Page 53 of Wrecked
“Soap.” I smile back at her, just as proud. “Looks like I’m not the only survivalist among us. Any weird hobbies you want to fess up to?”
She laughs as she enters the water. She drowns the roots and squeezes until they suds up. She hands me one and starts cleaning her body with the other.
“No fancy survival camping trips. I just have a wicked memory when I’m high.” She giggles, and I can’t help but laugh with her. This is the first time I’ve seen Ellie be…Ellie since I’ve come back into her life.
What happened to us is terrifying. It’s going to be a lot of work to survive until we are rescued. But for the first time since we crashed into the Atlantic, I am feeling confident that we are going to be okay.
CHAPTER 27
ELLIE (PRESENT)
We are not going to be okay.
I rub my arms up and down as I watch Nate try to create a spark for the hundredth time. He’s twisting a long wooden stick on top of a flat piece of bark, and I have no idea howthatis supposed to produce a fire. A chill sweeps down my body as the sweat from our earlier hike starts to cool against my skin. The temperature is beginning to drop as the sun sets beyond the horizon. We are back at the beach, far enough from the shoreline to avoid the tide. We gathered materials on our way back from the waterfall to make a shelter and a fire. Neither of which we currently have.
“Everything is too goddamn wet,” Nate grunts, his frustration evident.
“Can we lay them out to dry?” He flicks his eyes to mine, assessing the seriousness of that statement.
Iwasserious.
“If you want to wait five to seven business days for a fire, sure.” he scoffs as he rotates the wood with fast fingers, drilling a hole into the bark beneath it. The stick snaps in half.
“FUCK!” He stands up and whips the remaining half toward the ocean as he stomps away. He kicks the sand in front of him, causing the tiny crystal grains to fly up in the air before scattering back down to the ground. I watch as he bends down, supporting his elbows with his knees and cupping his face as he tries to get a hold of his emotions. I’ve never seen him this discouraged.
Nate usually exudes confidence. Even with the cards he was dealt, he would always talk about the future so optimistically as if the life he wanted was within grasp despite how shitty the world around him was. He never backed down, and I’ve never seen him falter.
Until now.
Right now, he looks defeated, and that scares me more than anything.
He walks back over to me, bending down to my sitting height. “We need to get some sort of shelter up while we still have light. Can you grab those yucca leaves and scrape the green leafy part from the fibers? We can use them as cordage.”
I nod, wanting to say something to comfort him, but he’s down the beach again before I have a chance. I grab a flat rock from the sand, then gather the yucca plants so I can get to work. Nate starts constructing the outline of our shelter out of bamboo and palm leaves.
An hour later, the sparse sunlight we’d been working under completely disappears. I am exhausted. My hands are dyed a yellowish green. My back is aching, and I am thirsty enough that the salty ocean water is starting to look appealing. The temperature outside feels like the frigid winter months even though I know it’s likely no colder than sixty degrees.
I stretch my arms over my head and try to work out the kink in my neck. I feel Nate coming up behind me without even turning my head. Strong hands grip my shoulders and massagethe tight muscles with expert fingers. His thumbs sweep up and down my neck, pushing deeper when he gets to my pressure points. His closed fist kneads along my shoulder blades, working the knots out of my upper back. I let out a soft moan, feeling the tension leave my body for the first time in hours. My chin drops, and I close my eyes as he works his magic. My chest pinches thinking about all the work he just did, yet he’s still putting me first. He always does. I lean forward to stand up, letting his hands slide off of my shoulders with the movement.
“Sit,” I demand. Nate arches a brow, that sexy smirk forming as he looks at me. “Come on. Your turn. Sit.”
“As nice as that sounds, we don’t have time, baby. I need to get this shelter tied together.”
He bends down to kiss my cheek, then crosses the sand to pick up a pile of cordage. He offers me a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes before heading back to the bamboo structure. He’s made a teepee-style hut, tying the bamboo together at the top and digging the bottom into the earth to stabilize it. The outside is covered in palm leaves to block out the wind and hide us from predators.
The shelter stands near the edge of the jungle, far enough away from the ocean that the tide won’t sweep us away in the night. Nate claims having the shelter out in the open is an invitation for wildlife to come explore, but I’m having a tough time seeing how being in the jungle is any safer.
Nate reaches for the top of the structure, adding more of the fibrous ropes to ensure its steadiness. I watch as the defined muscles in his upper back flex when he ties palm leaves to the top of the shelter, like an overarching roof. The toned muscles of his biceps bulge, straining against the fabric of his t-shirt and showcasing his impressive physique. He was always in good shape, having to stay in top quarterback condition helped with that. But now, he is much broader, filled out in all the rightplaces. His upper back and shoulders are defined with powerful muscles that taper their way down to his trim waist. His body is built in a way that confirms the boy I once loved…is now a man.
A sexy, gorgeous man.
A quiet drizzle descends from the clouds and interrupts my ogling. The slight chill I’ve been battling turns into full-fledged shivering. Nate runs over to me from where he was putting the final additions on the shelter.
“Come on, Pip. We need to get you out of the rain.” He reaches for my hand, the worry in his eyes plain as day.
“Is the shelter going to hold if there is a storm?” I ask, not really wanting the answer. Ignorance is bliss, right?
“Probably not.” He sighs. “But we are a little more protected under the canopy of trees, so that will help. I don’t see any storm clouds in the distance, so we should be okay.”
