It’s nearly dinnertime before anyone else comes on board.
I’m sitting on the deck, letting my legs dangle over the side, when Nico approaches.
“You doing okay?” he asks, squatting down next to me.
I’m not, actually. I still feel shaken up, which in turn makes me feel stupid and silly. Nico and Jake are right—the skull had probably been there since the forties, it was nothing to be creeped out about.
But the bigger issue is that once again, something bothered me—frightened me—and Nico gave exactly zero fucks.
“Just a weird day,” I say, and Nico sighs.
“This isn’t Maui or the Haleakala,” he says, running his hand through his hair. “It’s a little wilder, a little weirder here. That’s what makes it fun.”
“Yeah, stumbling over dead people, super fun,” I say, and he bumps my shoulder with his.
“Can you lighten up?”
He doesn’t sound mad or irritated, just a little frustrated, but I still hate it. It’s another one of those moments, those signs of the man he could have been—the man I sometimes worry he may actually be. I pull away from him, my fingers curling around the wooden edge of the boat.
“Why don’t you go talk to Amma?” I suggest. “She seemed to be as psyched about that skull as you were.”
He sits there for a moment, and I can tell that he can’t decide how best to handle this, how to handle me. If he should just leave it alone, or try to argue his way out of this.
In the end, he gives a muttered, “Whatever,” and heaves himself back to his feet. After a pause, I hear a splash, and when I twist to look over my shoulder, I see him swimming to the shore, his arms cutting smooth, sharp strokes through the sparkling water.
The sun is setting, and it’s turned the sky a brilliant array of colors, from purple to orange, to the cotton candy pink of the clouds. The only sound is birdsong and the lap of the waves against the hull, and I close my eyes.
Nico is right. This place is wild and weird, and that’s the appeal of it. It’s why Brittany and Amma wanted to come here, why Jake and Eliza chose it. For the adventure.
And isn’t that what I wanted?
Standing up, I glance back toward the Azure Sky. I can make out Jake and Eliza, puttering around the deck, and I know Brittany and Amma are still on the island. Nico has stopped swimming, treading water as he turns to look at me, and without letting myself think, I reach for the hem of my T-shirt, yanking it over my head. I shuck out of my shorts just as quickly, and then I’m diving into the ocean, naked and maybe just a little bit insane.
Nico’s laugh when I come up makes it worth it, though.
He swims over to me, our bare legs bumping and tangling as he leans forward to press a clumsy, salty kiss to my lips.
I wrap an arm around his shoulders, his skin slick against mine, and kiss him back.
“I’m sorry.” I breathe against his mouth when we part, and he smiles, bumps his forehead into mine.
“It’s okay, babe,” he says. “I know it’s a different way of living out here. But it’s good practice for when we take off, just the two of us.”
There’s a piercing whistle from the beach, and we turn in the water to see Brittany on the shore, laughing and giving us a thumbs-up. I laugh, too, sinking a little farther down into the water to cover my breasts, my boldness draining away now that things are okay with me and Nico.
Amma is next to Britt on the beach, her hands in her pockets.
I think about her shoulder against Nico’s, and the way that her hand had brushed his as she’d reached out to touch the skull.
Just a weird day, I think again.
Just a weird day.
THIRTEEN
That night we decide to hang out on the Azure Sky.
It feels cozy, the way you’d feel sitting around a campfire. The six of us are arranged on the deck, which is illuminated by little fairy lights that Eliza strung up, the boat gently rocking at anchor. Amma has plugged her phone into the speakers, and a low-key mix of acoustic coffeehouse stuff plays softly in the background.
Jake is on one of the low-seated chairs, Eliza on the deck between his legs, one arm draped over his thigh as he tells Nico about some boat race back in Sydney. Amma sits next to him, slowly peeling the label from her beer bottle.
Brittany kneels behind me, gently attempting to untangle my salt-and sea-ravaged hair, and I tip my head back to smile at her.
“No one has played with my hair since I was a kid,” I tell her.
“It’s totally selfishly motivated,” she replies. “You have the best hair on this boat, and it’s a crime to let it sit like this.”