Page 17

Recruit

Haley

“ I forgot about Thanksgiving. And Halloween! We forgot about Halloween?”

The little chicks’ peeps are louder than the waves. And it brings me back to when Steven brought Ginger home for the first time. She was such a little ball of fur. I was in love—with more than the puppy. At least, I thought I was. I thought he was too.

I glance back at Zane. His big brown eyes are glowing at me. Glowing with love. The chicks aren’t puppies, and he’s not Steven.

I’m going to have to trust that each of them are telling me the truth.

Bring it back into my broken heart. Hell, I should know better than the average person that nothing is guaranteed.

Not time, people, or money. We have it all right now.

And it’s amazing. My life right now can be amazing if I want it to be.

Yes, the Rock Candy being gone is horrible. But three weeks, a month, have gone by and there’s no sign of us being in more danger. There’s no sign that we need to panic.

I glance over at the guys hauling fruit out of the bottom of the tender.

We’ve got enough food for weeks, and sure, eventually we’ll run out of gas to use the tender or the WaveRunner, but if we use the path and avoid the bamboo, it’s not so bad to hike to the other side of the island.

It’s... gut-wrenching and sad. But the people who lived there would want us to use what they planted.

I would at least want to know that I’d helped people survive.

“How could I have forgotten about Halloween?” I say.

Zane’s taken off his life vest. He leans over me and kisses me. “We were busy?” He shrugs. “We’ll talk more about this later. I should help.” He cocks his thumb at the tender.

“I should too.” I reach for my shoes that fell off when he spun me around.

“Do you mind watching our new charges? I don’t want Penny or Pepper getting too nosy with them.” He squeezes my hand.

I’m nodding with wild abandon. Zane’s good. I’m good. He’s fine. I’m fine. We’re good. The little peeps hammer into my brain. “Oh, yes. I think I can manage that.”

I’m getting spoiled with letting them do all the physical work. But then, there’s five of them and only one of me. There’s also a lot of stomping going on, and there are sand flies around Calvin’s ankles.

They’ve got to be done with the fruit. I take a step away from the box and the chicks, and the peeping gets louder. There’s a few clucks thrown in too. I pick it up but then quickly put it down. It’s heavy. Instead, I drag it a few feet back to a rock to sit on.

“You guys doing okay?” I put my hand into the box. A chick runs over and plops down on my palm. I hold her up to my face. Her white eyelids close.

“Last one.” Easton tosses a fruit over to Sam and jumps out of the tender.

Sam makes a detour from carrying a bin of fruit, heading over to me. “What did you say a little bit ago, Sugar?”

It does something to me when he calls me Sugar. As much as yesterday was, I’m ready to go again. I hold Violet the chick up for him to see. Sam winks at me, kisses the top of my head, and then plants a kiss on top of Violet’s little head too.

My mouth dries, and there’s a twitch in my nether regions. “I said we forgot about Thanksgiving and Halloween.”

“We had a lot going on then.” Sam holds up a Pepperfruit to Violet.

She pecks at the lemon-colored skin. It’s driving me crazy that I don’t know the real name of the tree or fruit.

Would I have known it if I’d finished my last year of school?

Probably not. Maybe. It doesn’t make the fruit taste any different.

“That’s a lot of fruit,” I say. Dante’s got a large container and is heading up the trail. He wiggles his eyebrows at me.

Sam sits on the log next to me. The mama hens are quiet, but the babies are chirping.

“I’m still...” I search for the right word because mad isn’t quite right.

“Yeah, I get it. This morning—it was intense. There wasn’t a hell of a lot of eye contact.

Well, maybe from Dante. And I guess Zane.

But then, he lives in his own happy little bubble.

Honestly, I don’t even know how the whole thing happened.

One second we were eating grilled coconut in silence, and the next we were in the tender speeding away from camp.

” Sam shakes his head and runs his fingers over the stubble on his chin.

“It’s not a good excuse, but I understand how it happened.”

“Well, I’m glad. And when you figure it out, you can explain it to me. It’s like I blacked out for the entire thing. The only one who was acting normal this morning was Dante.”

“And Zane?” I pull Violet back out of the cage.

“No, he was going on about chickens and how great it would be to have eggs again. And when someone said something about going, he started vibrating.”

“Vibrating?”

“Yeah, you know when he gets all smiles and then it’s like the air starts vibrating with positivity?”

I know exactly what he’s talking about, but I guess I never thought that any of the guys would see Zane the same way as I do. “Yes.”

“It broke the tension, and then we all started talking about things we could do with the tender. We weren’t running away from you.”

“I know. Last night was a lot.” I’m staring at Violet, and when I look up at him, his blue eyes are searching my face. “In a good way.”

He nods, and I see the relief on his face.

I hold Violet out for him to take. She looks even smaller sleeping on his palm.

“Things snapped for me last night.”

