Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
Derek
I’ve done some crazy things in my life, but pooping in a bucket is a new one for me.
“So wait,” Morgan says, holding up her hand.
At least, I think that’s her name, but when Thiago told everyone to gather for some instructions, I didn’t get a chance to check the notes I made about the other guests after getting on the bus this morning.
Hopefully I didn’t mix up her name with someone else, but I vividly remember noting her artificially red hair when we met.
“We can’t just, like, bury it under the sand or dump it in the river or something? ”
“There are five thousand people coming down this stretch of the river every year,” Donovan replies. “And only so much sand to cover their poop. And our drinking water is coming from the river, so we like to keep things out of it as much as we can. So nope, everything we bring in has to go out.”
Hence the bucket.
Thiago holds the thing up for us to see—it’s a plastic square container with a round lid at the top—and explains that it is for excrement only because we only have three of the fancy buckets to last the whole week.
Folding my arms, I lean over to Hunter and mutter, “Didn’t read this on the website…” I’ve used outhouses before, just not ones that are only eight cubic feet and will be sitting on the gear boat every day. With me.
“I’m not using it,” Hunter mutters back.
“Some of you might try to hold it,” Donovan says, her eyes on Hunter even though I don’t think she heard him from the other side of our circle, “but I don’t recommend that. Six days is a long time to go without going.”
“So if that’s just for sh…poop,” Brody says, changing his word choice when he glances at the blonde woman next to him, “are we supposed to pee in the river like we did at lunch? You just said we drink from there!”
“We have a filter,” Donovan says with a chuckle. “And yes. Peeing in the river is a great plan.”
“What about the girls?” another guy asks. He’s one of the older half of the group that I haven’t met yet, and the woman who clings to his hand—his wife, maybe?—looks terrified about the bathroom situation. “Their mechanics are…uh…less convenient.”
Several people snicker.
“We have a bucket for that,” Thiago replies, setting the poop can down to show us the black five-gallon bucket sitting next to him.
There’s a toilet seat attached, but I don’t think the situation is much improved for the many women listening to this.
“You make sure you don’t mix up the buckets, yeah?
Number one.” He holds up the bucket. “Number two.” Holds up the square container.
“That’s why we call it the Hopper,” Farah says brightly, though her cheeriness doesn’t really fit the uncertain mood of the group. “Because sometimes you have to hop back and forth!”
I’ve never been more glad to be a man.
“I know it’s uncomfortable,” Donovan says, clearly speaking to the women as she looks at all of them in turn. “But on the bright side, it’s not a Groover!”
Morgan slowly lifts her hand again. “What’s a…” She seems too scared to finish her question and starts playing with her hair.
Donovan grins wide. “Back in the day, when my Grandpa guided trips for other companies, they used an old military ammo can, like the smaller ones we keep our food in on the boats. Narrow enough to sit on.” She holds up her hands, palms about a foot apart.
“But not very comfortable. They didn’t have seats to go over them, so you were sitting right on the top of the can.
Left some nice grooves in your rear end, so I hear. ”
“I’ll take the seat,” a dark-haired woman whispers with wide eyes. As if she might have to switch to a Groover if she doesn’t praise the system we have now.
Now I see why Donovan refused to answer my question when I asked about the Hopper. Her green eyes are dancing with amusement as she waits for anyone else to ask a question. There’s no way for her to change the circumstances, so she seems to be having fun with it where she can.
“So here are the important rules of the Hopper,” she says when no one speaks up.
“One, like Thiago said, we want to keep things as separate as we can, so only your poo is going in the square bucket. Two, we only have so much toilet paper, and if we run out, we can’t pop over to the store to grab some more.
So use it sparingly. Three, wash your hands. ”
A few people laugh at that one, but Donovan shakes her head.
“You think that one’s obvious, but some people forget about hygiene when they’re outside. Don’t be one of those people. We have a hand wash station over there by the kitchen, and all you have to do is press the pump with your foot to get the water flowing.”
“Is that just water from the river?” someone asks, looking into the hand wash bucket. “Isn’t that unsanitary?”
