“Oliver.”
He made a noise, squeezing his arms over my chest. His arms had not moved all night from their place locked around me. “I’m awake,” he rasped. Then he released me.
Climbing out of our shelter was awkward. We bumped heads a couple times. I nearly had a wardrobe malfunction in the process. But we both made it out.
“Did you sleep?” I asked, trying to make polite conversation, as we both stood there. Why was my heart racing like I’d screwed his brains out last night? Why were his eyes such a pretty color of brown, like Tennessee Whiskey, in the patches of morning sun coming through the trees?
“Yeah, some. You?”
“I did.” I’d slept amazingly, actually, once I’d gotten to sleep. Rain, Ollie, and all.
He sighed. He wasn’t his happy, chipper self today. “I’m going to take a piss and then try to take some sort of bath in the ocean. I might be naked, so could you please stay in the trees while I take care of that?”
“Yeah.” I shrugged. “That’s cool. Whatever.”
He gave me a small, questioning look, before disappearing.
“Oh, my God,” I mumbled to myself once he was gone. “Oh, my God.” I’d totally and pathetically been fawning all over him! Ollie, and his pretty eyes, and his perfectly lean, muscular chest. I don’t think he’d noticed, thank God, but I’d been awkward and school-girl-shy with him just a second ago. Christ, I even felt tingly in places I shouldn’t have during that pathetic conversation with him.
I bounced up and down for a moment, trying to shake off any sort of feelings for him that had randomly tried to creep in. I hadn’t thought about Rhett since stepping onto this island—which was actually quite amazing since thinking about him was usually all my mind wanted to do.
But right now, weirdly, it was Ollie on my mind. So I forced my thoughts to go to Rhett. Today was his wedding. By this evening, he’d be married to Sydney. I pictured him standing at the front of a church, handsome as hell, wearing a tux, an image I’d never been so lucky to see, smiling at his beautiful bride as she came down the aisle. I’d never had a chance with him—not really. But now, after today, that door was officially and forever shut.
Fuck. Distracting myself with Rhett worked. A little too well. Because sadness washed over me next mixed with a little trace of anger. I moved from where I stood, over to a coconut tree near our shelter.
“Screw you, coconut tree,” I said at the innocent bark, giving myself a pep talk. “I’m going to climb you, and I’m going to steal all your coconuts. So screw you.”
I knew how to do it too. When I was in my teens, my family went to Mexico. There had been a flirtatious resort worker who’d climbed a palm tree in seconds. Showing off for me, he’d picked a coconut off the tree and even cracked it open against the trunk. He’d used his own belt to do it, locking it around his ankles as his means to quickly climb the trunk of the tree.
So that was how I needed to do this—something belt-like looped around my ankles. Hmm… I glanced around the floor of the jungle. There was a leafy plant like a vine that seemed to grow everywhere. Maybe I could figure something out.
Coconuts. Here I come.
~ CHAPTER 7 ~
OLIVER
I was hungry. I was thirsty. I was downright exhausted. Today, as I woke, it hit me that we might genuinely be stranded here. Yesterday I’d been in some kind of denial, and now today it felt real. The only shining light was getting to hold Luce through the rain last night.
I got to hold her… by default.
I got to hold her, not because that was what she really wanted, but because I was the only other human body stuck on this island with her.
On that note, I needed space. I went to the bathroom in the woods. Then I went down to the beach, and I slipped off my swim trunks. After last night’s shivering episode, I decided it was wiser to keep my only clothing item dry. Then I took a bath—if you want to call it that—in the ocean water.
I wasn’t sure whether it really worked, if I was actually cleaner or not. I guess it was better than nothing. Afterwards, I headed back up the shore. I redressed, and I started exploring the jungle line, inspecting the trees, trying to find something edible.
Everywhere I looked there was some kind of tree with long, hanging vines of little round fruit. At least twenty or so to a vine, kind of resembling grapes. They ranged in color from green to purple. If these things were safe to eat, that would be amazing. If they were poisonous, that would suck because the island was covered with them.
