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The world suddenly feels amazing. Even if it’s filled with ashes and anger.
The world withherin it.
We are sticky with sweat and lovemaking, grinding into each other, tongues lapping at each other like we can’t get enough.
I might be in over my head.
Callie might just need a good lay.
But this moment with her in my arms lets me dream.
46
CALLIE
I return to my bungalow,and Katura studies me up and down like I look different.
“How was your night, babe?” she asks with forced indifference as she gets dressed.
“I followed your advice,” I reply, changing into a different bikini and shorts. I want to save this lime green strawberry bikini—every time I look at it, I remember Kai’s hands on me.
I feel the ghost of him between my legs. The slight ache. The sweet soreness. I want to sit on his lap at breakfast. And I want everyone to see him wrap his arms around me.
I am insane. Needy? I don’t know. Aching for him? Definitely. It’s as if I had a taste of life-saving energy and now want all of it.
Sex is sex. Yet, there was so much more to it last night and this morning. My heart tightens at the thought.
I smile, fixing my hair, but other feelings start simmering inside me.
I am so fucking in love that the realization makes my eyes burn with tears.
I notice Katura’s half-smile. Her glances at me. There is no mockery in them. No condescendence as if she knows everything. There is curiosity and almost anticipation—like she wants me to tell her how it was.
Suddenly, I realize something—Katura has screwed plenty of guys and has done many crazy things. But she’s never been close to anyone. That’s where her indifference and nonchalance come from, and that fearlessness like she has nothing or no one to lose. She goes with the flow. Nothing ever anchored her to anyone. I have a feeling that when someone does, it will be a battle and the most glorious defeat. Or a win, however you look at it. I can’t even imagine the guy who will tame someone like Katura.
I feel like the night changed everything.
But it didn’t.
At breakfast, everyone is slow and grumpy. It’s small talk. Eyes, squinting at the horizon. Picking nails.
Kai brushes against me in line for food but doesn’t sit next to me. Is he supposed to? It’s not high school. Right.
And after breakfast, he walks off with Ty and Bo.
I feel stupid.
Ya-ya, Kristen, Maddy, and I walk to the closest stream in the forest, wash our clothes, and fill up the water jugs for the kitchen.
They move the thug from town to a spare half-done hut to get him away from everyone’s sight in the lounge. Maddy checks on him now and then. “He might not make it,” she says, but no one seems interested in the news.
Lunch is the same. Kai smiles down at his plate the entire time.
“Can we talk?” I ask after lunch.
“Anything you want, petal,” he says with that same smile that I can’t quite figure out.
We walk along the shore. It is early afternoon. Hot, sticky, but cloudy. The breeze is stronger today. I wonder if a storm is coming.
