“Hey,” I replied, but avoided looking in his direction.
“You haven’t eaten today?”
“Not hungry,” I said quickly, kneeling down lower.
“I put a plate of food together for you and left it in the dining area . . . I’ve finished eating now, so you can go if you want.” The “I’m finished eating” statement lingered in the air between us with a whole chunk of subtext dangling off it. The subtext being he’d clearly noticed I didnotwant to be near him today, let alone look at him, because last night I had gotten way too drunk and had sexually tossed myself at him like croutons into a salad. And the worst part was that after tossing myself like a little sexual crouton, he’d batted me away as if playing pickle ball.(Oh, God, I really was soooo hungry!)
“Thanks,” I said curtly, and then waited for him to leave. I watched him out the corner of my eye and as soon as he was far enough away, I ran and threw myself into the dining area to inhale the plate of food. Sitting in a post-food glow, I realized I’d forgotten to arrange a game drive. I looked at my watch. The day was almost over, and I’d gone through everything I’d had to, so I went looking for the ranger.
“Hey, sorry, it totally slipped my mind earlier, but I was wondering if there was any possibility you could take me on a game drive this evening. I’d like to look at a potential shot of a watering hole?”
“No need to arrange anything. We’re leaving on a game drive in an hour,” Bongani said.
“You are?”
“Your partner wanted to go on one,” he replied.
“He’s not my partner . . . absolutelyNOT, at all.” I laughed awkwardly and quickly cut myself off when something dawned on me. “Wait, he’s going onthisdrive—the one in an hour?”
Bongani looked at me curiously and nodded.
“So, then, no time to organize another one, I suppose? Without Max, who is definitelynotmy partner?”
He gave me another strange look and shook his head. “Sorry, not with you leaving tomorrow.”
“Of course. Thank you. I’ll see you in an hour, then.”
I walked off towards my room, weighing it up. Seeing Max again, spending time with him in a game vehicle, ornotgetting the best possible shots for the client. In the end, my professionalism won.
CHAPTER 24
Max
The last place in the world Ash wanted to be was sitting next to me in a game vehicle and she was making this very clear with her body language. Leaning as far away as possible, she was practically hanging over the edge of the vehicle. But here we were. I could tell how embarrassed she was about last night; she hadn’t looked at me all day. It was written across her face, not to mention present in that tight, unnecessary throat-clearing she did from time to time, along with her constant fiddling with a loose piece of thread sticking up from her shorts.
I’d opened my mouth about ten times to say something, but closed it each time, since I had no idea what to actually say to her, or what to say about what had happened—or hadn’t happened—last night. I think the “hadn’t happened”was at the root of all this awkwardness if I knew Ash like I thought I did. But I couldn’t exactly tell her that pulling away from her had been one of the hardest things I’d ever done, and if circumstances had been different, if there had been no African Dreams, that I wouldnothave pulled away and she wouldnothave stood a chance. Her clothes would’ve been lying on the floor and I would have buried my face between her legs and made her come so hard she would have seen stars. But I wasn’t sure that level of detail would be helpful at this moment.
“Is this the watering hole you were talking about?” Bongani turned and asked Ash, pointing at the small dam in the distance. She checked a picture on her phone and then looked back up.
“Yes, that’s it. The one with the baobab tree.” The sun was setting and it was obvious why she wanted to see this place—it would make an amazing shot. Then she waved her phone around in the air and looked at it from various angles.
“I don’t have signal either,” I said, holding my phone up at her to confirm.
“The storm took out the cell-phone towers and also knocked out radio comms,” Bongani added.
Ash grabbed her camera and then jumped off the vehicle.
“Can we go closer?” she asked. “It would be better for the shot.”
Bongani nodded and started driving again, while Ash walked alongside the moving vehicle. Bongani drove slowly. The rain had turned the terrain into a thick, quicksand-like sludge.
“Oh my God!” Ash screamed through a wet, squelching sound, and I turned to see her leg sinking into a puddle of mud. She waved her arms around frantically, and without thinking, I jumped off the back of the vehicle and fought my way through the thick mud to reach her.
“Shit.” I grabbed on to a handful of grass to stop myself from going in any deeper. I’d watched too manyTVshows as a child where people had been sucked to their deaths in quicksand.
“Grab my arm,” I instructed, using the tuft of grass to pull myself out of the knee-high sludge.
She gave my arm the filthiest look, as if it stank. “I’m perfectly fine. I can get myself out of here, thanks.”