I decided to eat one and do the eight-hour taste test. Plucking a purple-colored grape, I popped it in my mouth. It was sweet. Not bad tasting at all. I had the urge to eat more of them. But I knew, I needed eight hours to test and see what effect it might have on my body. So empty handed, I headed back toward our little clearing and shelter.
Luce was nowhere in sight.
Fear slammed into my chest. “Luce!” I yelled. “Luce!”
“Ollie, up here, I’m stuck!” came her voice.
I looked up. Holy shit, she’d climbed a coconut tree. I could just make out part of her body and blue bikini at the top of the tree.
“Ollie, I’m stuck,” she repeated, sounding panicked. “I’m stuck. I thought I could do this. But I can’t.”
“Stay calm.” I ran my hands through my hair, staring up at the top of the tree. She was easily more than a story off the ground, maybe two. Dammit, woman. “No matter what, you can’t get hurt,” I yelled at her. How did she even get up there in the first place?
I glanced around the base of the tree. No coconuts were on the ground—aside from one with a shoot growing out the top that looked like it been sitting there for months. “Luce, baby, you’re already up there. Try to get some coconuts at the very least.”
She made a squeal. “I’m afraid to move.”
“Don’t be. It’s not that high. It just seems like it’s high to you up there.” Oh, it was so fucking high. I was terrified of heights so there wasn’t a chance I could have done what she’d done. My heart raced for her. My neck hurt staring up at her. But I wanted to reassure her, and telling her little white lies was the best way to do that. “It’s really not that high. We need water. I doubt there’s a water source on this island. Try to get a coconut and then get your pretty ass down to the ground.”
She groaned. But I realized I had confidence in her. She was scrappy and very headstrong when she wanted to be. Lean and fit. I knew she surfed regularly; she’d mentioned that before. It took strength to ride waves just like it must have taken strength to climb herself up to the top of that tree. I wasn’t even sure, putting aside my fear of heights, whether I could have done it.
A second later, I heard movement, followed by a coconut falling to the ground. I stepped back from the tree so I wouldn’t get hit in the head. “Yes!” I called up to her, trying to be encouraging. “Yes! Get another one.”
Another one fell. Then another. Followed by several more.
“Whatever you’re doing, keep doing it.”
For minutes, she kept plucking them. Until she yelled, “I can’t anymore.”
“Come down then. Hug the tree and come down as slowly as possible. Even if you have to scrape your body and slide down, don’t let yourself fall. A few scrapes is better than anything broken.” I stood there, useless at the bottom, yelling up to her. “Come on. If you got up, then you can get down. I have faith in you.”
“The loop I made broke.”
I had no idea what she meant.
But I didn’t ask, because a second later more of her ass came into view. She had her legs locked around the tree, and she was slowly sliding down it. Fuck—this was going to scrape her up. It would make the cut on my arms look like a paper cut.
She moved closer and closer toward the ground. It took at least ten minutes for her to get down. And the moment I had my hands on her, I grabbed her waist and pulled her from the tree. She fell into my arms.
“Ollie,” she muttere
d. I swayed and fell backward in the sand. She fell with me, landing on me. She moved off of me immediately—as if touching me physically hurt her. She stood as I stared at her from the ground. The woman had literally, and maybe figuratively, knocked me on my ass.
“You okay?” I asked.
If she’d seemed frightened at all minutes ago, she sure didn’t show it now. “Fine.”
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
Her legs had a few scratches that I could see from where I sat, but otherwise they were okay. I wasn’t sure she was okay though. She seemed shaken and the air between us was heavy with awkward tension. Not the wonderful sexual kind either.
I didn’t like whatever this was. It hurt my heart. I moved from where I sat, grabbing one of her fallen coconuts. “Let’s get these things open,” I muttered.
She nodded, kneeling down beside me to grab another. Her blue eyes had never looked so intense to me, so beautiful framed by her makeup-free lashes. I really think I could be okay looking into eyes like hers for the rest of my life. But then, at the same time, it hurt like a punch in the stomach knowing I probably wasn’t right for such an amazing girl like Luce.
