Chapter 29
Waking up to the birds singing and the warm sunshine on my face makes me feel like I’m on an all-inclusive holiday somewhere. Except the only thing inclusive here is fear and stress – and you can always go back for seconds.
I roll over and look at Lockie on the floor next to me. My movement must wake him up.
‘Good morning,’ he says, all smiles.
‘Morning,’ I reply.
Falling asleep on the terrace was never part of the plan. Sleeping is all we did, though – I can’t seem to push out of my mind that he wouldn’t even kiss me. Not that I’m irresistible but, come on, it was the perfect moment.
‘Nice to get away for a night, wasn’t it?’ he jokes.
I laugh.
‘We probably shouldn’t have slept here, should we?’ I say. ‘The others will wonder where we are.’
He yawns, stretching his limbs, sending a ripple through his muscles.
‘It’ll be fine,’ he reassures me. ‘We’ll head back now. If anyone asks, we’ll just say we fell asleep trying to break into the old production building. We kind of did…’
‘Kind of being exactly the right term,’ I reply.
I try to stretch my back, but it feels nowhere near as satisfying as it looked when Lockie did it. My muscles don’t ripple, but my spine does click.
As we gather ourselves to head back to camp, I glance over at the box of sex toys we rifled through last night. My emotional support dildo peeks out of the top, its glitter catching the sun kind of like the ocean does.
‘I should probably leave that here,’ I say, nodding in its direction.
‘Probably for the best,’ Lockie says with a laugh.
‘Although, to be fair, it could come in useful for stunning fish or knocking down trees,’ I point out.
‘I don’t think I ever saw Bear Grylls with one,’ he jokes. ‘But we know where it is, if we need it.’
We head to the edge of the terrace and Lockie offers me his hand to climb back down. I go slowly, because I quite like not dying, and I’ve already survived so much. This would be a stupid way to go.
It’s sort of weird, climbing off a terrace together in the daylight, sneaking back to camp – it really is like we actually spent the night together… not that I’m dwelling on it (I am).
As we walk through the jungle, I’m rehearsing my story in my head, what we’ll say, how we’ll spin it. It’s believable enough, that we were trying to break into the building, right?
Thankfully it doesn’t matter. When we arrive back, Camilla is already up and she’s on the rampage.
‘He put faeces in my bed!’ Camilla screeches at us.
‘And good morning to you too,’ Lockie says with a smile, trying to ease the tension.
‘Human. Faeces. In my. Bed.’
Oh boy, she’s really on one today.
‘Who did?’
‘I’m sure it wasn’t, like, on purpose, babe,’ Honey says as she rubs Camilla’s back, trying to soothe her.
Accidental or not, it sounds like a horrible thing to wake up to.
‘He said it was a present! The sick freak,’ Camilla goes on. ‘Then he disappeared into the jungle. Probably knew I’d go mad – probably off collecting more. Ew!’
Lockie and I exchange a look.
‘Who are we talking about?’ I ask her.
‘Tony, obviously,’ she snaps.
Ozzy is already in the water, fishing, which means Lockie is the ‘man of the house’. I look at him and smile, letting him know it’s him who needs to investigate.
‘I’ll have a look then, shall I?’ he says reluctantly.
He crouches beside the bed and takes a look. Then he prods it with a finger.
‘Oh my God, ew, don’t touch it!’ Camilla says before gagging dramatically.
Lockie laughs as he picks it up.
‘Well, it’s not faeces,’ he tells her. ‘Look – it’s a fossil. A really fancy one, actually. See…’
‘Oh,’ Camilla says simply.
We all lean in to look. He’s right. It’s a little spiral-shaped stone – probably from some prehistoric sea creature. It really is beautiful.
‘He probably found it to replace your crystal,’ I say. ‘So you’d have something to hold. Something pretty from the earth, you were saying how much you missed it, for grounding you…’
She chews her lip and, and for the first time since we met, she looks like she feels genuinely guilty.
‘I… may have screamed at him,’ she says. ‘I called him a freak and told him to get lost and never come back. I thought he was pranking me.’
‘Don’t worry, Cleo and I will go find him, we’ll talk to him,’ Lockie reassures her. ‘We’ll get him to come back, to talk to you, and it will all be okay.’
‘He doesn’t have a bad bone in his body,’ I tell her. ‘He’ll forgive you.’
‘Yeah, okay, thanks,’ she says, her voice much softer than usual.
‘Come on then,’ Lockie says. ‘Let’s go find our boy.’
