Page 11

Fijian Fortunes

A

fter their guided tour of the old fort, they stopped by the nearby resort and had lunch. Most of them focused on refreshing themselves for the afternoon portion of their island hopping, chatting about the tour or their next destination. On the other hand, Avril Knight was more interested in something else. Dessert, specifically, though not one that could be ordered from the restaurant.

“Eyes and ears, everyone,” Avril said, mere moments after their server had taken their actual dessert orders. They’d have time to digest on the ferry ride north. It wouldn’t be the same one they’d been using, but its sibling. Due in about forty-five minutes, it’d carry them toward a smattering of islands sitting five to ten miles north of Malolo Island. These were smaller than it, though larger than the islands they’d started their day on. Speedboats would take over the job of bringing them around this set after they departed the ferry.

Avril waited for everyone to give her the attention she was calling for. In her usual fashion, she didn’t leap straight into an explanation. Instead, she bent at the side and began rooting around in her backpack, which sat in a pile with the others on the ground. Anna, who was closest to her, leaned over as well, trying to figure out what her best friend was up to. That, of course, caused Avril to stick her second hand into her bag, working hard to keep the secret maintained.

She came up with her hands cupped together, as if she were about to reveal a baby bird that she’d scooped up from one of the trails at some point, hidden within a pouch on her pack ever since.

“Everyone but Liam, take one,” Avril said, depositing what was in her hands by opening them right above the center of the table.

The four objects that clattered onto the table were incredibly familiar to Liam—and only Liam. The others at the table drew together eyebrows and tilted their heads, confused by the odd blend of cultures—not that these were actually from the place people assumed—arrayed before them.

Four colored fortune cookies sat on the table. A dessert that the tourists who came to Fiji probably didn’t expect to see.

Tess was the first to clear up her confusion. She was the only one other than Liam who knew about these, as he’d revealed them to her right before they’d come on the trip. But were these out of the jar that Liam had brought along—at Avril’s demand, he’d brought it along—or were they new and potentially different than they should be?

Because these were all blue, which, if they were from the jar hidden behind towels in his bure’s closet, or at least followed the same rules, meant that each one of them promised a different sexual act on the slip of paper within.

Liam glanced at Avril, who was all smiles as she caught his shift in focus. Aware of the question on his mind, she nodded. So, she had stolen into his bure at some point, found the jar, and confiscated four blue fortune cookies. But for what purpose, exactly?

“Why are there fortune cookies—blue ones, at that—on our table, Avril?” Victoria demanded coolly.

“Well, there are four of us, and I just told each of you to take one. After that, I’ll take the remaining one. That’s why there are four.”

Victoria flattened her icy stare, clearly unsatisfied by Avril’s explanation.

“Just take one, Auntie. Don’t open it yet, but take one.”

Sighing, Tess became the first to reach out and accept one of the fortunes. Slightly more hesitantly, Anna followed suit. That left only Victoria, who kept staring at Avril. However, the younger woman didn’t balk, maintaining her “I’m in control” expression. A few more seconds passed, but then Victoria also snatched a fortune cookie for herself. And Avril grabbed the last one.

“Alrighty,” Avril said, tossing her cookie up and down. “Now, the rules. Within each one is a curated fortune, one I created with painstaking effort back during winter break.”

“They’re that old?” Anna asked, looking at the one sitting on her palm. “Why are you only showing them now?”

“I’m only showing them to you, now,” Avril said, grinning. “Liam’s known about them since I snuck a whole jar of these inside his front door on Christmas Eve.”

Just like that, all eyes shifted toward him. Imitating Tess by sighing, Liam nodded. “Yeah. It was a secret gift from her. It’s a whole jar, which Avril told me to bring on this trip. I didn’t know about any of this, though.”

“Specifically, his gift started with one hundred fortunes,” Avril added. “Three colors, red, blue, and green. Each color has a theme, and I’ve been letting him open one or two every now and then ever since. But… things aren’t going as quickly as I’d like. For some reason, he’s just so busy all the time.”

None of the women blushed, not even Anna, as Avril skewered them each with a dry look. “Who could have ever guessed that he’d have so little time on his hands?” Avril shrugged. “Well, we’ll be old and grey in the hair before he finishes the jar, so I figured I’d help speed things up a little. That’s by involving all of you, naturally. There’s been a lot of that on this trip.”

This invoked a slight tinge of redness on Anna’s face. She glanced away, but only for a few seconds.

“What kind of fortunes do these cookies have?” Tess asked, even though she knew the answer. It was for the benefit of Anna and Victoria, who were far more in the dark than she was.

“Sexy things,” Avril said, tossing her cookie one final time. She snatched it at the high point of its climb, then gave it a little shake. “The blue ones all promise Liam things I’d do for him. For example, he got a lovely experience involving a blindfold and my lips on his cock a couple months ago.”

More glances came his way. Wordlessly, Liam confirmed what Avril had proclaimed with a nod.

“The options within are quite varied,” Avril said. “Ranging from kind of vanilla to ‘set this horny boy on fire when he hears what I’m going to do to him.’ There’s no way of knowing which fortune might be within, though. Originally, Liam could only open one of these bad boys up when I said he could. So, each cookie is nondescript, a little vault designed to give nothing away until it’s been cracked open.”

