Before He Was Gone: Starstruck Book 2 (10 page)

‘You’re right,’ I say, taking her palm and kissing it, feeling my stomach knot instantly. ‘We shouldn’t.’

‘Yeah, we shouldn’t. We’re on TV, for a start,’ she says, sitting up. I move off her as her eyes scan the beach again. I pull her to her feet by her hands and she straightens out her bikini top; swipes at the sand on her chest. 

She looks so damn sexy right now. The world stopped moving till that wave shook it up again; my head was comfortably numb for the first time all day but it wasn’t just my cock talking with her pressed up against me. Alyssa The Greek gets into more of my cracks than all of this damn sand. What the hell am I doing?

I step towards her in the moonlight, reach for her face. I’m playing with fire but I want her to burn me. I want her to keep on burning right through me. Alyssa sighs, points her head down as I run my hands through her wet hair and rest them at the back of her neck. We’re chest to chest. ‘We shouldn’t,’ she says again, gripping my hand.

‘I know,’ I say, drawing her even closer till her hip bones are pressed into my flesh like arrows and my hands are on her lower back, just above her ass. I stand still, rigid, breathing with my lips and nose against her forehead, till she tilts her head and draws my lips to hers again with a groan.

I hoist her up around my waist. We shouldn’t, it’s all wrong, but I need her. With my tongue to hers again I move us backwards to the sand couch. There’s an obstacle back between us in my board shorts that’s getting harder to ignore. I pull her down onto the couch with me again, intending for her to straddle me, but the back breaks away as we stumble and start to fall.

‘No!’ Alyssa cries out, clutching at sand beside me as I do the same with her on top of me. ‘Joshua! We broke the couch!’

‘Hey, Double G, can I talk to you?’ Shan whispers as he catches up to me on the beach. He takes the bucket I’m carrying from my hand and throws an arm around me.

‘What’s up?’ I say. My eyes dart to the camera that’s followed us. We reach the well, hidden by the trees and he drops the bucket, folds his arms.

‘The council meeting tomorrow? We think Joshua’s out.’

My heart starts to pound. ‘Who’s
we?
I thought we were all voting Journey?’ I say. We discussed this, after she lost it over the snake. We all heard her ranting to the camera about it; about how Joshua should be arrested for murdering local wildlife on a daily basis, and how we all should be ashamed of ourselves for eating it.

Shan shakes his head. ‘Journey does the laundry at least, and looks after the animals. No one else wants to do that shit. It was between Punk or Joshua last night and we all decided Joshua. His mood swings are getting a little… shall we say, unpredictable? I heard how he went psycho at Stephanie yesterday.’

I take a deep breath, pick up the bucket and attach it to the hook on the rope. ‘He did not; she’s a drama queen. He was just expressing his opinion, Shan. He’s got a lot of… opinions.’

‘He’s a liability.’

‘I thought you liked him?’

‘Oh, please. I don’t like anyone here. Except you. Did you sex him up at least, before he goes?’

‘No! And why is he a liability? Because of his
words?
He’s strong, Shan, he’s good at winning challenges.’

‘Which is great when it’s for the team’s benefit…’ he stops, sighs heavily. ‘Look, he’s a dark horse. I don’t trust him. He’s got an agenda, don’t you think?’

I lower the bucket to the bottom. ‘We all have an agenda, Shan, it’s a game. And he stood up for you with Mike,’ I say, pulling it up again with more force than I intend to. The water sloshes out.

‘Pffft, like I needed him to do that,’ he says, tossing his hair. ‘Listen, I know you’re his horoscope twin and I’ll still come to your wedding, but Stephanie’s right. Just ‘cause he can kill a snake doesn’t make him king of the jungle. Besides –
you
won that challenge yesterday, not him.’

‘How many people are voting him out?’ I ask.

‘Me, Journey and Stephanie. Punk knows he’s a goner, whatever, so we could probably get his vote, and Jaxx will do anything Stephanie asks until he gets to bone her.’ He’s looking at me expectantly now. ‘What do you think?’

‘I think we need him in this game as long as possible,’ I tell him, pulling on the rope again.

‘Oh, use your brain D.G,’ he huffs. ‘If we keep him in too long he might win. You don’t want that, do you? He needs to go ASAP.’ He walks over to the goat and it bleats loudly as he goes to touch it. Shan withdraws his hand, frowning. ‘Where’s our milk, bitch?’

‘We’ve got a way to go yet, Shan,’ I say. ‘Joshua’s the only one who can spearfish properly, still. He’s the only one who can get the coconuts.’ My thoughts are racing in overdrive now. I pull the bucket up again, put it down, reach out for his shoulder and lean us in close surreptitiously in the direction of the camera. This will make for good TV.

‘Besides,’ I continue, ‘whose body would you rather see half-naked all day around here? Joshua’s or Punk’s? Whose conversations keep things interesting, even if they piss some people off? All things considered, and you really
have
to think about this, what does
Punk
do for the team, Shan?’

