I grin over at Jillian. “Good call.”
She grins back, and I feel warm all over in ways that have nothing to do with the sun beating down on me.
“All right,” I say, forcing myself to focus on the immediate task at hand. I look over to Cece and the others. Everyone knows leaders get voted off these shows first, since no one likes to be bossed around. Better to be the worker bee everyone feels they can’t live without. “We’re going to go find some palm fronds for the shelter,” I call to them. “You guys want to pick out a place where it won’t get washed away?”
Cece and Fez both nod, and start scanning the beach. Judge Liz just stands there with a sour look on her face.
I guess I’m not winning any points there.
I tromp back into the jungle, and Jillian follows. I wish we’d gone the other way around so I could check her out while we walk, but when I look over my shoulder I catch her eyeing my ass.
Can’t say I mind that.
A loud, strangled yell echoes out of the trees, and I wonder for a moment if there’s a territorial gorilla nearby. They gave us a run-down of all the animals we’re allowed to kill and eat and the ones we aren’t, based on species protection laws and the network’s tolerance for pissing off animal rights groups. Gorillas weren’t mentioned, but if there are any on this island, I’m guessing they’d be on the second list.
Then I spot it. It’s Jason, and he’s got his legs wrapped tight around the trunk of a palm tree, a good twenty feet off the ground. And he’s bellowing and beating his chest like he’s George of the Jungle.
That makes more sense. He reaches up for a few coconuts and tosses them out of the tree. As we get closer, I see Su-Lin catching them and lining them up to make smiley faces in the dirt.
I guess she found someone who wants to play beach games with her, after all.
“Dude!” I yell to Jason. “How did you get up there?”
He looks down at me. “I climb shit,” he says.
“He does,” Su-Lin says brightly. “He has a YouTube show about it.”
I blink. “All right, then.”
Jason leans precariously away from the trunk with both hands, holding on with nothing but his thighs and his ankles. I step back, and Jillian winces.
“He’s going to break his head,” Jillian says.
“No, I can reach this one,” Jason shouts back. He yells like we’re a mile away, instead of several yards, and I’m beginning to think this is just his regular voice.
He does in fact reach the coconut, and one just beyond it as well. “Catch!” Jason says, preparing to toss it down to Su-Lin.
“Let Alec get this one,” Su-Lin says. “I’ve touched enough of your coconuts.”
Jillian snickers, and I catch the first coconut and miss the other, which lands on a rock in front of me. As I pick it up some of the juice drains from a four-inch crack, and I lift it to my mouth, drinking some of it, and then offering it to Jillian. I don’t want to be the asshole who monopolizes what is now our only source of water and nourishment, but from the look of the piles Jason and Su-Lin have collected, there’s plenty for everyone.
Jillian takes a long drink and passes the coconut back to me, while Jason shimmies out of the tree. Neither of them seem to mind, so I take a second drink. Su-Lin starts piling Jason’s long arms full of coconuts, and then picks up a couple broken shells herself, which she’s piled high with mushrooms.
I guess she’s planning to give all of us some freaky trip—and possibly an airlift to the closest emergency room. “I don’t think it’s a good idea to eat random mushrooms,” I say.
Su-Lin’s perpetual smile turns down very slightly. “They aren’t random. I did research about what you can eat out here, and these are Trinidad oyster mushrooms. They’re fine.”
Jason juggles an improbable number of coconuts between his arms, and he and Su-Lin head off to the beach.
“I still think I’m going to let someone else try the mushrooms first,” I say.
“All right, Choir Boy,” Jillian returns.
I laugh. I didn’t exactly mean to represent myself that way. I’m no saint, that’s for sure. But my past is still cleaner than what everyone assumes about me.
Jillian and I make several trips out to the beach with arms full of palm fronds. There are a couple times I want to offer to help Jillian, but she’s easily as capable as I am, balancing on roots and stones and carrying mountains of palm leaves almost as big as she is. After our fourth load we’re both drenched in sweat, but Fez, Liz, and Cece have picked a spot up under the trees, and I can’t see any evidence that the tide washes up that high or that we’re in the middle of any dry creek beds—both mistakes I’ve seen made on TV.
So we go to work on the shelter. The sun is sinking low in the sky, and Su-Lin and Jason chase each other up and down the beach more than they help, but they do bring in a whole mountain of coconuts, which Fez takes to cracking and handing around while he lectures everyone on the finer points of the differences between coconut milk and coconut juice. Between the rest of us, we manage to get a pretty good lean-to going, with a bed of palm material nestled underneath. The sky grows dark, and stars begin to appear, and we’re all a little freaked out when this loud barking roar sounds from the jungle, until Cece tells us it’s just the howler monkeys. Those suckers may look cute in pictures, but they sound like the screams of the damned, especially as other monkeys chime in with the first one.
God, I hope they don’t plan on doing that all night.
