Now, I know my mind is playing games with me.
I swivel so that I’m facing Colton, finding him in his swim trunks with his teal bandana tied around his firm bicep. He holds a net with a couple of silver fish inside. He smiles at me as tendrils of his dark-brown hair curl against his forehead, dripping ocean water onto his skin.
Stop it, heart. Stop it.
Unfortunately for me, my heart doesn’t stop; it’s sprinting for gold as Colton sits next to me on the bench, his muscles distracting me from all sensible thought. But when I flee to find Hairy the mole, it’s looking at me all attractive-like. Why is his mole looking at me all attractive-like? Moles have no business looking that way.
Thankfully, Colton pulls me from my thoughts, holding the bag of fish between us. “For you,” he says, his smile sheepish. “I noticed that you had some trouble this morning with the mussels.”
The wordmusselsmakes my eyes malfunction again.
Colton laughs. “Not those muscles.”
I shift my head toward the bag of fish in embarrassment, knowing I was caught red-handed, or really red-faced. But then I remember that’s exactly what I’m supposed to be doing. Flirting with Colton. I need to be weaving the narrative that things are blossoming between us.
Colton places the fish next to me, and I realize what he’s done.
“You got these fish for me?” I look at him, mouth ajar. He got these fish for me! Suddenly, these dead fish in a bag manage to put a bouquet of roses to shame.
As I grab my future breakfast from off the log, I remember the words Mrs. Downing said to me at the airport.There is a big caring heart in there. You’ll see.Maybe this is what she was talking about, or maybe this is very literally all for show, but regardless, Colton is making an effort to step up his game, and I need to do the same.
Chapter 14
MISSY
· DAY 10 ·
Apparently, Colton’s made the phrase “absence makes the heart grow fonder” his motto today. Except this heart isn’t thinking fondly; it’s just annoyed. I need to be flirting with him, batting my eyelashes like I was getting so good at yesterday, but instead, he’s off in the jungle kickin’ it with the boys. So, I’ve decided that, for now, I’m going to kick it with the girls until my “crush” comes to his senses and gallops over like a white knight so I can play damsel.
“I just finished my lunch, and I’m already hungry,” Maria says as we lie on her bedsheet that’s splayed across the airplane floor like a picnic blanket, basking in the partial shade the halfairplane provides us. Silver sits atop Tyrone’s bed, waving her hand back and forth while blowing on her newly polished nails.
Between the five remaining teams, the three of us are the only women left. Competitors in a show or not, we girls need to stick together. Maybe we’ll even find some common ground, well, other than the fact that we’re all drinking Silver’s nail polish fumes. The internal voice that wants to judge her for bringing nail polish as one of her personal items is instantly overridden by the fact that her taste in nail polish is fantastic. Chrome suits her.
I flap a fan of woven palm leaves over my face, realizing that I’m fanning myself to the beat of Dolly Parton’s “My Tennessee Mountain Home.” Next to me, Maria flutters a fan of her own, and we relish the breeze we create.
Weaving fans is one of the impromptu island crafts Maria and I have come to enjoy. To my surprise, I’m actually quite skilled at making them now. This fan is number twelve since being on the island. I’ve started giving them away as little neighbor gifts to the other teams, hoping they’ll take pity on me and Colton if our showmance gig caves in.
Dolly’s chorus comes in strong, and my fanning picks up, doing a thorough job of waving away the blistering heat of high noon. If all else fails and I don’t win this competition, maybe I can make a living selling palm fans. Fan palms? Fans in the palm of your hand? Palm Poms?
Oh my.I rub my eyes. As it turns out, spending hours on this island with anxiety and heat as your constant companions tends to muddle your brain.
“Why does the time between challenges feel like eternity? What time is it even?” Maria asks.
I do a half crunch, bending forward to look at the massive clock on the plane wing farther down the beach. I sigh andcollapse once more on my back. “Twenty minutes since the last time we checked.”
“Island time,” Maria and I say simultaneously. We both start laughing until we’re crying delusional tears while clutching cramping stomachs.
“You two have issues,” Silver says, unamused.
“Excuse me, ladies.” I nearly jump out of my skin when Tyrone seems to appear out of thin air, walking between me and Maria and heading straight for his bed.
I perk up when I spot Colton just behind him. There he is.
“Ack, warn a girl,” Silver hisses.
I turn to find Tyrone holding the flat sheet from his bed. He must have ripped the sheet from right underneath Silver.
“Sorry, for some crazy reason I thought this wasmybed,” Tyrone says.