“It’s more sanitary than having poop on your hands,” Donovan counters. “And there’s soap. But we also have hand sanitizer if you’re worried. And the final rule…” She points at Mason.
He has a plastic paddle in his hand, kind of like the ones kayakers use but with a handle on one end instead of a second blade.
He stabs it into the sand and steps back, letting it stand straight up in the air.
“If this paddle is here,” he says, “it means the Hopper is empty. If you’re using the Hopper, take the paddle with you, or someone will come walking in on you while you’re doing your business. ”
“How long can a conversation about using the toilet last before it’s awkward?” I ask Hunter under my breath.
“It’s always awkward,” he mutters back, drawing a soft laugh out of me.
All things considered, I’m in a good mood right now and not too concerned about the bathroom situation.
I’m still thinking about the way Donovan had another back-and-forth conversation with me, which hopefully means I’m making some progress.
The more I can get her to talk, the more likely she’ll realize she doesn’t have to be afraid of me.
“If there’s one thing to remember on this trip,” Mason continues, “it’s bringing the paddle back when you’re done. I beg you. Don’t leave it by the Hopper when there’s no one back there. You’re going to have a lot of angry people if you do that. Bring the paddle back.”
I’m going to guess he’s speaking from experience, though I can’t decide if he was the one who left the paddle or if he was stuck waiting for no one.
“You’re never going to have better bathroom views than these,” Farah says and sweeps her hand over the canyon behind us. “By the end of this week, you’re going to love using the Hopper!”
“Seems unlikely,” Hunter grumbles.
I chuckle. “You could have stayed—”
“Nope.” His jaw tightens, but he’s looking at Donovan instead of me as he says, “I go where you go, D.” Still, there’s too much tension in his body for me to think he has no regrets about coming with me.
Not for the first time, I wonder what Hunter’s life would look like if he hadn’t started working with me.
He keeps to himself for the most part, and we get along well.
But there have to be times when he wishes he hadn’t chosen me.
I come with all sorts of complications, and even if he leaves, there are always going to be people who recognize him as Derek Riley’s bodyguard. My fame is his fame too.
It’s too bad I can’t do what I do without that side of things getting in the way.
“Who wants to be the first to try?” Thiago asks.
“I think you should get that honor,” I tell him in Spanish, making him snicker.
One of the WanderLove guys laughs too—a guy named Maverick—and I make a mental note of that so I can put it in my notebook later.
There are a lot of people to keep track of on this trip, so I won’t study all of them in detail, but there’s enough variety among the guests to get some interesting character studies going.
Especially once I work up the nerve to talk to some of them.
Even with NDAs protecting me, I still get nervous in situations I can’t control.
“Dinner should be ready in about half an hour,” Donovan says when the married woman from before volunteers to follow Thiago down the winding trail into the bushes, where I assume there’s a private spot waiting for the glamorous Hopper buckets.
“If you need help with your tents, Farah and Mason are happy to walk you through it.”
“Do you need any more help with dinner?” Morgan asks, raising her hand once again. Her eyes slide over to me, running from my head to my toes and back up again before she turns back to Donovan.
Donovan’s smirk says she saw the once-over as clearly as I did, and she glances at me as if trying to gauge my interest. The two women look a lot alike, from their red hair to their athletic builds, but Donovan looks softer in every way.
More natural. And, as much as I’m loath to admit it, her disdain interests me a lot more than Morgan’s poorly restrained fawning.
Morgan is easy to understand. Donovan is a puzzle I’m itching to solve.
“Nah,” Donovan says, “Superman and I have it covered, but we always welcome help with the dishes afterward. Everyone can go relax until we’re ready to eat.
” It seems she finally settled on Superman over things like Mr. Hollywood and Emperor Silver Screen.
I don’t love it, but it’s better than Poster Boy.
Everyone slowly filters to other parts of the beach—the four WanderLove women hover nearby despite Donovan’s gentle dismissal and look like they’re scheming—and I’m about to follow Donovan back to the kitchen when Hunter nudges my arm.
