Chapter Twelve
Tamsyn could count on one hand the number of times she’d set foot in a hotel.
Fine, actually she could count on, well, one finger.
And that was nearly fifteen years ago when her recently divorced aunt had taken her on a spontaneous healing weekend to The Joule in Dallas, which at the time had felt as glamorous as Versailles.
Her aunt had shown her the rooftop pool jutting out over Main Street, and Tamsyn had gripped the railing so tight because it looked like the water simply stopped and the city began.
At dinner, she’d ordered a Shirley Temple because it sounded sophisticated and had carefully folded her napkin on her lap as she’d seen in movies.
She’d gasped at the ladies in their silk dresses and pearls and at the men with their shiny gold watches.
The next morning, when room service had arrived with silver gleaming domes covering pancakes dusted in powdered sugar, Tamsyn had felt something rearrange itself inside.
She’d silently vowed that one day she’d be rich and famous, no matter what.
But life hadn’t worked out that way. Instead of luxury hotels, Tamsyn had become intimately familiar with campgrounds. She camped often, hiked even more, and when she was traveling, she had no problem staying in hostels or bouncing from spare sofas offered by friends of friends.
Still, as soon as Tamsyn walked in through those heavy timber doors, something inside her stirred.
The suite felt like stepping into a travel influencer’s Instagram post. Even the air felt different in here.
Cooler. Filtered. There were two single beds dressed up in the crispest white sheets Tamsyn had ever seen, and pillows stacked abundantly.
At the end of each bed sat a neatly folded charcoal throw, and a towel folded into a kangaroo origami.
A wide handwoven rug anchored the room, and a low console table beneath a gigantic mirror held a ceramic bowl filled with sprigs of wattle, pale pink eremophila, and ‘spidery’ grevillea.
The art on the walls was exquisite. Large-scale canvases in textured strokes of rust and indigo.
“This place is amazing,” Tamsyn said, feeling slightly off-kilter, like she was standing on a swaying boat and not inside the most luxurious room she’d ever seen in her life. “What do you think they’ll do if we lock the door and stay here forever?”
Isla laughed and walked over to a single bed before she threw herself back onto the mattress. Her head got lost between the pillows. “I give them one day before they smoke us out.”
Tamsyn barely heard her. She drifted toward the glass doors as if gravity were tugging her legs. Gauzy white curtains framed the windows, and through those glass doors was the most amazing view.
Tamsyn whimpered. This was not camping. This wasn’t even glamping. This was the type of place where people got engaged.
A private wooden deck stretched outward, the planks running lengthwise toward a rectangular pool with water so blue it looked fake.
Beyond the pool were ancient, ribbed mountains folding into one another in layers of copper, mauve, and ash-blue.
Tamsyn could make out the curve of Wilpena Pound in the distance.
“This is fantastic,” she said, stepping toward the wooden loungers positioned side by side.
A small side table sat between them, holding a sweating bottle of sparkling wine and two tall glasses.
Beside it was a plate piled high with sliced strawberries, peaches, and purple grapes, and nestled among the fruit were thin slices of prosciutto, a wheel of creamy brie, and a small dish of dark chocolate chunks.
Isla joined her on the other one, and Tamsyn wasted no time. She popped a strawberry into her mouth and poured each of them a glass of wine.
“Cheers,” she said, lifting her glass toward Isla. “To winning.”
“To winning,” Isla repeated.
Their glasses clinked. Tamsyn brought the glass to her lips at the same time Isla did.
Then their eyes met over the rim, and for a second, then two, then three, they just stared.
But then Tamsyn remembered the camera crew and became painfully aware of how awkward this must seem.
Two contestants staring at each other for no reason.
Except there was a reason. Tamsyn couldn’t help but think she’d made a mistake suggesting they should be friends.
She didn’t think she could be friends with Isla because all she wanted to do was kiss her.
As if Isla read her mind, she jumped up from the lounger, her wineglass still in her hand, the contents sloshing to the side before announcing, “I think I’m going for a shower.”
She’d already rounded the lounger and was halfway to the door before Tamsyn said, “Good idea.” It was a good idea.
But it would be an even better idea if she could somehow join her.
If they could forget all about their friendship for a few glorious minutes while their naked soap-clad bodies rubbed against each other under a cool spray of water.
