Chapter Nine
“Fuck Kate Hudson, kill Katy Perry, marry Kate Winslet.”
Troy grinned. “Me too! Definitely have to marry Winslet. I met her at a thing once, and she was so nice and beautiful. Not that Katy Perry isn’t, because she is. But gotta kill someone. Never met Hudson, so maybe I should switch those. Hmm.”
Brian laughed. “Well, I don’t have the advantage of having met any of them, so I’m glad I got the ‘right’ answer.”
Stretching out his leg, Troy rolled his ankle. The swelling was finally completely gone, and only the odd red patch remained on his skin.
“Feeling okay?” Brian asked. He wove together the strands of two huge palm fronds. The roof of their rudimentary lean-to was almost finished. Troy wondered what else they could build.
“Good as new.”
They stayed close to the fire after the sun was long gone, keeping the bugs at bay.
Troy’s body ached, but in a good way. They’d worked out that morning before the sun was too hot, doing planks and push-ups.
After all those days barely able to walk, Troy didn’t want to take his body for granted ever again.
He’d started with crunches, and now that the pain and swelling was gone from his foot it felt amazing to tone his muscles again.
He ran a hand over his curling hair. The sun and sea dried it out, and he felt as if a fine layer of sand had become part of him from head to toe.
At least his face was mostly smooth, Brian having shaved him a couple days before.
He smiled to himself as he thought of the rumble of Brian’s voice above him, the hot facecloth pressed to his skin, and Brian’s gentle hands. Troy loved spa day.
Something scuttled across the beach nearby. It’s not a spider. Nope. Not a spider.
“It’s just a little sand crab thingy.”
Blinking at Brian, Troy wondered if he’d spoken aloud. He didn’t think he had. “Even if it’s not, just tell me it’s a sand crab. Always a sand crab.”
His cheek dimpling in the light of the flames, Brian picked up a stick and tossed it over the fire. “Deal.”
“Dude, you think you can pick me up a Big Mac on your way back tomorrow?”
“Sure. Milkshake too? Fries?”
“Totally.” Troy sighed wistfully. “Or maybe a big juicy steak. Remember steak?”
“I do indeed. I’ll see what’s open tomorrow.”
It was dumb—just their silly little joke.
Most days, Brian would go on a walk down the beach at some point to get his alone time.
They had a strict agreement that neither of them were to venture into the jungle by themselves farther than it took to have a shit.
Troy found he didn’t mind the time to himself, even though he missed Brian by the time he came back.
It filled him with a warm sort of joy to see Brian returning along the white sand, coming into focus with a smile and wave.
When Brian returned, Troy would ask him what he’d picked up. Some days it was McDonald’s, or tacos, or a nice Italian meal of pasta and sourdough. Then they’d eat their fish and fruit and pretend.
They’d brushed their teeth after dinner, taking turns with Brian’s toothbrush as usual.
The toothpaste was gone, and Troy missed the little burst of mint so much.
Sometimes he wondered if perhaps there were different fruits growing in the jungle that could give their food a new flavor, but the thought of going back in there made his heart thump. No, he was happy staying on the beach.
As they sat in comfortable silence, Troy stared up at what he was pretty sure was Orion, a million years away beyond the fire’s glow. “You know, it’s weird, but…”
“What?” Brian asked quietly.
“Part of me likes being here.” He quickly added, “Not that I want to stay forever, obviously. But it’s so nice to just…
be. Not a little sheep herded around by our agent and manager, and ‘people.’ I know it’s cliché, but there was always someone telling me to do something, or wanting something from me.
Even when we had vacations, it took a lot of careful planning to find places where I could have even a bit of privacy.
I couldn’t just up and go wherever I wanted.
Always someone watching. Knowing every person with a cell phone—so, you know, everyone—could be taking your picture.
To be able to walk around here bare-ass naked with my dick hanging out and not end up all over the internet like Justin Bieber is liberating. ”
“My tell-all is really going to suffer from the lack of desert island dick pics.” Brian’s teasing smile faded. “Seriously, though, I don’t know how you didn’t go crazy.”
Troy tossed a hunk of wood on the fire in a shower of sparks. “Yeah, sometimes it really sucked. But I will stop douche whining now about a job that paid me millions and gave me loyal fans.”
“You’re not a douche.” Brian reached out and squeezed Troy’s arm, his fingers trailing down before falling away, leaving a shiver in their wake. Troy inched closer to the fire.
“I have no idea what kind of life I’d have if my dad had been someone different. If we hadn’t gotten the TV show. It’s weird to think about.”
