place, and—the highlight of it all—the swamp around us glowing with bioluminescence.

“Yeah. That sounds really cool,” I say.

I’m hoping this experience will somehow inspire my designs.

“She’ll be right,” she says, which at this point, I recognize as Australian for, “It will be.”

“Sugah Roo!” a weird-looking dude yells as he comes out of the cabin farthest from us.

“Bubba!” Dottie shouts giddily.

She flies into his arms, and he lifts her beekeeper-net-like veil and gives her a kiss that reminds me of the deer in rut.

When they eventually stop the PDA, Dottie introduces Bubba as her boyfriend—as though I couldn’t have guessed that part.

“Your cabin’s waitin’ for ya.” Bubba gestures at the cabin that’s nearer the water. “Why don’t you go check it out while Dottie and I go on a pleasure ride?"

“Sure.” Pleasure ride? Please, for the love of my libido, spare me the details.

Dottie thrusts a walkie-talkie into my hands, instructs me to call if I need anything, and then they sprint toward the pier like two horny teens. And I’m not talking the deer variety.

Hopping into the boat I just rode in, they torpedo away.

“What the fuck?” says a familiar voice from the doorway of the more inland cabin.

No.

Can’t be.

This has to be a swamp-induced hallucination, like when people see fairies in this kind of environment, or—given that we’re in Florida—the Skunk Ape.

“What the fuck right back at you,” I say to Ashton—because that’s whom I see, wearing a pair of shorts and a sleeveless T-shirt that exposes way too many of his perfectly defined muscles.

Unlike me, he doesn’t seem to be covered with mosquito bites. Which tracks. They probably avoid evil.

“Seriously, what are you doing here?” Ashton demands. “And where did they just take that boat?”

“I’m on a tour, which I assume is what you’re doing. And Bubba said they’re going on a pleasure ride.” I surreptitiously rub my eyes, but Ashton is still there afterward.

“Pleasure ride? What a load of bullshit. He told me he was going to propose to his girlfriend today—but I didn’t realize he’d need to strand me here to do so.”

“Strand us.” I take the walkie-talkie and press the push-to-talk button. “Hey, Dottie, I need you to come back. There’s been a misunderstanding.”

No one replies.

I press the button again. “Dottie, this is not a joke. Come back immediately.”

“I think that thing is dead,” Ashton says.

Fuck. I’m afraid he’s right. There’s no sign of a charge left in the stupid device.

I pull out my phone.

Double fuck. Zero bars.

“Can you fix this?” I thrust the walkie-talkie into Ashton’s hands.

He turns it around and opens the battery compartment. “Do you have two AA batteries?”

“Only back in New York.” It’s what powers my vibrator—a device I’ve missed dearly on this trip, and it’s all his fault.

Ashton hands the walkie-talkie back. “Sounds like we have to wait for the lovebirds to get back.”

“No. Fuck that.” I run toward the boat they left behind.

“What’s the idea?” he asks from behind me. “You’re going to steal their boat?”

“Borrow,” I throw over my shoulder.

“And then what? Do you actually remember the way back?”

“Yes.” Not really, but I don’t remember much zigzagging, so I bet if I go straight in roughly the right direction, I’ll get back to some kind of land.

Reaching the boat, I jump inside and look for a way to start it.

“It needs a key,” Ashton says, joining me inside. “But even if you magically produced it, I’d still say this is a bad idea.”

“Get off my boat,” I snap.

“How is this suddenly your boat?”

“You’re happy to stay back and wait. That means I’m the one sailing away.”

“Except you’re not.”

Ignoring him, I scour the boat for a key, but to no avail.

“Maybe it can be jump-started with wires?” I examine the panel skeptically.

“Sure. Why don’t you pull up a YouTube tutorial?”

I pull my phone out and then realize why he sounded so smug: no reception means no YouTube. Fucking technology.

“Do you have service?” I demand.

He takes out his phone and shows me that he has no bars either.

My heart sinks. “Is there Wi-Fi in the cabins?”

He snorts. “A better question is: is there electricity?”

I gape at him. “You’re kidding, right?”

He shakes his head. “I didn’t see any light switches or bulbs, and I doubt they provided those matches and candles for ambience’s sake.”

“Fuck.”

“Relax, fashionista.” He sounds annoyingly calm. “He’ll propose, and they’ll come back. Meanwhile, you can stay in your cabin, and I in mine.”

“Great idea.” I kick the side of the cockpit. “I’ll do just that.”

Hopping out of the boat, I stomp toward my cabin, and as if to match my mood, dark clouds begin to gather overhead.