The thought made Tamsyn’s legs tremble. She didn’t look back at Isla as she vanished through the sliding doors in case her control waned. Instead, she retreated into the pool.
Tamsyn let the water rise over her shoulders as she took in the view.
The setting sun bled low over the ranges.
Somewhere beyond the deck, a wedge-tailed eagle—Tamsyn recognized it from the survival workshop they’d done prior to starting Outlast Her—drifted lazily in the thermals.
The air smelled like eucalyptus plants and sunbaked stone, and she barely even noticed the camera crew tucked into the edges of the deck.
By the time Isla walked back out on the deck with a satin robe tied at the waist and her dark hair hanging wet over her shoulders, Tamsyn had poured herself a third glass of wine, snacked on an entire wheel of brie she’d rolled up in slices of prosciutto, and proceeded to float on her back in the pool.
“How was that?” Tamsyn asked, tilting her head up just enough to see Isla.
In one hand she held the glass above her chest, and the other drifted in the water.
Her veins thrummed pleasantly from the alcohol.
She wasn’t drunk, but she wasn’t sober either.
If she weren’t already floating, she’d feel like she was floating.
“I’ve only ever had one shower better than that,” Isla said, picking at what was left of the platter before she meandered over to the pool, where Tamsyn frowned at her.
“It was after a photo shoot I did for Terra Luxe,” Isla muttered, her mouth still half full of strawberry.
“A travel magazine,” she then quickly added when Tamsyn’s brows furrowed even more.
The alcohol was making things considerably difficult to process.
“We were in the Scottish Highlands during the wet season. My gown was silk and chiffon, and by the end of the day, it looked like I’d wrestled a bog monster.
That hotel room shower made me feel like I’d been reborn.
” Then she laughed at the memory, and Tamsyn wished she could somehow climb into Isla’s head.
Not to see the memory, but to know if Isla was thinking about her too.
She was dying to know if Isla was also wishing they’d showered together and that they were alone without cameras.
Tamsyn swallowed hard and pretended to focus on the sky.
Not that she could. The last gold of the sun was touching Isla’s dark hair and for just a heartbeat Tamsyn let herself imagine what it would feel like if space didn’t exist between them at all, if she could slip her fingers through those strands and pull her face closer.
“Good evening, ladies!” a voice called suddenly from the sliding doors. Tamsyn snapped her head up to see a tall, broad-shouldered man wearing chef’s whites. “Dinner will be served in fifteen minutes.”
BY THE TIME DINNER ended, the sky had deepened into a velvet black expanse scattered with millions of stars.
To Tamsyn’s surprise, the camera crew had retreated.
She wasn’t sure why she’d expected them to film everything, from climbing into bed to every toss and turn in the dark, but she had.
Reality television didn’t care one bit about privacy.
But fortunately, they were gone. And she was alone with Isla. Completely alone.
Isla leaned back in her seat and patted her stomach contentedly. “Okay, I might slip into a food coma any minute,” she said, yawning so wide Tamsyn could see her uvula.
“I’m not carrying you inside,” Tamsyn said, laughing. She reached for the bottle of wine and poured what was left into their glasses. The buzz from earlier was still there, but only at the edges. The food had soaked up most of the alcohol, leaving behind a warm yet manageable hum.
The chef had seriously outdone himself. They’d started with grilled steak drizzled in bush honey and scattered with toasted macadamias alongside a bright salad of heirloom tomatoes and basil.
Then came the slow-roasted barramundi resting on lemon myrtle-infused butter, accompanied by charred broccolini and roasted fingerling potatoes.
Dessert had been a delicate quandong tart with a scoop of vanilla bean ice cream.
Tamsyn had eaten slowly at first, trying to pace herself, but by the end, she’d given up and eaten every morsel on her plate.
They’d barely even spoken. Not until the dessert arrived, when they’d debated whether to keep the Red Gum Rebel alliance intact for another vote or to fracture it quietly.
Isla had suggested including Frankie in their alliance.
She couldn’t vote in the next Sending, but including her would give them an advantage on the vote after that.
The only problem would be convincing Petra, who was convinced Frankie couldn’t be trusted because she’d once caught Frankie secretly scooping double helpings of rice.
“I will at least throw a blanket over you just because I’m nice,” Tamsyn said, taking a slow, savoring sip now that there was an end to the amount of wine left.