He has that look he gets when he has something he wants to say but knows I won’t like it, which happens more often than it should for how long we’ve worked together. Most people learn to keep those thoughts to themselves once they realize how stubborn I can be, but Hunter always stands his ground.
I roll my eyes. “What?”
“People are talking.”
“About me? Big surprise.”
“You and Donovan.”
My eyes involuntarily jump to her as she starts loading seasoned chicken onto a hot skillet.
“I’m not surprised about that either,” I say, though I lose some of the sarcasm of my last comment.
Rather than ask for specifics about the conversations I’ve missed while helping with dinner, I shake my head.
“People can say whatever they want to while we’re on the river. ”
Hunter grunts. “You should be more careful.”
“Careful? I’m learning what it’s like to be a river guide. Just because Donovan is a member of the opposite sex, it doesn’t mean we’re—”
“I’m worried about you, Derek.” He grits his teeth, glancing at the four women nearby. They must not be a threat because he looks back at me and frowns. “You’re acting…different.”
My jaw tightens, mostly because he knows better than to use the ‘A’ word around me. I choose to focus on the other word he used. “Different,” I repeat and wait for him to explain.
Groaning, he runs his hand over his buzzed hair and has to search for the words he wants to use. “I’m not saying it’s a bad thing. I don’t know if it’s a good thing either. You’re just…”
“Different.” I narrow my eyes. “Okay. Well, if you figure out what that means, I’m all ears, but I need to go help Donovan with dinner if you want to eat anytime soon.” I turn to leave.
“You seem happy.”
The words stop me in my tracks. This coming from the man who spent the whole bus ride to the river trying to convince me to back out and go home where I’m happier?
I mostly ignored him, jotting down my notes about the guests I met, but he seemed pretty sure that the Hot Scoop article about my friends leaving me behind affected me more than I’ve admitted to him.
I figured it was all an argument to get out of being forced on this trip with me, but maybe he was genuinely worried about me.
What changed in the last eight hours? I don’t feel any different than I did this morning.
I force a carefree smile, not feeling especially happy. “Maybe being away from my phone is good for me.”
“Maybe.” He doesn’t mean it. He thinks it’s Donovan having some profound effect on me. “But I’m asking you to be careful anyway.”
“Why?” What trouble does he think I can get myself into that I can’t get myself out of like I always do? I’m not Liam, who has a longstanding tradition of being in the worst places at the wrong times.
I’ve never been anything but careful.
Taking a slow breath, Hunter runs a hand over his hair again, then says, “Because you’re not usually this trusting. I don’t…” He grimaces. “I don’t think you know what you’re getting yourself into this time.”
He heads for our tent before I can ask him what he means.
“Everything okay?” Donovan asks when I return to the kitchen.
I’ve been with her all day, filing away details about her to paint a better picture of who she is, but I give myself another moment to study her.
The way she stands barefoot in the sand, wearing black nylon shorts and a white long-sleeved tee with the Red Earth logo splashed across the front.
Her bright auburn hair is coming out of its braid under her hat, but she doesn’t seem to care.
Aside from her aversion to me, I don’t think many things bother her, and she is clearly in the place she belongs.
She knows who she is and doesn’t hide any parts of herself, no matter how bold or brazen.
Whatever worries Hunter has, he’s wrong.
Donovan’s exactly the kind of person I could use in my life right now.
Someone who won’t tiptoe around the real issue or say what they think I want to hear.
If there’s anyone I can trust this week, surely I can trust her.
“Are you cooking without me, Tate?” I ask lightly, shaking off Hunter’s ominous ambiguities. He’s wrong.
But then Donovan winces, looking around to see if anyone is nearby before she says, “I’ll make you a deal, Superman. I’ll call you Derek at least half the time we’re out here if you promise to stick with just Donovan, kay?”
I take the hand she holds out, silently agreeing to her terms while her name plays on repeat in my head, like it’s trying to find where it belongs in the sea of information I have stored in there. Donovan Tate. Donovan Tate. Donovan Tate.
It doesn’t sound familiar, but she seems to think it might.
And I desperately want to figure out why.