~ CHAPTER 8 ~
LUCE
It was silly. Ever since I found out I’d inherited the breast cancer gene that ran in my family, the one my sister nearly died from, I’d accepted death as a possibility in the back of my mind.
My niece Emma, who also had my same risk, had undergone a preventative double mastectomy last year. I should have, too. Instead, I’d avoided doctor appointments. I’d avoided doing anything proactive. I hadn’t even given my breasts a self-exam since finding out that the best option would be to remove them.
I didn’t talk about it.
I didn’t think about it.
But it was always there, trying its best to nag at my mind, this possibility that breast cancer was coming for me and it would be here any day.
And that was all I could think about at the top of that coconut tree. Fear of dying. Fear of falling to my death. Fear of starving on this island. I didn’t want to die. That thought struck me hard at the top of the tree. But the truth was, I already had death close to me, and I’d done nothing to stop it. And I think I’d been punishing myself by not getting the surgery—but in the world’s most dangerous way.
I sat by Ollie, each of us working at trying to open a coconut, with absolutely no skills whatsoever, and I was stuck in my own head.
He was good at telling me every little thought on his mind over a phone call. In person, he was quieter. I kind of needed him to start talking instead of remaining silent. It was tense between us, and I think I hated that.
“Ollie,” I said to him, not looking up from my coconut. “I’m having a pretty awful day.”
“Because I got you stranded on this island. I know.”
“No, actually, because of a million other things. It’s kind of the worst day for you not to be your normal, obnoxious, cheerful self.” I felt tears swelling in my eyes.
“You need me to cheer you up?”
Pretty damn desperately. “Yeah.”
“Oh. Well, you’re killing it in that bathing suit.” I glanced up and a hint of a smile hit his lips. “Can I say that out loud? I’m going to say that out loud. I think I need to put that out there, so you know that’s where I’m at in my head. Is this your first time in the Bahamas?”
I paused in my unsuccessful attempt at this coconut. I needed a rock... or a machete. “Yes,” I answered, because it was my first time in the Caribbean.
“And what do you think of it so far?”
I couldn’t help the smile that tried to creep over my lips. “Well...” I glanced up at the perfectly turquoise waters, the blue skies, and the handsome face of a celebrity with me on this beach. “It’s kind of beautiful. It would be a whole lot more beautiful with a refreshing coconut water in my hand.”
Ollie smiled. He had a fantastic smile. “I agree.” He held up his coconut—he’d made it past the outer husk, which was a lot more than I had to show for with mine. Ollie stood, going back to the same tree, and he hit it against the base.
It cracked! But he hit it way too hard, sending water all over his hand and the ground.
“Ah!” I squealed. Half because he’d opened it and half because he’d just lost ninety percent of the water inside. He handed me the small piece that hadn’t fallen to the ground, that still held a tiny bit of liquid.
“No, I can’t take that,” I said.
“Yes, you can.”
“Oliver,” I argued.
“Don’t call me Oliver.”
Now he wasn’t okay with me calling him ‘Oliver’? I couldn’t keep up. I stared at him.
“As a means to get what you want,” he added. He stretched out his hand. “Take this one. And let me work on opening yours. It broke on the line of the coconut. Which seems like common sense now. I think I know how to crack the next one.”
“Fine.” I traded him, kind of curious to see what he meant, to see if he could do it better the second time.
I sipped the minuscule, Dixie-cup sized swallow of coconut water. Damn, nothing had ever tasted so good. One of Rhett’s famous piña coladas had nothing on this. I worked at eating the coconut meat too. Normally, not my favorite. It was crunchy and chewy, salty and only slightly sweet. But, hell, today I loved it.
A few minutes later, Ollie had the husk off the other coconut, down to the little ball. This was the moment of truth. He cracked it, firmly but not as hard as the first coconut, the line that ran across the ball parallel to the ground, against the tree.
He did it!
He cracked it so perfectly, that all he had to do was remove the top half, leaving a perfect bowl in the palm of his hand filled to the brim with water. He took a few sips and he handed over half of the remaining water to me.
