“Rubbish,” Sinjin said.
“Exactly.”
“No, I just like saying rubbish better than saying garbage. Hotter. But you’re right, luv. They’re beasts in programming.” Sinjin tested the marshmallow’s temperature and, finding it satisfactory, fed it to Petra with his fingers. “Anyway, The Corporation was going to cancel us. So we thought, what could we do to really raise the stakes? I know! Let’s go rogue! Be real pirates. We thought we’d take a joyride in the boat, get a bit of press, jolt the ratings up again. Except when we got to the docks, we saw something we shouldn’t have.”
“What was that?” Adina said on a yawn.
“There were these blokes in black shirts. And they were unloading cargo from Corporation boats.” Sinjin’s face darkened. “Human cargo. Trafficking.”
“Whoa,” Shanti said.
“They saw us and started shooting! Do you have any idea what it’s like to be shot at? It’s nothing like in the movies, I can tell you that. It’s terrifying, and you feel like you’re going to soil your pants.”
“I did soil my pants,” George said. “Oh. I got new pants. No worries.”
Sinjin pointed a finger. “They would have killed the lot of us. Didn’t care who we were. So we sailed off and took our chances. It was like reality imitating reality TV, which is one meta more than I like. We disabled the radio so they couldn’t track us, hit a squall our second day out, and got blown off course. We’ve been on the run for two weeks now, trying to figure out what to do and how to survive at sea.”
“We’ve been trying to figure out how to survive, too,” Nicole said.
“It’s kind of a mixed-up, messed-up world we’re inheriting,” Shanti said. “When we get back, we should do something to change that.”
“Add that to Girl Con,” Adina said.
“What’s Girl Con?” Ahmed asked.
“It’s what we’re going to do instead of pageants,” Tiara explained.
“Ugh.” Adina pushed aside the bottle of rum. “No more rum. I’m sorry. We have to break up, rum. But we’ll still be friends.” Adina stifled a burp and made a face. “Or not.”
Duff stood and offered his hand. “Want to go for a walk on the beach? Fresh air would probably sober you up some.”
“I take umbrage at that, sir! I am not drunk.”43 Adina took a step and stumbled over her feet.
Duff helped her up. “I admire a girl who can use umbrage even when she’s not-drunk drunk.”
“Well, a little tipsy, maybe.”
Duff squeezed his thumb and forefinger together. “Maybe a little.”
“Walkies,” Adina said decisively.
Duff lit a torch and they walked along the curve of beach for some time, back and forth, until Adina’s head was not so rum-muddled. The tide sucked at the sand beneath their toes. The sea breeze was bracing. Stars glistened in the velvet dark beside a fat white moon.
“Hey! Did you see that?” She pointed in the direction of the volcano.
“What?” Duff said, following her finger.
“Over there, in the fog. I saw lights.”
For a split second, the fog pulsed with red light. “Yeah. That’s really weird. It’s like some kind of signal. Are you sure you’re the only people on this island?”
“We haven’t seen anybody else. But we haven’t explored all the way over there. It’s a long way.”
“Maybe it’s one of those towers that tries to make contact with deep space or track weather.”
“Except it’s not a tower. It’s a volcano. Volcanoes only do volcanoey things. And that” — she pointed to the distant point — “is not a volcanoey thing.”
“Yeah,” Duff said. “Weird.”
Adina gazed at Duff. His bare chest was an advertisement for living shirtless. Oh God. She was objectifying him. Reducing the sum of him to the hotness of his parts. She couldn’t help it.
He caught her staring and she looked away quickly.
“Can I ask you something? Why don’t you like me?” he asked.
“I-I never said that.”
“You didn’t have to.”
Adina stooped to pick up a shell. “I don’t not like you.”
“Thank you,” Duff said with mock seriousness. “I can’t tell you how much that sentence has restored my ego.”
Adina laughed. She palmed the shell. “It’s just, all the girls were losing their shit over you guys, and I just …” She tossed the shell back into the ocean. “I’m immune to the romantic pirate trope. Nothing personal.”
“Right. Romantic hero. Got it. And I’m hiding a deep and tragic wound which I mask with arrogant wit and pained grimaces?”
“Absolutely. Comes standard.”
Duff picked up a shell, too, and rubbed the sand from it. “What if that weren’t a lie?”
