Page 24

“Good morning, Bower. Breakfast?” I hold out two plums and a leaf with several pieces of jerky, it's not quite ready to package, but it’s definitely edible.

His eyes widen in surprise, but he takes my offering quickly. “Thanks, I’m starving. ”

Kingsley snorts, coming up beside him. “When are you not?”

“Good morning, Kingsley.” I hold out his breakfast and he hesitates a second before taking it, then sits on one of the rocks around the fire pit beside Bower.

The two of them eat silently, both offering me small smiles of reassurance.

“Did you eat?” I spin around, not having expected Weston to be standing right behind me.

“What?” I ask, his large presence making my mind go blank.

“I asked if you’ve eaten yet.”

“Oh, ah, not yet.”

“Sit,” he says, pointing at one of the rocks. I open my mouth to argue but he narrows his eyes at me. I remember what he said when I first cooked the boar, and how he wanted me to eat before himself. It seemed to genuinely upset him that I wouldn’t eat first.

With guilt about last night still driving me, I sit down where he’s still pointing and pull out two plums, offering him one as I bite into the other.

He watches me for a moment, then takes the fruit and sits beside me, taking a bite himself. I offer him some jerky, making sure he sees me take a bit of a piece first.

“Eep!”

My little buddy finally decides to make an appearance as he jumps down onto my shoulder and grabs the half eaten plum from my hand.

Weston frowns at him but doesn’t comment. It’s not like I could stop Mo-Mo from stealing from me, even if I wanted to .

I pull out two more plums and toss one at Weston so he can’t refuse it, biting into my own quickly. These guys need a lot more food than I do, so I’ll have to take that into account next time I gather food.

He stares at me, his intense gaze bouncing between my eyes and my mouth. It’s strange, having him watch me like this, not eating anything until I do. He’s like the opposite of Mo-Mo.

I turn to my friend and run a finger down his striped tail. “What have you been up to?” I give the spot behind his ear a little scratch. He doesn't reply, just shoves the plum into his mouth and takes another bite.

“Hmm, that busy, huh?” When he finishes, he trills a little at me, maybe telling me exactly what he’s been up to for all I know, then he jumps off my lap and runs back into the jungle.

I finish my plum, throwing the pit into the fire and taking a sip of water as I look around at the others.

Bower rubs his hands together, grinning at me with excitement. “Are you ready, Tink?”

“Uhh… ready for what, exactly?” I ask in confusion.

“Your surprise! Remember? We were going to do it yesterday, but…” he trails off, obviously not wanting to call me out on running away.

I do recall him saying something about a surprise, but with everything that’s happened in the past day, I completely forgot.

“Right, so… what is it?” I ask, glancing around for a clue, but all I see is his backpack on the ground, which looks full.

“I’ll tell you when we get to the waterfall, come on.” He reaches for my hand, but stops before he makes contact. Then he just holds his hand there and waits, giving me the chance to say no.

I try to stop myself from smiling at his attempt to not freak me out but end up twisting my lips in what I’m sure is a strange expression.

I take his offered hand, and a full-blown smile covers his face, once again reminding me how handsome he is.

His hair is pulled back in a messy bun and the stubble around his jaw just adds to his rugged good looks.

He grabs his bag and swings it over his shoulder, then pulls me with him down the path, the other two right behind us. Sometimes he seems so relaxed here, it’s hard to imagine him doing anything else. Unlike the other two, he seems much more calm about being stranded on a deserted island.

“Bower?”

“Yes, Tink?”

“What do you do, you know, back in the real world? Did you have a job?”

I see a spark of surprise in his eyes before he nods. “I do, King, Reece and I created our own tech company, Titan Tech. We specialize in advanced AI.”

“AI?” I ask in confusion

“Yeah, you know, artificial intelligence?”

“Oh, right, of course.” I try not to let him see the confusion on my face, because I have no idea what that means and I’m afraid that by asking it might make him question how long I’ve been here, and that’s just not something I’m ready to talk about yet.

Instead, I shift the conversation in another direction.

“Who’s Reece?”

“He’s King and my best friend. We’ve known each other for most of our lives. We own Titan Tech together, and we live together.”

“Oh. Ohhh. You guys are like together, together?” I ask as a pang of jealousy goes through my chest .