I didn’t argue. I drank my half.
And Christ—if I didn’t want to kiss him right then. Over a silly coconut. When he was Ollie Mills and I knew better. I took a breath. It’s not like I’d ever act on an impulse like that, but there it was.
Suddenly, I felt self-conscious. My hair was a sweaty, wild, uncombed mess. I had no idea how much mascara was crusted under my eyes. I hadn’t brushed my teeth in twenty-four hours. And all my normal insecurities I always felt in a bathing suit came bubbling. I didn’t look like one of his models. Or even close to one of those girls who’d stolen the boat. But Ollie wasn’t staring at me like some kind of hobgoblin. When Ollie Mills looked at you, you felt special. No wonder so many girls had fallen so easily into bed with this guy.
~ CHAPTER 9 ~
OLIVER
Four coconuts later and I had a system. A stick in the ground I used to bang the coconut against, working at the outer shell, and one perfect whack against a tree—to open the inner shell.
It meant Luce and I were semi-satisfied, at least for the moment, and it was time to work on our shelter.
That was what our day consisted of. Widening and trying to fortify our pathetic little hut. Until I reached the eight-hour mark—approximately—and I grabbed her hand, pulling her out of the woods.
I startled her with my excitement. She seemed apprehensive to follow me. But I obstinately pulled her along until I found the grapes I’d seen earlier, plucking off a large vine filled with them. “Here.”
“What are these?”
“I don’t know, but they aren’t poisonous.” I popped a grape in my mouth.
“Ollie, wait!” she squealed, touching my wrist. “How can you be sure they aren’t poisonous?!” She moved her hand.
I spit the seed on the ground, swallowing the rest. “Because I ate one this morning, and I’m not dead. Or throwing up. So I’d say it’s okay.” I ate a few more to prove it to her.
She didn’t hesitate, grabbing one off the vine, eating it and spitting out the seed. “They aren’t bad,” she decided.
And for ten minutes at least, we continued eating the grapes
together in silence. Seeing her eat those little grapes caused some sort of satisfaction to spread through my chest. Luce would not starve today. I felt proud of myself for that. Very proud.
When I’d eaten as much as I could, I took a step back. I ran my hands over the thick stubble on my face that I wasn’t used to. I grew a reddish-colored beard, which didn’t combine well with my dark hair; it was hardly my favorite thing about myself, and why I always kept it shaved. “You, um, wanna go for a swim with me?” I asked her. “Take a break from survival mode?”
I’d been trying to do what she asked—cheer her up. Which I think just meant talking more. But it was harder than ever for me to keep up conversation. A problem I’d never had before with any other woman.
I tried to overlook whatever it was that was making me quieter today. And for a few hours I’d babbled on like my normal self, but I was feeling that energy weaning.
“I could swim,” she said. “The waves are light. The water’s clear. It’s perfect here.”
We left the shoreline for the water. At the edge, I thought about how this morning I wouldn’t get my shorts wet. I stood there debating it while she walked into the water, ultimately dipping down so the water went to her neck. She turned back around, facing me, obviously waiting on me to get in too. She looked like a slice of paradise, swimming there, her eyes on me. But my feet weren’t moving.
“Ollie?” she asked.
I swallowed. I could be honest with her. Or I could take off my swim trunks in some cocky Ollie Mills move. Because that was what I would have done with anyone else in this world. Gone in the water buck-ass naked, made some joke about my big cock, about her staring, been as cheesy as possible. That type of confidence usually worked on most women.
But with Luce I wasn’t looking for something that ‘worked.’ “I’m trying to be ‘me’ today for you, Luce. And it’s just not happening,” I admitted rather than removing my shorts. “It’s just not happening,” I repeated, taking a breath. “Sorry. I’m gonna go nap in the shelter. You could nap with me. Or swim—it’s beautiful. Whatever. Just don’t climb anymore coconut trees without me, please.”
Never Leave a Rockstar (Never Trust Book 4) Page 3