“Good morning,” Tamsyn said, stretching her arms sleepily above her head.
Isla looked back just in time to see Tamsyn’s top lift up, exposing a smooth strip of stomach and the faint lines of her ribs. Her eyes lingered for a second too long. Two seconds too long. Long enough to notice one half of a heart tattoo sticking out from under her top. Which, frankly, was long enough.
Isla quickly snapped her head away and focused intently on an unremarkable rock sitting by her toe. When she looked up at the water again, Petra waggled her eyebrows at her.
Isla scowled.
Petra seemed unbothered. She flicked her toes and turned her attention to Tamsyn, who wandered toward the water’s edge. Isla tried her best not to look at Tamsyn’s legs. Really, she did. But no rock, or tree, or distant ridge could compete with the way Tamsyn’s calves curved under the morning sun.
“Morning to you too,” Petra said. “How did you sleep?”
“Amazing,” Tamsyn replied, folding herself in half to skim the water with her fingertips. Her braids tumbled toward the creek, dark as spilled ink, almost brushing the water’s surface. “But I do feel a little cheated out of my first night. I always imagined myOutlast Herdebut would involve more suffering.” Then she glanced at Isla through the gap between her legs and smiled so deliciously, so devilishly, Isla was convinced Tamsyn knew exactly what she had done last night.
The whole arm slung over Isla’s waist had to have been on purpose.
Isla didn’t smile back. She felt like she was being punished for lying. Which yes, she probably deserved it. If she’d known the reward was a teepee and a bed, which basically gave them enough privacy, she would’ve thrown the challenge.
“If you feel like you’re missing out, you can always give up your reward,” Isla suggested, not looking at Tamsyn, who straightened slowly, rolling her shoulders back. She’d take Barra’s snoring over Tamsyn’s closeness any day.
“I nominate myself,” Petra said, lifting her hand. “I have no problem sleeping on a soft mattress. Last time I played, our shelter was basically a shallow trench lined with branches and covered in a tarp we tied with rocks.” She reached back, squeezed her trapezius, and winced. “It took me six massage sessions to get the kinks out of my neck.”
Tamsyn laughed. “I’ll think about it.”
Once again, Isla considered giving up her side of the bed tonight and was just about to offer it to Petra—though the other contestants might see that as a favoring tactic to establish an alliance—when Janelle’s voice ripped through the clearing. “HELP! HELP ME!”
Her shout was so desperate and pathetic that Petra charged out of the water. Tamsyn too. Isla jumped up so fast that dust flew all around her. Just as Janelle was shouting again, the three of them were flying back toward camp.
“Get it away from me!” Janelle shouted. She was perched on top of a narrow sandstone ridge. Her toes were gripping the edge, and her arms were out, windmilling for balance. Her brown hair was tousled, and the cargo shorts she slept in were inside out. “Shoo! Shoo!”
At first, Isla couldn’t see what Janelle was talking about or trying to shoo away. But then Kendall walked over and squatted in front of the rock to look at something on the ground. The next moment, there was a bug sitting on her palm. A chunky-looking beetle with a long, thick snout and a bumpy brown body.
“It’s just a wattle pig weevil,” Kendall said, smiling. “They’re completely harmless.”
Isla walked over to get a better look. She wasn’t scared of bugs. Never had been. As a kid, she used to collect cockroaches in her insect habitat and proudly showed them off to the horrified neighborhood kids. Mallory used to call her Bug Girl, even in high school, but then it was more of a reference to her eyes, which were a little further apart than most.
“They feed on black wattle leaves,” Isla said, remembering what Tony had told them at the survival workshop the day before yesterday. “When they get scared, they often drop to the ground and play dead.” She reached a finger toward its back. But before she could touch it, the weevil tumbled off Kendall’s palm in what could only be described as a death-defying leap. Its little legs flailed before it landed with a soft thump on the dirt.
The weevil wasn’t anywhere near Janelle, but still she screamed a shrill, high-pitched sound that stabbed Isla’s eardrums. Then she jumped backward as if she’d been shot from a cannon.
Tamsyn, who Isla hadn’t realized was standing right behind her, let out a small, half-choked whimper. Isla turned to look at her over her shoulder and was surprised when she saw that Tamsyn’s eyes looked like they were about to pop out of her face. Not to mention her pupils were extremely dilated. If she didn’t know any better, she’d say Tamsyn was scared of bugs. But that didn’t make sense. Anyone who wore cowboy boots surely wasn’t undone by a little bug.
“Not a fan of bugs?” Isla asked. She almost laughed, but thought that would come off as insensitive. The camera crew was focused, and she wouldn’t want the viewers to think she wasn’t compassionate. Last season she’d come off as the villain. This season she wanted to be seen in a more angelic light, hence the daisies. An innocent flower, if there ever was one.
“Not usually,” Tamsyn said, brushing a hand down her leg. “But that thing is hideous.”
Isla shrugged. Everyone had their own opinion. “I think they’re kind of cute.”
Tamsyn’s brows scrunched. Then she cocked her head to the side and studied Isla for a minute, which made the air feel a lot thicker than it had been before. Then she said, “You really confuse me, Isla Stone.” Without another word, she turned and headed back to the teepee.
Once again, Isla caught herself staring at the woman’s backside. The woman’s effect on her was undeniable. Her heart shouldn’t race this fast. In fact, it shouldn’t race at all. Which was why tonight Isla was going to give up her space on the mattress inside the teepee and sleep somewhere else.
Chapter Six
Tamsyn was acutely aware of everything: the twisted shadows of the red gums looked silver in the waning moonlight, the prickly spinifex brushed against her ankles, the invisible spider webs stretched between branches, the yawning holes in the dirt, and the snakes she hoped were asleep.
Before coming onOutlast Her, Tamsyn had never once considered where the contestants ended up doing their business. She’d always imagined a makeshift bathroom, perhaps a shack of sorts housing a simple porcelain toilet and basin that the production team had erected somewhere unseen. Never a shower, now that would be unrealistic. Instead, she’d discovered Moon Pit. A surprisingly large, designated clearing, hidden behind two large banks of rock and obscured by scrub and large gum trees, where everyone deposited theircontributions.
Tamsyn’s first visit to Moon Pit had been uneventful, to say the least. Daytime was oddly reassuring. She could pick a patch of dirt far from any ant mounds or snakes playing hide and seek and manage the entire ordeal of going to the bathroom in the wilderness with a tiny semblance of dignity.
