CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
J ason
I avoid Cal and work on the shelter. I strip vines and snap branches from trees. I lay them down, weaving them together like I’m on my grandmother’s oversized loom. Naked floors are frowned upon in Minnesota.
After I’ve completed a six-by-six slab, I move away.
My construction quality is somewhere between tent and sofa cushion fort, and I hope Cal won’t be disappointed.
Maybe I should construct him his own space, but for some reason the idea offends me, and I scowl at the jungle and its abundance of disaster shelter material.
When the sky turns tangerine, I go to find Cal. There’s no sign of him at first.
But I hear an odd thud over and over again, and when I look, I find him hunched on the far side of the beach, facing a defeated pile of rocks and twigs.
He’s hunched over. I frown and hurry toward him.
“Cal?” I ask.
“Yes?” His voice is softer than I like and more uncertain.
I quicken my pace. Sand makes my footing weird, but I’ve always preferred hard surfaces. That’s literally how I make a living.
I crouch beside him. His shoulders are slumped. His hands are scraped.
“You’re trying to start a fire,” I say gently.
He shrugs. “Doesn’t matter.”
“Why?”
“I can’t get it to light.” His voice wobbles, and I hate it. The sound carves right into me.
I sit beside him and glance at his hands. He’s gripping a stick and rock like they’ve personally betrayed him.
“Let me try.”
He shoves them into my hands.
“I like the setup,” I say. “Rocks in a circle, twigs and branches inside. Professional.”
“It’s not,” he mutters.
I hold up the stick, then set it down. “This is still damp from yesterday’s rain. We’ll try again in the morning.”
“I dried them.”
“They need to be totally dry. We’re trying to create fire.”
He sighs. “I’m not good at this.”
“No one’s supposed to be good at this.”
“I thought if we had fire, we could catch fish.”
“Maybe. Though I read some fish around here are poisonous.”
He glances at me. “So we’re not catching fish?”
“We could feed them to birds and see if the birds keel over before we eat.”
“That wouldn’t be kind to the birds.”
“I agree. We still have coconuts.”
“You should be eating protein.”
“Now you sound like our team nutritionist.”
“Doesn’t mean it’s not true.”
“I’d rather skip protein than eat something that kills me.”
Cal frowns. “I’m not helping.”
“You’re helping. It gets cold at night. Fire would help. You were smart to think of it.”
“I’m sorry we’re stuck here.”
“They’ll find us,” I lie.
I wish I believed it.
“Maybe they think we... didn’t make it.” Cal doesn’t say dead, but I’m sure we’re both thinking it.
We’re not dead—yet. But we’re also two guys on an island with no food, no fire, and no idea what we’re doing.
I get us coconuts, and we eat. We talk about hockey camp, because we don’t want to talk about the future.
“I guess we can go to bed now,” I say after we finish eating.
“Sure. I’ve always wanted to sleep under the stars. Maybe I manifested this.”
I snort. “My team probably helped. They hate me.”
He jerks his head toward me. “People don’t hate you, Jason.”
“You sure?”
He’s quiet. His gaze is on me, heavy and searching.
I want to bolt. But I don’t
“If it helps,” he says, “I’ll probably get fired when we get back.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I left the country in my first week at work.”
I laugh despite myself. “That’s probably not in the onboarding materials.”
“I charged the flight to the work card,” he adds. “And the hotel.”
“The five-star hotel.”
“Think they’re still charging me? I didn’t check out. I even put up a do-not-disturb sign.”
“You didn’t.”
“I did !”
We dissolve into laughter.
“Why’d you become a reporter?” I ask when our laughter fades.
“I wanted to stay in sports. Even if I wasn’t good enough to play.”
“Sports Sphere is pretty major.”
“Still gonna suck to be fired.”
“We could stay here. I’ll tell the rescue boat to keep going.”
He chuckles, and something inside me melts.
“Tomorrow night we’ll get the fire working,” I promise. “Once everything’s dry. It’ll be great.”
“Maybe we’ll be rescued tomorrow.”
“Absolutely.” I smile at the stars, hoping I haven’t told him another lie.