“Thank you,” Isla said. “I’m glad chivalry isn’t dead.”
Tamsyn laughed and was surprised to hear it echo off the rocks. “Well, I’m glad my finishing classes paid off,” she said, leaning her elbows on the table.
“Wait, seriously?” Isla’s eyebrows shot up at the same time her jaw dropped. She looked entirely shocked, and for good reason. “Did you seriously take finishing classes?”
“Had to,” Tamsyn said. “My parents forced me. They were very particular about my manners.” She laughed, then added, “I was a debutante. I wore a poufy white gown and long white gloves and learned how to curtsy.”
Isla laughed so loudly that Tamsyn could feel the vibration in her bones. Then she sank a few inches into her chair and stared at Tamsyn, who felt her cheeks go hot. Real hot. It was getting late. Tamsyn didn’t know how late it was, but it felt like a good time to go to bed.
Except she didn’t go to bed. Or even suggest it.
Instead, Tamsyn tipped the last sip of wine back and let her head fall against the chair. Her eyes drifted to the sky. The stars were so clear, so close she felt like she could reach out and snag the Southern Cross from the heavens.
“Do you know why they call it the Southern Cross?” she asked, her voice softer than she’d meant it.
She didn’t wait for Isla, who was circling the rim of her wineglass, to answer, before she said, “When the early sailors mapped the southern skies, they thought those four stars marked the spot where the heavens had been stitched back together.”
“Is that true?” Isla asked, tilting her head and frowning like she didn’t believe her, which she had every right not to. The story was completely made up.
Tamsyn smiled. “Nope.”
“Did you just make it up?”
Tamsyn shook her head. “Jerry Atkins did,” she said.
“He was my very first boyfriend and a very good storyteller. The night he told me about the sailors—mind you, it was a much longer story than I just told—he took me on a picnic and kissed me under the stars.” She paused as the memory arrived with embarrassing clarity.
“We were fifteen. He brought supermarket strawberries and a bottle of sparkling grape juice because he couldn’t convince his older brother to get us beer.
We went to Cherry Creek Park and after he told me the story, he slipped his hand under my shirt and tried to cup my boob. ”
Isla choked on her drink. Then she wiped at her mouth and laughed. “What did you do?”
“I let him,” Tamsyn said. “For approximately seven seconds. It was deeply underwhelming. I remember thinking, is this it? Is this what everyone’s writing songs about?”
“Poor Jerry Atkins.”
“He’s come a long way since then,” Tamsyn said. “He married his college girlfriend, and they’re living in Dallas with two golden retrievers and a shared Facebook account. We don’t have to feel sorry for him anymore.”
“Did anyone eventually make up for it?” Isla asked after a few seconds of silence. “You know, show you what love songs are really all about?”
“Oh yes,” Tamsyn said, nodding. “First year of college. Her name was Becca Wilson, and she absolutely detonated my tiny Canton worldview. She wore combat boots and an army-green parka, and she wrote poems in a pink notebook she carried around. My heart didn’t stand a chance.”
Isla laughed again, and Tamsyn couldn’t help wanting more of that sound. She wanted to keep talking, to keep making Isla laugh. She wanted to stretch this night out forever.
“Well, now I feel a little jealous of Becca,” Isla said, setting her wineglass down without breaking eye contact.
“Don’t be,” Tamsyn replied before Isla’s words had properly sunk in, and when they had, her heart flipped.
Was Isla flirting? Was she jealous of Becca because she had wanted to be the one to pop Tamsyn’s lesbian cherry, so to speak?
Or was she just being a funny drunk? Though out of the two of them, Isla had drunk considerably less wine.
An even more plausible explanation was that Tamsyn had misheard.
But then something touched the inside of her shin. A toe. Isla’s toe. This wasn’t just unexpected; it was seismic.
“You know,” Isla whispered, even though there was no need to whisper. Apart from the distant chirr of crickets, they were the only ones out there. “We can always be friends again tomorrow.”
Tamsyn swallowed so hard she wondered if it was possible to strain her throat muscles.
“Does that mean—” But she didn’t finish.
Because Isla was already standing. She was already closing the gap between them. Her hands came up and cupped Tamsyn’s face. Her thumbs brushed just below her ears. She paused for a second, giving Tamsyn every chance to lean back and end this.
But Tamsyn didn’t.
And then Isla leaned in and kissed her.