We call Tony’s name down the winding jungle path. It doesn’t take long before we find him – sort of like when a kid runs away from home, but hides out in the tree house in the garden. Then again, we’re on a small island, so how far can he run?
Eventually, a voice calls back. ‘Stay away!’
‘Mate, we just want to talk to you,’ Lockie calls back.
‘Fine. But don’t come too close,’ Tony replies.
Odd.
We follow his voice and find him sitting on a fallen tree, probably taken out by the storm. He’s hunched over, like a sad garden gnome, and… oh, God.
His face is tomato red and covered in angry-looking little bites.
‘Mate, what happened to you?’ Lockie asks.
Tony doesn’t look up.
‘I was trying to find something nice for Camilla,’ he says. ‘Something to replace her crystal she keeps banging on about. I found something, but I also found a bunch of bugs. I’ve been using coconut water on my face, to hydrate my skin, and I guess they like the taste so… eaten alive.’
‘You were getting her a gift?’ I say with a smile. ‘We’ve seen it, it’s beautiful. She’s seen it too now, she really likes it.’
‘Really?’ he replies. ‘Because she just started screaming at me, and I didn’t want her to see my face, so I just bolted. I can’t go back like this. What will she think, if she sees me?’
‘No one will care,’ Lockie tells him. ‘They’re just bites. Annoying, but they heal.’
‘They will care,’ he replies. ‘I’m known for being a pretty boy. That’s literally my only thing. Why would anyone like me like this? Camilla definitely won’t. And I sort of… like her. I like our banter, our bickering. But if she sees my face like this, it’ll give her the ick, won’t it?’
‘She loves the fossil,’ Lockie replies. ‘And she really likes you too, we can all tell. And she feels bad for shouting. Just come back and talk to her.’
Tony shakes his head.
‘It’s embarrassing,’ he says with a sigh.
I crouch down to look him in the eye.
‘You think that’s embarrassing?’ I start. ‘Two nights ago I woke up to realise I’d spooned Lockie in my sleep. And, if that’s not bad enough, Ozzy had done the same, and spooned up to me. We were like a sandwich.’
Tony laughs.
‘Okay, yeah, that is worse,’ he replies. ‘Okay, fine, I’ll talk to her.’
‘Don’t mention what I just told you,’ I warn him playfully.
‘Come on then,’ Lockie says, offering him a hand to pull him up.
Tony hesitates, then takes it. We head back along the beach, Lockie and me falling just a couple of paces behind him.
‘So you spooned me in your sleep, huh?’ he teases me.
‘You think that’s embarrassing?’ I replied. ‘You held my hand in your sleep.’
‘Who said I was sleeping?’ he replies with a wink.
‘Ouch!’ Tony cries out as he steps on something sharp. It looks like a broken shell. ‘Shit, fuck, ow!’
Camilla, hearing the noise and spotting us from camp, comes charging down the beach to help, just like a Baywatch babe.
‘Are you stung? Do you need me to pee on it?’ she shouts as she pulls her hair from her mouth.
Okay, so not just like a Baywatch babe.
I can’t help but smile though. She must think it’s another jellyfish attack. She must also like him a lot, to be willing to pee on him.
‘I’m not, like, into that,’ Tony offers up.
‘Oh, no, your face, are you okay?’ Camilla asks with genuine concern.
‘Just bites,’ he replies.
‘Well, let me bathe them for you,’ she says. ‘Because I want to talk to you, to thank you for my present – I love it.’
‘Bathe them in water, yeah?’ he checks.
‘Yes, of course,’ she says, not picking up on the implication. ‘Come on.’
‘Our work here is done,’ Lockie says as we follow them back up the beach to camp.
‘Looks like she still fancies him,’ I point out.
‘Erm, she just offered to pee on him,’ Lockie reminds me. ‘I’d say she loves him.’
I laugh. Maybe he’s right.
‘Well, if that’s amore, I’m glad I can’t seem to find it,’ I reply.
‘You’ll find someone who wants to pee on you, one day,’ he jokes, giving me a playful shove. ‘Come on, let’s grab some food. Pineapple or coconut, decisions, decisions…’
I smile, but jokes aside, I feel like he just ushered me to the friend zone. No, I don’t want him to pee on me, but he didn’t want to kiss me, and this just feels like a playful reminder.
Anyway, I need to forget about it for now. I’m not looking for love, I’m looking for rescue. There’s plenty more fish back home, it’s only here where the dating pool is limited.
I just need to make sure I get there, then I can worry about the rest.