Page 32 of A Not-So Holiday Paradise

I jerk awake all at once, my arms already pushing Molly away as the fragments of my dream linger.

“Beckett!” Molly says again. Her voice is close to my ear, like it was in that stupid dream, but there’s nothing sexy or seductive about it. I’d place this tone somewhere in “squawk” territory.

“Ow, Molly, my ear,” I groan, untangling my arms from around her.

“I have to pee, Beckett!” she yelps, pulling herself free and then bolting upright. “Like,sobad,” she says as she dances from foot to foot. “Where do I pee?”

“Outside,” I say, pointing in the vague direction of the door. “Obviously outside, Molly.”

“Outside,” she says breathlessly as she scrambles over the crates that surround us, stumbling her way to the door that’s still hanging slightly off its hinges. She throws it open and bolts outside, disappearing from view.

And I honestly couldn’t tell you why I start to laugh then. I truly don’t know. Maybe it’s that I’m feeling a little off-kilter after that dream, and Dream Molly juxtaposed with Morning Molly are so starkly different that all I can do is see the humor. I don’t know. Either way, some of the tension bleeds out of me as I shift on the hard ground, bringing one arm up behind my head.

Probably gonna need a lobotomy to get all memories of that dream out of my mind, but other than that, I feel oddly light this morning. I must have slept better than I thought.

Molly comes barreling back in two minutes later. “It’s still raining,” she says unnecessarily.

“Yeah,” I say, eyeing her damp hair and swimsuit. I push myself into sitting position before standing up. “I can see that.”

“Also,” she says. “I feel kind of awkward? Because I’m pretty sure I majorly invaded your personal space last night. Not to mention I was squashed right up against you.” Her hand moves up to play with the end of her braid as she speaks, her cheeks turning pink as she tries and fails to hold my gaze.

“Not a problem,” I say, because what else am I supposed to say? After that dream, I’m just gladIdidn’t try anything in my sleep. Molly’s limbs tangled up with mine were less offensive than she would have found my subconscious’s projections.

Nowthere’san intriguing thought, one that floods in before I can stop it. What would she think if she knew I’d dreamed about her? Would she be upset? Or would she like it, her cheeks turning the same pink as when she was up in that tree—

“Stop it!” I say to myself, swearing internally.

There’s silence for a second, punctuated only by the sound of rain coming from outside. Then Molly speaks. “Um. Sorry?” she says, giving me a confused look.

“Not you,” I say quickly, feeling like an idiot. “I was—not—not you. Sorry. Never mind.”

Why do I even speak? Life as a mute might be worth exploring.

Ugh. I’m being stupid. This is just Baby O’Malley—something inside me twinges uncomfortably at calling her that, but I force myself to repeat the term several times in my head, just to remind myself how off-limits she is—so it’s not like I need to impress her. It’s not like she’s someone whose opinion of me matters.

Yes. Exactly. Her opinion of me doesn’t concern me. She could think I’m the world’s biggest jerk and I wouldn’t care. I wouldn’t care at all.

Not one bit.

“So,” she says, the word gusting out of her as she stands in the middle of the hut, hands on her hips, looking around. “What now? What needs to happen so we can get out of here?”

“Preferably it would stop raining,” I say immediately, because I’ve already been thinking about this. “And we need to see if there was any damage to the boat.”

“Probably not. Right?” she says as she turns to me. “The damage to this little place was minimal, and it’s not nearly as sturdy as a speedboat.”

I shake my head. “It doesn’t necessarily work like that. The speedboat is out in the open, whereas the trees surrounding this hut probably provided a lot of protection where debris was concerned.”

“Hmm,” she says, biting her lower lip as she thinks. “Like eyelashes protect the eyes.”

I blink at the comparison. I hadn’t thought of it like that, but…“Yes,” I say. “Exactly.”

She nods. “All right. Let’s go check on the boat, then. I need to get off of this island.”

The following silence holds all the words she’s not saying: that she needs to get back to her medication, back to her family.

“But the seizures,” I say, rubbing the back of my neck. I sit on one of the crates. “Sorry to bring it up, but just so I can be prepared—they’re triggered by…”

“They happen when I’m in between sleep and awake,” she says promptly, coming to sit next to me. She’s short enough that her feet only skim the floor, while mine rest completely flat on the packed dirt.

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