Soon after everyone piles into the shelter, I realize we’ve drastically underestimated the amount of space it takes to sleep ten adults. Even with Ryan and Chad happy to squish Melissa up between them, there’s barely an arms-width of space left for Jillian and me on the end, where Ryan and Melissa are making noises more satisfied than I imagine are justified given the comfort of the shelter. We peer in and then both of us step back out onto the beach.
“So,” I say to Jillian. “Did we build a shelter, or an orgy hut?”
“Pretty sure it’s an orgy hut,” Jillian says.
I nod. “Should have thought of that a few hours ago.”
Jillian sits down in the sand. “I think I’m going to give them a few minutes to get settled. And maybe we can build an addition tomorrow.”
“Sounds like a solid plan.” I settle down beside her. The roar of the ocean almost drowns out the noises from the hut, though not those damn monkeys, still intermittently screaming into the night. And then Jason joins them, yelling about who farted. “Sounding better and better all the time.”
Jillian smiles and wraps her arms around herself, rubbing her shoulders, which, like the rest of ours, are covered in bug bites. Despite the heat of the day, the breeze off the ocean is growing colder now, and I wonder how chilly the night is going to be. None of us have anything except the clothes we’re wearing.
I think about putting an arm around Jillian, but think better of it. She was flirting with me earlier, but while we’ve been working, she hasn’t made much indication that she’d welcome any advances. The last thing I want is to be caught getting rejected by a girl on national television.
Even as it’s getting darker, it’s impossible to miss the camera guy crouching not far off in the sand. At least he’s not shining some spotlight on us, which means they have some sort of night-filming capabilities.
“So make a bet with me,” I say. “Which moment from today is going to be most widely made into a meme and passed around the internet?”
“Hmm. I’m tempted to say your face when Ryan ate the crab.”
I laugh. “Mine? I thought Fez won that one by a long shot.” I’m pleased she was watching me, though. Further indications she’s interested. Or maybe just gathering information, the way I’m positive she’s been doing all day long.
“Nope. Fez was good, but yours was better.”
Jillian giggles, so I know she’s seen the footage of Felix shoving me off the stage at the VMAs. Along with the rest of the internet-connected world. “Yeah, well, I know what it’s like to have unflattering memes passed around about you.”
“I guess you would.”
“So you did recognize me.”
“Yeah,” I say. “I did right away. No one can forget the sexy singing stewardess.”
She groans. “I was so excited when I landed that commercial, even though I knew it set feminism back forty years. But I was the star, you know? If I had had any clue it was going to be that big—” She shakes her head. “And it’s not like my previous commercial work as Dancer Number Three for Tornado Rush energy drinks left me much to fall back on.”
“You have a hard time getting roles now?” I ask. Not that I want her career to be suffering, but misery does love company.
“Yeah,” she says. “I come with baggage attached, no pun intended. And that was even before the airline went under for failing to follow safety protocol . . .”
“It could be worse. Have you seen the gif someone made where they forward and reverse my fall from that stage into Kanye’s lap so it looks like I’m giving him a blow job?”
“I have,” Jillian says. “Have you seen the Bad Lip Reading ripoff where I’m singing a catchy ditty about how good I am at giving a blow job?”
“I haven’t. Where is Google when you need it?”
“It’s for the best. Trust me. If you think the original song was an earworm . . .”
Jillian smiles at me, and I smile back. I can tell this stuff really bothers her, which I get, but I also like that she can still have a sense of humor about it.
Then again, I probably just sounded like I have a sense of humor about the Kanye thing, which I most definitely don’t.
“So is that why you’re here?” I ask. “To get known for something else?”
“That’s part of it. What about you?”
“Yeah,” I say. I need to be careful not to spill the whole story for the cameras, and also not to say anything that makes me sound like a total douche. These are both harder tasks for me than I’m comfortable admitting. “There are some things I sure wish I’d done differently.”
“Like announcing on stage at the VMAs that you and Jenna were married, when she was actually in a relationship with someone else?”
Her directness takes me by surprise a bit, but despite the topic, I actually like it. I can be pretty direct myself.
“Yeah,” I say. “That. To be fair, though, I had no idea they were going to get married and be so happy together. They’d known each other a couple of weeks. I thought Jenna was being a total idiot throwing her career away for Felix.” When I look back at it, I get that I should have let Jenna make her own choice. Mostly, anyway. But I still don’t think I can have been expected to believe they were going to be together forever when they’d known each other for such a short time.
“It’s all hindsight, you know?” I continue. “I don’t really believe in love at first sight, but I know it’s happened at least once in ever, because it definitely happened to them. If I had realized that at the time, I would have made some different decisions.”
“But the lie you told when you broke up,” Jillian says, “when you decided to pretend to be together. You don’t regret that?”
Damn. I remembered to be on my guard when the producers were grilling me, but I’m unprepared for that one. There are a million reporters who would love to get me to answer that question.
