Page 68 of Stuck in Paradise with You

I shrug, coming to stand by his side. ‘Shoot.’

‘Not here.’ He side-eyes Carrie. ‘When there’s just the two of us.’

So it is about Carrie. I need someone else’s thoughts on whatever is going on with me like a hole in the head. I’m confused enough without having to think about my boss, or my best friend, whichever capacity he wants to speak with me in.

As my boss, okay, if something happened between Carrie and me, it would be taboo. But not the end of the world. As my best friend, well, he had me hiding out here for almost a month when the shit really hit the fan last time, so, yeah, to spare his life disruption, he probably wants to caution against it.

Maybe it’s nothing to do with any of that and I’m imagining that it is because for the last four days, all my mind seems capable of doing is thinking about Carrie.

Carrie, Carrie, incredible, beautiful,annoying-as-hell, no good for me Carrie.

So instead of telling him not to worry, that I’ve got this, I know what I’m doing, I give him one curt nod.

Then that switch that so often flips in my chameleon friend flips. He bounces on the spot, then does knee-ups like he’s a football player about to go into a big game, claps his hands like a snapping crocodile and says, ‘All right, folks, that’s a wrap. Let’s head on back to the house.’ He starts walking up the hill, the sun setting behind the clouds, and despite the thickening sky, there’s a glow of orange, a hue of pink seeping into the murk. ‘Leave the truck down here. If it isn’t tied down, I don’t want it near the house.’

For the first time, I sense his nerves. This storm is going to be big. None of us know what to expect. Yet that isn’t what’s making me nervous.

I hang back as everyone else makes their way up the hill. Maybe it’s the storm; it’s heightening everything, upping the stakes. But I suddenly have an overwhelming sense that I can’t let the sun set on today without… I don’t know. Without something. Without speaking to Carrie one more time. Without being in front of her again, as close as we were by the truck, and finding out what would happen.Would she have leaned in? Would we have kissed?Maybe all I need is more answers to why, but something tells me that won’t satisfy the thunder rolling inside me.

‘Lost your legs, old boy?’ Joe calls back down to me. His words seem to remind my body how to perform the basic motion of putting one foot in front of the other.

Hands in my pockets, head down, I follow the group, wondering, if I had one question, what would I ask her?

If I had one action, what would I do?

Jesus, I’m a mess. But I don’t know which kind of mess: the way I was right before we got together, when nothing else in the world seemed to matter if I couldn’t kiss the neck I watched frommy desk each day, pull my fingers through her long red hair, feel her body against mine. Or the kind of mess I was when it all imploded.

Probably something between the two but I do know that my judgment is clouded, my vision blinkered, and I need to get her alone.

The hill flattens out to the pathway through the pods, heading toward the main house.

‘Chef has made Italiano, apparently,’ Joe says. ‘Very informal. All welcome.’

Food couldn’t be further from my mind, so thank fuck Carrie says, ‘I think I’m going to shower and change, Joe. Please don’t wait for me; I might make some calls.’

Joe nods. ‘It’s there if you want it.’

Carrie tapers off for her pod and I swear I could be hallucinating but if I’m not, she casts a look back across her shoulder in my direction. It’s subtle, barely there, but the way her gaze falls to her feet afterward makes me think it was real.

And she’s going in the shower?Kill me now. Put me out of my misery, because the thought of her naked under a hot waterfall is a form of slow and painful torture.

‘So that we’re all on the same page, I want everyone in the bunker before daylight breaks,’ Joe says. ‘That’s when the wind really starts to pick up.’

The others walk toward the main residence. Carrie has moved out of sight, her pod between us, and Joe hangs back.

‘Luke, is now good for that talk?’

‘Huh?’ His word pulls my mind to him, or the small part that’s willing to not focus on Carrie. ‘What talk?’

My feet are moving and they aren’t following the others. They aren’t even going to my own pod. I’m not sure what Joe says next but I tell him, ‘Later. There’s something I’ve got to do first.’

I think I hear him mutter, ‘Oh boy,’ but honestly, I couldn’t say anything for sure, except that I’m heading to Carrie’s pod.

My heart is jackhammering in my chest, my palms are sweating, my stomach is rotating like a jet in a flat spin.

Her door is open. She’s expecting me.

In the middle of the pod, she watches me approach, not at all perturbed, as if she knew I would. And she’s lifting up the hem of my hooded sweater.

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