Gabe’s eyes roamed around their home, which they had built with their bare hands. A carefully crafted place of nature and junk, those rare human treasures littering all that bamboo, wood, and vine. Damian’s spears and weapons lining the bottom of their hut. Fishing nets drying on the trees. Walter’s and Gisele’s piglets squealing in the pen, the huge pig snoring under a tree.
His eyes went back to Damian, who was watching him, silent. “I love it here. I love what we have.”
“Same. What’s the worry?”
Gabe shrugged. “I have a hard time believing this is real… that this is what we will have for the rest of our lives. That we managed… to make a tiny slice of heaven here…”
Damian scoffed, mocking. “Heaven!”
“Or whatever… you know what I mean…” Watching Damian rise and tower over him, holding his hand out.
“Come…”
“Where?”
“To fuck.” Grinning at Gabe’s face falling. “Yeah… this way, you will shut your little mouth and stop blabbering about sentimental bullshit.”
Gabe grabbed his hand and let him pull him up. “Does it embarrass you? The sentimental bullshit?”
“Don’t push…” But his eyes darted away.
Gabe grabbed his jaw, forcing his eyes back. “Look at me. I fucking love you. I think you’re the best man there is on this planet. I love what we have, what we built.”
Damian’s cheeks colored. “Uh… ok…”
“And I fucking love to make you blush… big boss guy…” His lips parted at the light in Damian’s eyes.
“I don’t blush…”
“The fuck you don’t…”
“Insolent little fuck…”
Chapter 16
TheEarthflyingaroundthe sun once. Another line started on a new tree.
Damian grabbed Gabe’s hand softly as he was scratching another line in that hard bark. “Stop it, maybe?”
Their eyes met, and Gabe’s lips parted. “What? But…”
Damian watched those trees filled with nameless days and months. “There’s no point anymore, is there?”
“We know the years… how many have passed…”
Damian kissed his hand, prying the knife out of it. “Does this make you feel better? Knowing?”
“I guess…” Gabe’s eyes drifted to the trees, the last bastions of whatever time was, whatever it meant under that endless sky with its shifting colors. A rush of panic running down his spine. The days and months lost, melted in those scratches. Only the years remained.But what for?Unable to let go, he blew a breath and looked at Damian. “I’ll stop… just not yet…”
Damian shrugged, smoothing his hair back. “Alright. I won’t force you, of course.” Turning, he picked up a spear and latched his knife on his hip, and Gabe just watched him, still marveling a bit sometimes at how Damian had adapted to this life, to the island. Watching him go to his mud barrel, smooth that dark mud all over his body, his face.
Gabe stepped to him, those steel eyes almost shining in that dark mud. “Going hunting?”
His mud lips curled up. “Good guess.”
“How far?”
He shrugged, his mind already on the hunt. “I don’t know. Just eat and go to bed. Don’t wait.”