If I dodge now, though, there’s no way the camera will miss it, and I doubt Jillian will, either. “I regret it because of how many people got hurt,” I say. “But at the time, from my perspective, keeping the band going was the best thing for everyone. I don’t think people really understand what it feels like to watch your career trajectory take off like that, and to have to make a decision that could ruin everything. It’s what every musician dreams of, and the idea of letting a personal issue sabotage it all—it would take a better person than me to see in the moment that telling the lie was the wrong choice, that’s for sure.”
Jillian considers this and then nods. “That makes sense. When you want something that bad and it's handed to you, it's hard to say no.” One side of her mouth tugs up. “Even if it means being a singing stewardess.”
“I hope this show helps you.”
“You, too.” Jillian scratches at one of the bug bites on her leg. “What are you looking to get out of it? Just a different kind of press?”
“Pretty much.” I glance over at the shelter, where the noise has died down, though now there’s not an inch of room left for us. “But it’s not going to be as hard as I thought to be one of the likable ones.” I cringe. “Great. Now that I’ve said that, they’re going to run it in every ad and make me look like an asshole.”
“I don't know,” Jillian says. Her dark eyes study me. “I can definitely see you being one of the likable ones.”
I like that she thinks that, maybe more than I should. I’m kind of startled to discover that I actually care what she thinks about me, which is more than I can say for most people. But Jillian seems observant, like she cuts through the bullshit most people present and sees right into their core.
I like that, and it makes me a little nervous, too.
“They obviously cast us all into a role, right?” I say. “We have the hot dudes and the hot girl they’re all macking on—congratulations on dodging that role, by the way. There’s the overly-peppy girl and the token older people. And I’m clearly supposed to be the villain.”
“Who does that make me, then?” Jillian asks.
“You’re the smart girl who has it all figured out, but who’s so hot that everyone underestimates her.”
Jillian smiles at this, and I’m pretty pleased with myself. It’s easy to flirt with her like this, telling her how gorgeous and competent she is. Just like it was with Jenna after the breakup—hardly like a lie at all. And I definitely don’t have to pretend about how much I’d love to spend quality time with Jillian in my bed.
Not that there’s a real bed around here for miles and miles.
“I think I’m the token cabaret singer,” Jillian says. “They want me to sing that damn jingle, but I never will.”
“I have a guitar coming,” I say. “I could play it.”
“I bet you could. You could make it into a duet. You’re good at those.”
Jenna wrote most of our stuff, but I was sure as hell good at singing them. We look out at the sea for a while, at the stars reflecting across the ocean. And despite the bugs and the sand that has wedged itself into crevices I don’t want to think about and the stale sweat on my skin, this whole thing is a little bit romantic.
I look over at Jillian, admiring what I can see of her profile in the starlight. I hope the cameras are getting this—watching me watch her.
This is exactly what Bobbi was talking about. It’s not even a little bit difficult to act like I want her.
“What do you think we should do for tonight?” I ask. “Interested in wedging yourself between Ryan and Melissa?”
“God, no. I’m thinking maybe grabbing some of those extra palm fronds for a mattress, and maybe a few more for a blanket.”
“Good plan. But they have body heat in there.”
“You’re welcome to join them,” Jillian says. “They have a lot of things in there. Melissa especially seemed excited about the crabs.”
I laugh. We were all medically screened before we could come out here, though I wouldn’t put it past Chad to have contracted crabs in the meantime.
I’m trying to think of a good way to ask Jillian to curl up in my arms and sleep against me. I’m not looking to put moves on her specifically—yet, anyway—just to spend some quality cuddling
time with the hottest, coolest girl on the island. If I don’t freeze my ass off tonight, that’s icing.
“There is no delicate way to ask this,” I decide finally.
“Then don’t try,” Jillian says, with a little shrug.
I’m quiet for another minute, and she turns toward me. Her knee brushes mine, and I almost reach down and put my hand right there on her smooth skin.
“Are you still trying to be delicate?” she asks.
“No. Now I’m trying to decide if I should ask at all, or just be cold.”
Jillian looks up at me. The stars catch in her eyes, and she’s inches away. “You want to huddle together for warmth.”
“I do,” I say.
Jillian doesn’t take her eyes off of mine, and my breath catches. For a half-second, I think she’s going to kiss me.
Then she looks away, out at the ocean. “In the interest of survival.”
I nod. “Absolutely. It’s only survival I’m thinking of.”
The monkey howls have pretty much all stopped by this point, thankfully. We drag a pile of palm material over next to the shelter, so it will at least block the wind, and try to assemble it over ourselves. I’m not sure how much that helps, with the gaps between the leaves, but Jillian curls right into me, fitting as natural as anything into my arms. Her head rests on my chest, and her skin is soft and smooth against mine, and while the sand and the leaves are uncomfortable as hell, my whole body feels like it’s at peace. I hope the cameras are watching this. I hope they see that she likes me, that a girl as gorgeous and confident and smart as Jillian thinks I’m worth cuddling up to.
And from the way her heart beats against my chest, I’m pretty sure she’s not the only one thinking of more than just survival.
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