I feel bad the second I say it. Punk’s a sweetheart, but I keep a straight face. Shan opens his mouth to speak and then shuts it again in silent contemplation. ‘We dream about food all day and argue about God all night. That’s how desperate we are for distractions right now,’ I hurry on. ‘We can at least enjoy the fun things while we're here, for as long as we can. Think about that before you vote.’

I’m just about to pick the bucket up again when a shriek makes us both jump.

‘Oh my Buddha, what now?’ Shan says, taking off on his bare feet, making the goat bleat loudly again. My heart plummets. It was only a matter of time.

‘Who would’ve done something like this?’ Stephanie’s saying as I reach the end of the beach, tying the bandana around me as a skirt again. ‘Did the production team do it, do you think?’ Jaxx asks.

Karin looks distraught. Shan’s standing with his hands on his hips now, observing the broken couch and circling it like it’s an actual crime scene. Journey eyes me in stony silence as Joshua appears from the shimmering water with his spear like frickin’ Neptune. I swallow.

He lays the spear down on the sand and I notice three silvery pink snapper on the end of it. He taught me the names of all the fish he knew on the reef this morning. Five a.m, dawn breaking, arms around me in the ocean:

‘Barry, Wilma, Fred, Sandy, Alyssa…’

‘You can’t name a fish after me,’ I told him, slapping his rock hard bicep as he handed me the spear.

‘You’re a Pisces, you’re a fish, deal with it,’ he said, drawing me close. ‘And I’m going to have to eat you.’

He walks up to the group now, dripping onto the sand. His brow furrows but he doesn’t meet my eyes. ‘Why would the
production
team do this?’ Shan asks him, ‘I mean, it’s not like they said we couldn’t have furniture.’ He tuts. ‘We never even got to use it.’

‘I’m sure
some
of us got to use it,’ Journey says, looking right at me.

What?

I feel my cheeks flame as she twists her ridiculous hair round in her hands and knots it at the back of her head, never breaking her gaze. I don’t look away but my heart is a flapping bird in my ribcage.

‘It could have been the tide, I guess,’ Stephanie offers and Jaxx nods thoughtfully.

‘We can rebuild it,’ he tells her resolutely. 

Shan lets out a dramatic sigh, letting himself fall onto the crumbled mound of sand, raking it through his fingers around his G-A-Y-fronts. 
‘Sure we can, Pollyanna. Then can we all sit in another circle and talk about our dreams again? Please? I just love when every day is Groundhog Day.’

‘I bet my parents are loving this,’ Karin says as a camera guy pans in on the scene. ‘I can almost hear them.
Silly dreams will always crumble
, that’s what they’ll be saying. They’ll tell me it’s a sign I should just give up my art.’

‘They’re going to edit this with some super sad music over it, too,’ Shan notes, motioning up to the camera. ‘Oh
God
, what if it’s Nickelback?’

‘Listen,’ Joshua says, putting a hand on Karin’s shoulder. ‘It was just a sandcastle, OK? The fact that it’s gone has nothing to do with anything else. It’s not a sign, it’s not a metaphor for failure, don’t worry about it.’

‘More wise words from the guy with no heart,’ Journey says scathingly and Stephanie shoots him an equally annoyed look.

‘It wasn’t
just
a sandcastle, Joshua,
’
she says.

‘He only meant her parents will have seen it by now,’ I manage, shooting him a look. My chest tightens. Why are they all so against him suddenly? I know he apologized to her this morning, but Stephanie must have really kicked up a stink last night while I was… well.

‘Everyone’s seen what you can do, Karin,’ I assure her.

‘I’m sure everyone’s seen what
you
can do, too,’ Journey follows, so quietly that only I can hear her. This time I can’t look her way. My heart won’t stop pounding. We didn’t see any cameras around last night; both of us looked. But then again, how careful can you be on a frickin’ reality TV show?

I’m an idiot.

I watch Joshua pick up the spear again. The lion roars at me from his arm as he pulls the fish off the end and walks to the shore to wash them off. My eyes trace the lines of his shoulder muscles. I flashback to last night… and this morning. We couldn’t get beyond PG-13 before the cameras arrived, circling the rocks in the water again like predators. 

I wasn’t exactly applying logic to my actions last night, though, was I? Kissing Joshua after all those nights spent craving his lips on mine took me to another planet entirely. What if the entire U.S just saw me crushing this sand couch and now they’re watching me standing here, acting like I have no clue what happened? Journey obviously saw us and didn’t tell anyone else? I frown at her. Why didn’t she tell anyone else?

I don’t trust Journey one tiny bit. She spends way too much time alone, or doing weird things in strange poses.

‘Somebody knows something,’ Stephanie’s saying now, folding her arms across her chest and looking at us all in suspicion. Jaxx mirrors her actions.

‘How do we know it wasn’t you two?’ Punk says to Jaxx. ‘You didn’t come back to the shelter last night.’

We all look at them. I can’t fight the smile from my face, even as the adrenaline climbs up my spine and courses through me. ‘We were by the waterfall till late, talking.’ Stephanie says. ‘We fell asleep.’