“No! God, no,” he says with a chuckle. “Nothing like that. King and I are definitely only attracted to women.” I sense him look at me out of the corner of my eye, but I choose to ignore him as heat creeps up my neck.

“And Reece?” I ask, since he didn’t include him in that statement.

“Reece doesn't like anyone.”

“But, I mean he must be attracted to some people?” I ask in curiosity.

“I’m sure he finds women attractive, but he has no interest in relationships. Casual or serious.”

“That sounds lonely,” I say from experience.

“That’s why King and I befriended him. He was an angry kid, but we saw he was dealing with grief. I had lost both my parents a couple years earlier and King lost his father the year before, so we understood him. We wouldn't leave him alone until he agreed to befriend us.”

“I’m sorry you lost your parents.”

“Thanks, Tink. Anyway, when we met Reece, we understood him, even if he didn’t, and we refused to let him suffer alone.”

I smile. Considering how much they were pushing to be around me, I could see them doing that to some grumpy kid on the playground, too.

“Here we are!” he says as the waterfall comes into sight.

We stop near the edge of the pond, and he drops his bag and opens it up. Only then do I notice the other two holding some of my other, weaker attempts at bags.

“What are you doing with those?” I ask in confusion.

“Well, Tink, how do you feel about having a shower and washing your hair?” Bower asks as he stands up, showing me a bottle of shampoo and conditioner in one hand and a bottle of body wash in the other.

I lick my lips at the thought of finally washing my hair…

with shampoo. It’s tempting, that’s for sure.

“We can’t use that in there, it’ll contaminate the water,” I tell him, gesturing to the pond.

“That’s why we have these,” Kingsley says, holding up a bag to show me.

“Alright, Tink. You have two choices,” Bower tells me as he sets down the bottles and pulls some clothing from his bag.

“You can wear this spare shirt and boxers to shower in, or you’re more than welcome to shower naked and we will do our best not to look.

But I’ll warn you, we’ll have to keep filling up our bags with water so we can’t exactly do it with our eyes closed the entire time. ”

As nice as it would be to clean my body, my hair is way more important right now.

“I’ll wear these,” I tell him, taking the offered clothes.

“We’ll all face the waterfall and give you a chance to change,” Kingsley says as the three of them move between me and the water, giving me their backs.

I don’t hesitate to quickly strip off my skirt and top and pull on his clothes. I let out a moan as the soft fabric touches my skin. The boxers, in particular, feel amazing. I’ve been feeling my thighs rub together for the past fifteen years.

“You okay there, Tink?” Bower asks, reminding me that they can hear me.

“Ah, yeah, sorry, you can look now.”

They all turn around and Bower eyes me up and down, a smile slowly covering his face.

I’m more covered up than I was a moment ago, but the way he’s looking at me right now says something about this outfit is to his liking.

I lick my dry lips and glance at the others, who are also looking at me in a similar fashion.

“What? Why are you all looking at me like that?” I ask, glancing down at myself, worrying I’m wearing it wrong somehow.

“You look good in my clothes,” Bower says, surprising me. “Real good.” We stare at each other for a moment and I sense something spark between us.

“Alright, why don’t we get started?” Kingsley suggests, breaking the tension.

We pick a spot close enough to the pond for the guys to repeatedly fill the water, while making sure none of it would flow back in.

“I’m gonna go in the pond to get my hair wet first,” I tell them as I pull my hair free from its braid.

Once in, I submerge my whole body and use my fingers to make sure all of my hair is wet.

When I get out, I feel the weight of my hair pulling on my scalp, but there’s nothing I can do about it.

I’ve tried cutting it with McStabby before, but it ended up being more hassle than it’s worth.

I get in place and Bower holds up the first bag of water over me, then Weston uses his knife to stab a few small holes in the bottom, essentially creating a shower head. A giggle escapes me as it starts to rain down over me.

“Can I?” I open my eyes and see Kingsley holding the bottle of shampoo and pointing to my head.

“Oh, I can wash it,” I tell him, reaching for the bottle, but he pulls it out of my reach.

“I know you can , but you have a lot of hair and we want you to enjoy this. You’ve helped us so much already, please let me wash it for you?

” He asks it like it's a simple question and not one that has my heart fluttering in my chest like I’ve just been asked to prom by the cutest boy in school. Not that I knew what that felt like.