A rush of adrenaline zings through me. “Snapped?”

“Yeah, not broke. Snapped as it fell into place. It was like I didn’t really know I had that in me until last night.”

I can only imagine how wide my eyes are.

“Fuck, Haley. I’ve never wanted anyone as much as I want you. And it scares the shit out of me.”

I want to tell him how I feel about him. The words that I’ve told the other guys linger on my tongue. They roll around my mouth, but I can’t get them out. I fear that if I tell him everything in my heart, he’ll pull away. He was in charge last night, but he’s still broken.

I rest my hand on his knee. “I want you too. Last night was a lot of fun.” It’s the wrong word, and I inwardly cringe as I say it because it wasn’t fun.

Well, it was fun. But it was more than amazing sex.

We were a group, working together. And he was fully committed to it.

When I close my eyes, I can hear the way he growled the orders.

He got us to do things that I didn’t even know were possible. It’s more than crazy.

“Fun. Yes.” His eyes question me.

“Wait, Sam. It was more.”

“It was, wasn’t it?” He takes my hand from his knee and holds it by the tips of my fingers. The kiss he brushes to my knuckles is a whisper that I can barely feel.

My smile catches his, and we’re suspended in time like that until a curse from Dante pulls the moment away.

Sam turns. “What’s up?” He’s jumped up and taken three steps before Dante’s done with his ranting and cursing. I wanted to tell Sam I love him.

“I just stubbed my toe. It’s nothing; carry on with your canoodling. No, wait until I get back.”

I’m shaking my head.

“Work first, canoodling later.” Sam takes the tub from Dante and winks back at me.

“Let me see your toe.” It’s not bleeding, but there’s a red spot on the side. “Does this hurt?” I drop to my knees.

“Hmm.” His forehead furrows. “Maybe a little higher.”

I skim my fingers over the top of his foot.

“Higher, Sassy.”

I cock my neck back and hold his eyes. “You’re horrible.

Work first, canoodle later.” I run my hand the rest of the way up his leg to the growing massive bulge on the front of his shorts.

I stroke him twice through the cloth as I stand.

Then I toss my ponytail over my shoulder as I pivot away.

My hair’s getting long. Maybe I should let one of the guys cut it?

“Sassy?” Dante says.

“Are you going to help with the work, Dante?”

“I’m going to need a minute.”

I laugh as Easton comes over to the box of chickens. “Hey, Firefly... I’m sorry. I should have woken you up. Want some help moving these to camp?”

“Yes, and yes.”

He cocks his head at me.

“Yes, you should have woken me up. And yes, I would like some help moving them. They’re crowded in there.” I place Violet back in the box, and she sleepily huddles under a mamma hen.

Easton picks up the box. “I actually went back to the sleeping platform and thought about it. But then you were snoring so peacefully.”

“Snoring?” I know I snore. Steven used to tell me all the time how loud I was. Every cabin mate I’ve ever had said it’s more heavy breathing than snoring. He was a walking red flag. If I had a time machine, I’d go back and slap his phone number out of my hand.

He’s making good time up the path, but then he stops. “Cute snores, not like the Blue Angels taking off over Pensacola?—”

“—like Calvin,” we both say together.

I chuckle.

“It’s good to hear you laugh. I was nervous about how angry you were going to be. And then when Zane fell off the boat... I was worried about him. About how hurt you were going to be if something happened to him when I could have prevented it.”

I nod and wait for him to take the chickens to camp. Penny’s lost interest in what the other guys are doing on the tender and is jumping at his side. Which attracts Pepper. Easton sets them down next to the big tree. And Pepper jumps up on the ladder and gazes down into the box.

“They’re our friends, Pepper.”

She mews. So polite.

“We’re going to have to figure out how to keep them safe from their new friends,” Easton says.

I put my hands on his shoulder. “Hey.”

“Hey back at you.”

“You know you’re not responsible for anyone but yourself?” I hold his blue eyes.

He shakes, trying to laugh it off. “I’m serious. What they do or don’t do is up to them.” He blinks at me. “But the same can be said for you, too, Firefly. Right? Not everything that happens here is your responsibility.”

I wince because he’s called me out. And he’s not wrong. For a long time, I’ve taken every little thing that goes wrong onto my shoulders. It’s one of the reasons why I like being chief stew. It’s not the being in charge part, it’s the fixing part. It goes way back.

But then there are times when you can’t.

.. when you can’t fix things. I couldn’t fix my mom.

I couldn’t fix my parents’ marriage. I couldn’t fix Steven being an asshole.

I couldn’t fix... I...My chest is heavy, and I can’t breathe.

I can’t even look Easton in the face. Tears erupt from my eyes, water falling down my cheeks.

“Haley,” Easton says on an inhale.

And I bend at the waist. I can’t make this better. I can’t get us home. I can’t fix them. And now what? I’ve given my soul to them. And there’s no making it better.