“So, you’re trying to convince us to help you go through them before they all go stale?” Victoria said. She’d set her fortune cookie on the table and folded her arms.

“Fortune cookies don’t go stale,” Avril said, waving flippantly. “But with Liam getting to snap topless pictures of us willy-nilly nowadays, my gift feels a little mundane. So, I’m spicing things up a bit. Now, I can get to the new rules.”

Everyone waited for Avril to do just that. This was her element, controlling a room, pulling its attention to her, making it wait for an explanation. Avril picked up her glass and took a long drink. The time in between grew as their server brought back some choice desserts, most of which were glazed in warm chocolate. They looked at the fortune cookie in front of Victoria with a hint of confusion, though they didn’t mention it.

After she was gone, Avril, naturally, scooped up some moist chocolate cake from her dessert choice and savored its sweet flavor. She loved her delays.

“Avril,” Victoria growled.

“The rules,” Avril finally said, “are pretty simple. If you open the fortune cookie, you must do what it says. For these, you have to complete their task before we get back to the States. They’re island cookies, so if you open them here, you’ve gotta follow through with them here. But if you don’t want to play, you can just hold onto it until the end of the week, then give it back to me. It’ll go back in the jar, naturally, until such a time as Liam can convince one of us to go for another.”

“Until I convince one of you?” Liam asked.

“You’re the one who gets to benefit most of all from this new system,” Avril said. “So, yeah, you can’t just sit around and wait. You own the jar, don’t you? So, it’s on you to try and get your lovely women to open the cookie in their position—and also, it’s your job to convince us to grab another. Beg, bribe, or seduce—any way works. After this little tutorial, I’m handing the keys back to you. Do with them as you will.”

The table descended into a brief silence after that. Liam knew his thoughts were on a different track from the others. Ironically, Avril’s attempt to spice things up smacked of the same type of challenge he’d given himself yesterday, after Victoria had promised to let him sleep with her if he could figure out her birthday. He wondered how much of her influence was behind his decision to go after her, Tess, and Anna, filing down the days until he knew which of the four—now three—days Victoria’s birthday was on.

“When we open a cookie, do we have to immediately… do what it says?” Anna asked.

Liam’s ears perked up at the first word of her question. When. Not if, but when.

“No, no,” Avril said. “For this, it’s got to be done before the trip ends. When we’re back home, there can be some negotiation between Liam and the opener about the right time to go through with the promised slice of good fortune.”

“What’s the most risqué promise you’ve made on one of these?” Tess asked.

“Nothing that’ll make you hate opening it,” Avril said. “The blue ones range from number fifty-one to number eighty. The lower the number, the tamer the act—and vice-versa.”

“There are other colors?” Victoria said.

“Red and green. Red is all focused on pictures, videos, and other long-distance stuff. One through fifty, for those. Same deal. The green ones aren’t actually sexual, so those aren’t really part of this.”

“What are they?” Anna asked.

“Group activities. Remember when we went sledding? Liam opened a cookie that day, and it promised something outdoors. So, I made it about sledding.” Avril grew momentarily thoughtful. “Some of them are vague enough that I guess they could be repurposed. We are doing lots of group stuff nowadays.”

Anna blushed slightly, but she was the only one. After a game of strip poker, time spent topless on the beach, and those earlier pictures, it seemed silly to pretend like it wasn’t true. And here was another way in which their relationship might evolve. This one didn’t demand anything of them; it was all in the hands of the literal beholders. No one had to open their fortune cookie.

Two of the women went ahead and did so. Shockingly, neither was Avril.

The two professors each cracked open their respective fortune cookies, read the words on the slip of paper within, and then, as if sharing a telepathic link, stowed their prophecies in their pockets.

“Oh, shit,” Avril said, realizing her mistake. “Wait, no. You’ve got to share with the others what you've got.”

“That wasn’t established,” Victoria said.

“And it’s too late now,” Tess said.

“You two sticklers,” Avril said, glaring. “That’s so uncool.”

“It’s your own fault,” Victoria said.

Next to the scowling redhead, another fortune cookie broke open. Avril’s emerald eyes spun toward her best friend, who also quickly read and hid her fortune. Avril’s glare intensified.

“You all just open them, just like that? Liam didn’t have to work at all!”

“I wanted to see what kind of fortunes you have written within,” Tess said matter-of-factly. “In the future, I might be slightly more resistant about accepting another.”

You might not, though, Liam thought, watching Tess. But the “hard” way didn’t sound too painful to walk. Seduction was on the table, after all.

Amusingly, Avril became the final one of them to open her fortune. And even though she’d complained about everyone else hiding their cookie, in this one instance, she wasn’t the trailblazer she usually was. She hid her fortune from the others, same as they’d done to her.

To Liam too, unfortunately. He was just as in the dark, though he didn’t feel quite as pained as Avril pretended to be. Instead, he was giddy. These fortunes were promises, and the women with him weren’t the type to break rules. As such, he knew his final four days had just received four more reasons for him to quake with anticipation.