Finally, I nod and watch as he moves behind me. I close my eyes again and tilt my head back as Weston replaces the first empty bag with a second as Bower goes to refill his.

The moment Kingsley’s fingers press against my scalp, I let out an embarrassing moan.

But I don’t even care, feeling his fingers work the shampoo through my head is the most amazing thing I’ve felt in my life.

“Sweet baby fingers, that feels amazing.” Bower chuckles, reminding me they’re all watching me.

“I’m glad you’re enjoying it, sweetheart,” Kingsley says quietly from behind me. My cheeks heat, even through the water raining down on me, but I keep my eyes shut, afraid if I do anything, he’ll stop.

After a couple of minutes, the water stops flowing over me and his fingers move away from my head and down my mass of hair.

“We’ll resume once King’s finished washing your hair,” Bower tells me from my side and I nod in understanding. They’d probably have to refill the bags thirty times before Kingsley gets through all my hair.

Bower’s fingers press into the side of my head, surprising me.

“Wha—” I cut myself off when Weston does the same on the other side, making me moan instead.

I should probably feel embarrassed at the noises I’m making, but having the two of them massage my head while Kingsley washes my hair is the most magical thing I’ve ever felt.

After a few minutes, they all stop, and the water starts to rain over me again. Fingers work through my head and hair continuously. It puts me in such a relaxed state that I literally fall asleep, only a strong arm around my waist stops me from falling over.

“What happened?” I ask, blinking up at Bower’s smiling face .

“I think you were so relaxed you fell asleep for a second there.”

“Crap, sorry,” I say, trying to stand up and push myself away from his chest. His very hard, firm chest that I find my palms plastered too. I stare at my fingers as they dig into his wet shirt. I realize he hasn't let me go, but I’ve also stopped trying to push away.

I glance up at him and the fire I see in his eyes has my breath hitch.

In this moment, I want him to kiss me, and that scares me.

I don’t know if I’m ready for that. The last time I kissed a boy, I was only thirteen, and I have a feeling kissing as a twenty-eight year old was very different.

I drop my head before I do something stupid and he slowly releases me, letting me take a step back.

“Thank you,” I say, glancing up at him with a small smile before I glance at the other two. “All of you. You have no idea how good that felt.”

“Glad we could help,” Kingsley says, looking at me with the same intensity.

“We better get back and pack up that jerky,” I say, taking a step back from all their heated gazes.

They all nod, and after I change, we head back to camp.

It takes a while to eat and properly store the jerky, and we end up sitting around the extinguished fire pit for a while, as they tell me stories about their pasts.

I notice the sun starts to dip in the sky and decide it’s time for me to go to sleep. I spent the entire day with them so far, and as much as I enjoyed it, my mind needs time to process everything that’s happened today. The way my body reacts to them, the lingering glances.

I also didn’t get a nap in today and am genuinely exhausted.

“It will be dark soon, I’m going to bed now,” I tell them as I stand and head to the ladder .

“Wait, don’t go out there alone!” Bower says, jumping to his feet, a slight panic in his voice.

I frown at him. “Why not? I literally do it every day.”

“Yeah, but you have us now. You don’t need to be alone.”

“Besides, is it not your hut we’ve been sleeping in while you’re… god knows where?” Weston asks, crossing his large arms over his even larger chest.

I shake my head, trying to not get distracted by his drool-worthy body. “It’s fine,” I say, turning back to start climbing the ladder.

“It’s not fine, Zee,” Kingsley says as I start to climb. “Please, stay with us? Or we’ll stay down here and you can have the hut to yourself.” I climb onto the skywalk, and my eyebrows pinch together in confusion as I look down at their concerned faces.

“Why do you suddenly want me to stay down here so badly?”

“It’s not sudden, it’s been bothering us since we met you.” Kingsley says in frustration. “That’s your home, and you’re off sleeping where? On a tree branch somewhere up there where we can’t help you if something were to happen?”

“Nothing’s going to happen, I’ll be fine,” I say in frustration, turning away so I don’t have to look at them anymore.

“Tink! Please!” I quickly move to my tree trunk and start climbing.

I’d love to stay down here with them, I really would.

But they’ll hear my nightmares, and I’m not prepared for that.

These men are already getting through my carefully constructed walls and I’m not sure what will happen when they break them down completely. It might take me down, too.