CHAPTER FIVE TOO HOT FOR CLOTHES
The heat wave arrived without wind.
By midmorning, the island had become a closed fist. The palms hung motionless. Sand burned beneath bare feet. Even the sea looked exhausted.
Grant's survival trunks had dried into a salt-stiff instrument of torture. He wore them for an hour out of stubbornness, then walked to the fire, pushed them down, and dropped them into the coals.
The synthetic fabric curled and smoked.
Cody looked up from splitting coconuts. “A memorial service seems appropriate.”
“Say something.”
“They lived briefly and revealed much.”
Grant pointed at Cody's trunks. “Your turn.”
Cody hooked his thumbs under the waistband but waited until Grant was watching. He removed them slowly, stepped closer to the fire, and let them fall.
“Ashes to ashes,” he said.
From then on, they lived bare except for boots and utility belts. The decision should have made nakedness ordinary. Instead, work turned it into a continuous provocation.
They adapted quickly.
The belts became mobile tool racks. Grant added woven sheaths for fishing hooks and a loop for the water cup. Cody made small pads of soft bark for any strap that rubbed. Sun protection came from clay on shoulders and noses, producing gray-white masks that ruined the show's preferred aesthetic.
At the camera's daily check-in, Cody posed with one hand on his hip. “Welcome to Unfiltered Wild, where the men are naked and the sunscreen is geological.”
Grant walked behind him carrying firewood. “Tell them about the rash.”
“There is no rash.”
“Thanks to geological sunscreen.”
Cody broke character and laughed.
Their days settled into a rhythm. Work at dawn. Rest at noon. Fish at dusk. They learned the boundaries of each other's strength and the warnings of fatigue. Grant made Cody drink before he admitted thirst. Cody forced Grant to stretch the shoulder he pretended did not ache.
Nakedness stopped meaning exposure and began to mean absence of concealment. Grant found that more unnerving.
Cody climbed palms with his legs flexed around the trunks. Grant chopped wood while sweat traveled through the hair on his chest and down his stomach. They set fish traps waist-deep in the lagoon, brushed past each other in camp, and stopped pretending their bodies did not react.
“You need water,” Cody said when he caught Grant looking.
“I have water.”
“Then you need me.”
“That is not a survival category.”
“It is now.”
The coconuts produced more than food. Cody grated the meat, heated it with water, skimmed the oil, and presented a small wooden bowl like an offering.
“Face down.”
Grant eyed the hammock. “Why?”
“Your shoulders are locked from the climb. I am preventing injury.”
“You have never prevented anything in your life.”
“Face down, Holloway.”
Grant obeyed on the tarp beneath the palms. Cody straddled his thighs without touching them and poured warm oil between his shoulder blades.
The first pass of Cody's hands nearly pulled a sound from him.
“Tight,” Cody murmured.
“Occupational hazard.”
“Control problem.”
Cody worked from Grant's neck to the base of his spine, thumbs finding knots with expert pressure. The scent of coconut thickened in the hot air. He massaged Grant's arms, then his hips, then the backs of his thighs with movements that became slower and less therapeutic.
Grant turned his head. “You're avoiding my feet.”
“I dislike feet.”
“Incomplete treatment.”
“Complain to management.”
Grant rolled over.
Cody sat back between his knees, hands slick, gaze moving down Grant's body.
“Finish,” Grant said. “Without losing control.”
Cody's eyes flashed. “I never lose it.”
“Liar.”
Cody set both palms on Grant's thighs.
For several minutes he maintained the fiction of a massage. Then Grant flexed beneath his hands, Cody bent to kiss his stomach, and control became something neither man wanted to keep.
Cody failed deliberately and beautifully.
When Grant could breathe again, he took the bowl.
“Your turn.”
Cody lay back with his arms above his head.
Trust changed his expression, stripping away the host's practiced charm.
Grant covered him from shoulders to ankles, smoothing oil over every sun-warmed plane.
He pressed his thumbs into Cody's hips until Cody sighed, then traced the old climbing scar beneath his ribs.