‘And we were on the challenge pitch, talking,’ I say quickly, pointing to Joshua. It’s only kind of a lie, I guess. I just changed the location - and the fact that we were making out on the beach like washed up sailors.

Journey glowers at me. Joshua doesn’t turn around. Owning up would be the right thing to do in any regular situation, yes, but everyone knows the second a couple hook up on
Deserted
, the others turn against you. You’re viewed as a threat. 

I need to think. I need to talk to him, but he’s turned around now and he’s still not looking at anyone. Maybe we shouldn’t have stayed out so late, but the more we talk the more we have to say. We’d only been asleep a couple of hours before he was waking me up and taking me spearfishing.

Between dives this morning, Joshua told me about a guy he worked with once, out in Arizona, who lived in the desert because he was afraid of some watery abyss:

‘You know, eighty percent of all life on this planet is under the ocean,’ he said, his flecked eyes boring into me under the sun. ‘The world’s biggest waterfall, the biggest mountain range...’

‘Yup. And there’s more historical stuff down there - more planes and boats and secrets than in all the museums in all the world,’ I said, remembering my facts from school. ‘We know more about space than the sea,’ and he grinned. I could tell he was struggling not to kiss me and I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t kind of thrilling, being desired yet unattainable at the same time.

‘True. But this guy was terrified, seriously terrified that some alien force is going to come out of the ocean someday. I helped him build a bunker, so he’d be safe.’

‘I kind of want to meet this guy,’ I told him.

‘No you don’t, he’s crazy.’

‘Why were you there?’ I asked him.

‘I had nowhere else to be,’ he said.

I feel my pulse race again. Shan’s right, Joshua’s a dark horse for sure. For all he says to me now when we’re alone, there’s so much he’s not saying in front of them and it’s pissing people off. But there’s something that’s hurting him; I can’t get it out of my head. Joshua told us how Mike was defensive ‘cause of his fears, but I’m guessing at times he’s exactly the same. Whatever made him speak up against Stephanie’s beliefs stems from something he’s struggling with, alone.

I look on as he strokes the excess sand off the fish with his fingers carefully, stares out to the horizon. Maybe I’ll never know what’s haunting Joshua. What if he does get voted out next? The thought sends a bolt of dread through my core but I force my head back on straight, tear my eyes away from his body. I can hear Chloe’s voice in my head, telling me I need to pull my shit together. I have to stay sharp.

Another shriek. Mia’s yelling now. ‘Alyssa! Alyssa, come here!’

I’m pulled from my thoughts, back to the moment. The sand burns my feet as I dart back down the beach towards the cooking area with Stephanie, Journey and Joshua on my heels.

‘Where’s the rice? Who took the rice?’ she says when I reach her. She’s looking flustered, giant breasts drooping in her sea green swimsuit as she lifts pots and pans and ducks behind trees in search of the sacks that were stacked here, but now aren’t.

I spin around. Joshua’s looking at me in confusion, placing the fish on some banana leaves. ‘Where was the rice last night?’ he says. ‘After we cooked?’

Mia frowns at him. ‘We didn’t cook here last night, remember? We took the cold rice parcels to the waterfall?’

He shakes his head, stares blankly for a moment. I catch his eye but he looks away and starts helping her search. We all do, but after ten minutes of looking absolutely everywhere we all know they’ve gone. ‘Those bastards,’ Jaxx shouts, kicking a metal pot over in fury and making Punk jump. ‘They’ve taken it all to screw with us.’

‘We have fish,’ I say pointing to Joshua’s catch, but his eyes narrow at me.

‘Not enough,’ he says, just as Ed Bernstein’s voice blasts over the island. A helicopter is whirring above us in the blue and it throws us all into shadow.

‘Castaways,’ he bellows through a megaphone as we raise our heads, shielding our eyes from the bright sun. ‘You may have noticed your food supply has mysteriously disappeared.’

‘No shit,’ Jaxx scowls, kicking the sand in the air again, although the blades from the helicopter are throwing it everywhere now anyway.

‘You have the opportunity to win it back,’ Ed tells us, ‘but there will be a sacrifice.’

‘Oh… the chickens,’ Journey starts, her face crumbling through clouds of sand.

‘The goat,’ Joshua and I say at the same time.

‘The goat,’ Ed confirms from his place in the sky, ‘will be your main food source for three days, as well as anything else you can catch or make use of from the land. Don’t forget, guys and girls, in order to reclaim your original food supply, this sacrifice
must
be made. See you all tonight.’

With that, the helicopter shudders off over the trees and I turn to Joshua. ‘Why don’t they just let us kill the chickens?’ I say. I’m kind of shocked. This is a little much.

‘It’s not gruesome enough,’ Journey replies. ‘This is hideous! It’s just cruelty, making us kill more innocent creatures. This show is
sick
!’

‘This show is about
survival
,’ Joshua says. She glares at him and I step away from them both. He’s making it worse. Do I tell him they want him out? I have to tell him. I have to do something.