“Right,” Adina said, saluting him. “Moon’s high. Stars are out. Your deep and tragic wound, take one.” She clapped her hands together. “Action.”
Duff tossed the shell into the sea. “Never mind. Let’s head back.” “Wait!” Adina grabbed at Duffs arm. “What did I say?”
“You think I’m an a**hole.”
“What? No! I — I’m sorry. I’m not great at this.”
Duff rocked back on his heels, his hands in his pockets. “You do make it hard for a guy to open up.”
“I’m sorry,” Adina said. “Deep and tragic wound, take two. For real. How did you end up on this ship of fools?”
Duff walked in the tide and Adina kept pace. “It was my sister’s idea, actually. She thought I should audition for season four. She kept bugging me about it.”
“Wow. Your sister really wanted the PlayStation to herself, huh?”
“No. She died of leukemia.”
Adina closed her eyes briefly in embarrassment. “Oh God. I am so sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
“No, it’s not. That was such a jerky thing to say and —”
He held her hand and she felt the warmth in her toes. “Adina, it’s okay. Really.”
She nodded. “I’m sorry about your sister.”
“Thanks,” Duff said. He picked up a conch and wiped the sand from it. “Anyway, I went a little crazy after that. Ditching school. Breaking and entering. Me and some blokes I knew stole a car and ended up in jail. I was headed for nowhere good when I saw the casting call notice for season four. The producers were looking for a bad boy. I was looking for a way out of Newcastle.” He shrugged. “There you go. Deep and tragic wound explained.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Hey, do you fancy a swim with me?”
“What, now?”
“Why not?”
“Because …” And she couldn’t really think of a reason not to.
“Last one in’s a rotten egg,” he said. He shucked off his pants and shirt, and Adina, who had taken a life drawing class, Adina, who prided herself on her body comfort, that Adina blushed very hard. There was a world of difference between a body in the abstract and a body you desired, and Adina desired Duff’s body very much.
“The water’s bloody lovely,” he called, shaking the water from his hair.
“It’ll be fine,” Adina said to herself. She stripped down and eased into the waves. He was right. It was bloody lovely.
It is said that the moon is very powerful. It influences tides and weather. It has been worshipped and deified. Perhaps it was the moon that loosened the bindings on the night and the secret wounds held so close. For hours, Adina and Duff allowed the waves — also under the sway of the moon — to carry them as they talked easily about life, school, music, family. The rum lost its effect on Adina, and something more intoxicating took over.
“It’s just that my mom had been married five times. Five times!” Adina said. “And every time, she says, ‘This is The One, Deen. This is the guy I’ve been waiting for. My real life starts now.’ Except it doesn’t.” She let a tiny wave ripple her up and back down. “It’s so painful to watch. I just don’t want to be like that, you know?”
“I know. My dad played the field. Once he and my mom split up, I lived with him. He was always ‘the man’ and I idolized him. Always out with these beautiful women. Always a bespoke suit and a twenty for the guy at the door — and believe me, he knew all the guys at the door. Real flash.” Duff swam long, slow circles around Adina. “But after a while, I realized he couldn’t do it.”
“Couldn’t do what?”
“Couldn’t stick with anything — jobs, people, cities. It was a flaw in his design. In the end, he couldn’t even stick with me.” Duff ducked under the water for a moment. He came back up only to chin level. “He took a job overseas, put me in boarding school. We talk now and then. ‘How are things?’ ‘Fine.’ ‘Good to hear, good to hear. Got a girl?’ ‘Got five.’ ‘There’s a good man.’ It’s like spending hours opening up a perfectly wrapped package only to find there’s no present inside. Nothing but empty space.”
The moon was in a mood. She shined her full light on the water, and it seemed to Adina that nothing had ever been so beautiful, so clear: the night-gray sand, the sound of her friends’ laughter coming from down the beach, the warm press of water against her na**d body, and Duff, so near, so right. She liked him. She really, really liked him. He was gorgeous and funny with a sexy British accent and a killer smile and she didn’t care if it was like something out of a bad romance novel. How could she stop this undertow from pulling her out to sea? There had to be a flaw. A catch. There always was.
“Hey,” she said suddenly. “Do you like Feast for the Fishermen?”