“Does this still hurt?”
“Only when storms come.”
“There are no storms.”
“Then no.”
Grant bent and kissed the scar.
Cody's hand moved into his hair. “That hurts in a different way.”
Grant lifted him.
Cody made a startled sound and wrapped around him as Grant carried him down the beach. “Where are we going?”
“You are too slippery for camp.”
“So your solution is the ocean?”
“Rinse cycle.”
They entered the surf together. A wave struck Grant's knees. Cody used the shift to twist free, hooked Grant's ankle, and dropped him into the water.
Grant came up laughing and tackled him.
They wrestled through the shallows, oil turning every grip unreliable. Cody pinned Grant beneath a breaking wave. Grant surged upright with Cody over one shoulder and threw him into the foam. Cody came back with wet hair in his eyes and joy bright across his face.
The fight ended on packed sand at the waterline. Grant held Cody down by the wrists. Cody arched beneath him as a wave washed over both their bodies.
The ocean kept interrupting their balance. One wave lifted Cody; the next shifted Grant sideways. Cody used the water to slip one wrist free and roll them, only for Grant to catch him at the waist and reverse the position again.
“You rely on strength,” Cody said.
“You rely on talking.”
“It works.”
“Not currently.”
Cody smiled, hooked a heel behind Grant's knee, and proved him wrong.
They ended kneeling in the shallows, arms locked around each other, neither able to gain leverage without falling. The contest dissolved into helpless laughter.
Grant had not laughed like that on camera or off. Cody saw the realization in his face and grew still.
“There you are,” Cody said.
The words held no tease.
Grant kissed him before he could feel exposed by happiness.
“Win?” Cody asked.
“You surrendered?”
“Never.”
He lifted his head and kissed Grant.
The distant camera could see silhouettes, movement, Grant's back, Cody's legs locked around him. Grant let desire build until the awareness of being watched became too sharp.
He stopped, foreheads touching.
“Cave,” he said.
Cody's smile went incandescent. “Race you.”
They ran naked into the jungle, boots in hand, oil and seawater shining on their bodies. Cody reached the grotto first by cheating at the gorge and waited beneath the waterfall, arms spread.
“No cameras,” he announced.
“No restraint,” Grant replied.
Cody took the lead against the warm stone, setting a pace designed to punish Grant for every hour of teasing.
Grant let him. Surrender sharpened sensation until Cody's confidence broke into need.
Then Grant reversed them, not to conquer but to answer, giving back every degree of intensity Cody had offered.
The encounter lasted until the heat outside broke. Rain began softly beyond the lava tube. Inside, water ran over their skin and carried the last coconut oil into the glowing pool.
They returned to the beach after dark.
The tarp lay folded beside the repaired shelter. The hammock swayed in the new breeze.
Cody dropped onto the warm sand and held out a hand. “Stars.”
Grant lay beside him. The Milky Way spilled above the island, dense enough to cast faint shadows.
Cody fitted himself against Grant without asking. Grant's arm closed around him just as naturally.
“Still hate me?” Cody murmured.
Grant looked at the man in his arms, at the cameras beyond the firelight, at the place where certainty had begun to fail.
“I'm working on it.”
Cody smiled against his chest. “Take your time.”
They lay awake long after the fire dimmed.
Cody described the expedition work he wanted to do when his contract ended: quieter stories, smaller crews, rescue education instead of staged danger. Grant spoke about the volunteer teams he trained and how most departments could not afford the equipment viewers saw destroyed for entertainment.
“We could fix that,” Cody said.
“We?”
“Hypothetical professional collaboration.”
“You would drive me insane.”
“You would alphabetize carabiners.”
“They should be separated by load rating.”
“Exactly.” Cody propped himself on one elbow. “We would be magnificent.”
Grant touched the pale scar under Cody's ribs. A future with Cody was still too bright to look at directly.
“Survive the island first,” he said.
Cody lowered his head to Grant's shoulder. “One impossible thing at a time.”