One week might be all they had.
Time was precious.
If anything was going to happen, then…
Matthew swallowed nervously. Thinking about Evie and Shep hit a little too close to home. “If, um, you guys want, I can go hang out in my cabin this afternoon. I won’t tell anyone you’re out here.”
There was a prolonged moment of silence. It stretched long enough that Matthew risked glancing back at them. Evie had lifted her sunglasses and narrowed her eyes, confusion plastered across her face. Shep guarded his emotions more carefully, but behind his stoic mask, Matthew glimpsed painful struggle.
“Who would you tell?” Evie asked, her head cocked to the side. “We’re alone on the island. No one from outside our group is going to…” A thought seemed to occur to her, and she trailed off mid-sentence to consider it. “Wait, do you think we’re dating?”
“Well, uh, yeah.” Matthew scratched the back of his head. “Aren’t you?”
“Oh my god,no!” Evie laughed. “I mean, at one point we were, but that was for all of a hot second before we decided the chemistry wasn’t there and that we’d just be friends. Best friends. Sorry if we squicked you out. I promise we’re not seeing each other. You don’t have to feel weird.”
Friends did the kinds of things Shep and Evie did?
All the subtle flirting, the touching, the play-fighting…
Matthew glanced from Evie to Shep, who was struggling to keep his expression guarded. While Evie had no problem declaring them best friends, the mention of it made the corner of Shep’s mouth twitch.
He didn’t feel the same.
Was Evie acting? It wouldn’t be beyond the scope of her capabilities to pretend like she was Shep’s best friend when really, they were much more. Matthew couldn’t tell. What he did know was that their time together was limited. At the end of the week, Shep would go home to Aurora, and Evie would return to Los Angeles. They might never meet again.
If Matthew spent the whole week dreaming about Damien, nothing would ever happen. If he made a move, they could spend the rest of the week sneaking around and having fun, then go their separate ways when their vacation was over. No one would have to know. It wasn’t like what they shared here could last forever.
“No, it’s okay. Sorry for jumping to conclusions.” Matthew smiled, wishing he could tell them that it was okay, and that he was in the same boat. “Do you guys have anything you really want to do before you leave?”
“Oh, for sure!” Evie beamed. “I heard that it’s safe to swim in the lagoon by the bungalows, so I’m going to make sure I go for a dip before we head back. I think Shep wants to head into the jungle at the center of the island for… I don’t know. Manly things, I guess. But for me, swimming is number one on my list. What about you?”
An idea popped into Matthew’s mind—one that made his pulse race.
“Yeah.” He nodded. “Swimming sounds great.”
All he had to hope now was that he had the balls to see it though.
8
Damien
Damien slammed the door of his bure shut and leaned against it, gasping for breath between puffs of laughter. On the way back from the wharf, Gwynn had gotten the drop on him and had managed to steal his water pistol. Unfortunately for Gwynn, Damien had already depleted the majority of its ammo, but that hadn’t stopped Gwynn from using the last of it to stripe Damien’s white linen shirt with glitter.
It seemed a small price to pay for the devastation he’d wreak on Gwynn in the days to come.
If Gwynn thought Damien’s piddly little pistol was the worst he could muster, he was in for a nasty surprise.
Damien stripped out of his shirt and tossed it to the side, unconcerned with where it landed. Nadja had—
Nadja.
Damien pinched the bridge of his nose and sucked in an irritated breath. He’d forgotten his cell phone was making friends with the freaky crab monsters at the bottom of the lagoon. While Nadja would laugh off his lack of communication when she found out, Damien’s clients wouldn’t. “Shit.”
Deflated, Damien trudged over to the bed and wrested his carry-on bag open so he could access his email from his laptop, but when he pulled the laptop free, a resealable bag came out with it. Inside was a cell phone identical to the one he’d lost, a SIM card, and a handwritten note.
Hey Boss,
Figured you’d need this. I got a hunch your friends might want to throw your annoying ass in the ocean, so I looked it up and it turns out your current model isn’t waterproof. I got you this one just in case, which looks identical, but can withstand being submerged for up to thirty minutes. The charge is on the business account, natch.
