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The friendly game of UNO had been traded for strip poker about an hour ago. I’d panicked about how to grab Neri and tie her up in the tent before she could flash everyone. But she surprised me in a good way by shaking her head and sitting the game out, sipping on a Sprite instead of a vodka mixer.
It didn’t mean I relaxed or stopped watching her every move, but I was grateful that despite her lies and reckless endangerment by agreeing to come out here with these older teens, that she was still the same sensible girl who would rather live in the sea than on land.
I’d caught her yawning twenty minutes ago and was insanely grateful when she disappeared into the tent, grabbed a plastic bag holding her toothbrush and night things, and walked across the dark-shrouded camp to the toilet block in the distance.
The urge to follow her had been vicious, but I’d forced myself to stay where I was.
The camp was safe enough.
The signs about dangerous wildlife and warnings to be crocwise in a rainforest full of crocs had hopefully instilled some common sense to be aware of her surroundings. She walked straight enough so she wasn’t drunk. And besides, she’d lived in this dangerous country all her life.
She knew far more than I did.
With her gone, I spied my opportunity to grab her birthday present so I could give it to her before another day passed.
I felt fucking awful last night for not buying her anything.
Last year, I’d settled with a heavy glass paperweight that looked as if it had a red and gold sea anemone trapped inside. It’d been one of the rare times I’d used the cash Jack and Anna paid me, doing my best to make up for the lack of a gift on her thirteenth.
But this year...this morning, when Jack dragged me to the huge department store that sold literally everything, piling a trolley high with things his daughter might need for safe camping, I’d snuck to the jewellery counter and looked at what they had.
I’d almost walked away before I saw it.
Saw the perfect present for the most perfect ocean-loving girl.
A girl who was the reason I was still alive and doing my damnedest to live a life my parents would be proud of.
Fisting the box, I ducked and stepped out of the tent.
I grunted as I ran straight into Rita.
Her arms flew toward me, her hands clamping around my waist as if keeping me upright when I was completely steady on my feet.
I’d only had two beers.
I’d ended up frying the eggs and hashbrowns when everyone else had become too tipsy to bother.
I’d somehow taken on the role of cleaner, cook, and guardian.
Not that that role was new to me.
Even at fifteen, I’d done my best for my sister and parents. Happily pulling my weight as we hid from death that stalked us.
Our eyes met, and I had the sneaky suspicion that it wasn’t me Rita was trying to hold up, but herself.
Stepping back a little, I broke her hold on me and shoved Neri’s present deep into my cargo pocket. I winced as the spikes of the spiny frog shell Neri had given me the night I’d saved her life warned that that pocket was already occupied.
“You off to bed too?” I asked, listening to the night chorus of bugs, birds, and whatever else lived in this damn jungle.
She hiccupped and licked her lips. She’d slipped into an oversized light pink hoodie and it slipped off her right shoulder, revealing she’d removed her bikini...or had it stripped off, thanks to losing at poker.
“Is that a proposition?” she asked. “I’d happily crawl into bed with you.”
My heart leapt but I locked my knees and tried to be as gentle and as polite as I could. My mother would have expected nothing less. “You’re a lovely girl, Rita, but—”
“Hey, we said we’d ask him together.” Molly growled, stepping from the darkness and linking her arm with Rita’s. She winked at me, swaying a little as alcohol affected her balance and judgement. The grey sweater dress she wore barely skimmed below her ass.
“Ask me what?” I asked, wariness colouring my tone.
Across the campsite, Joel, Gareth, and Hadleigh had dragged their sleeping bags into the back of Joel’s Ute. They chuckled and traded a bottle of bourbon between them.
Whatever this group of inebriated teens would do tonight was not my problem.
The moment Neri returned from brushing her teeth, I was shoving her inside the tent and zipping it up tight until morning.
The guys laughed again, pointing at something in the bush surrounding us.
They didn’t seem to care that the girls were with me, looking me up and down as if starving for a second meal.
“We wondered if you wanted to go to the beach with us.” Molly tripped forward, dark hair swinging, her eyes slightly glazed but also sharp with determination. “You don’t have to swim if you don’t want to. We actually have a much better idea than swimming.”