“The road not taken and all that.”
“Yeah. Here, I like being able to…” Troy waved his hand around.
“Do what you want for a change?”
“It’s not that I don’t enjoy singing and dancing and all that. I do. It’s fun.”
“But?”
He thought of his old guitar, its hollow weight comforting on his leg, the strings putting calluses on his fingers. Troy shook his head. “I don’t know. I probably shouldn’t attempt any deep thoughts.”
“Weren’t you the brainy one?”
“No, no, the bad boy.” He gave Brian an exaggerated scowl. “Older and dangerous, mysterious and close-lipped. Lock up your daughters.”
“Ah. Yes, you’re very wild. Especially with that hair.”
“Shut up.” Troy patted down his growing curls and flicked sand in Brian’s direction.
Brian flicked some back. “Well, you know what I think?”
Troy waited with a raised eyebrow, realizing he really, really wanted to know.
“You’re tired. You’ve been working nonstop since you were what, twelve?”
“Fourteen, but yeah. I guess I have. First the TV show, and then the band. I kind of love that here, my job is collecting fruit and cutting firewood with a pocket chainsaw.”
“We’re like those crazy doomsday preppers, living off the grid.”
“Minus the collection of machine guns.”
Brian leaned back on his elbows, his gaze on the swath of stars. The firelight played over the dark hair across his pecs and around his nipples.
Brian said, “Although a gun might come in handy so we could hunt and not just gather. I’ll give the preppers that. But I guess there’s nothing to shoot here. Wouldn’t want to get lead in our fish.”
“Nothing we know of.” Troy glanced at the hulking shadow of the jungle. “We’d have seen or heard it by now if there was something…huntable, right?”
“Definitely. These islands are too small. It’s just birds and insects and reptiles we don’t want to think about.”
“Ugh. The birds, I can handle.”
“Except those parrots. I wouldn’t mind shooting them most mornings.”
Troy laughed and poked the fire with a stick, making it crackle. The signal fire still burned a little ways down the beach by their fruitless SOS. What if they never find us? What if we get sick or hurt again? What if—
He inhaled deeply and counted to five. They were doing everything they could. They’d get through this. They had to. To think they wouldn’t wasn’t an option.
“What?” Brian asked.
Troy realized his face was screwed up and his hands in fists. He exhaled and unclenched. “Nothing. Like I was saying, I do appreciate the freedom here. But then I feel guilty, or get scared, or… I don’t know. My head’s a confusing place.”
Brian laughed softly. “Yeah, I know what you mean.”
“Did it feel good when you went to live in Australia? When you gave it all up?”
He closed his eyes and swallowed, and Troy watched his Adam’s apple bob. The sadness that washed over Brian was like a physical thing, and Troy wished he could take it in his hands and crush it. “It felt…like the only thing I could do. It felt better than before, I guess.”
Troy wanted so much to ask about the before. As he tried to find the right words, Brian spoke, watching the stars again.
“Would you want to do your own music? Instead of being in the band?”
Yes. “The thing is, when I write, it never seems to be the right songs that come out.”
Brian looked at him. “What do you mean?”
“It’s like…this folky stuff. Songs that are stories in a specific way.”
“Like the songs you hum?”
Troy blinked. “I don’t hum that often. Do I?”
“All the time.” Brian smiled. “I like it. What are the songs about?”
“Oh, nothing. I just scribble, really.” He waved a hand dismissively. “I’ve only written bits and pieces of melodies and hooks, parts of lyrics, stories. Not real songs.”
“Ah.” Brian eyed him skeptically, but thankfully didn’t press, as usual. He simply said, “Well, I like folk music.”
“Thanks.” The memory of coming home to find his guitar gone vibrated through Troy’s mind. But why hadn’t he bought his own in the years since? He was an adult, and Dad was gone. Who would stop him? Why had he stopped himself? Troy wished he had an answer.
After a silence, Brian said, “It’s been six weeks, you know. Forty-two days, to be exact.”
“Shit. Has it? So weird. When I think about leaving the hotel and going to the airport, it’s like a whole other world and we went back in time. If we ever see a ship, I half expect it to have big white sails and pirates on board.”
Brian chuckled. “Yes, with eye patches and wooden legs. And God, parrots.”
They laughed, and Troy said, “Maybe the domesticated kind aren’t as loud as these fuckers.” A mosquito whined close by and he waved it away. “Guess we should get to sleep. It’s pretty late.”
“I’ll do the bottles.” Brian went about unzipping the suitcase and uncapping the bottles to prop them in the sand, the nightly ritual before the usual rain.