stared at that hand for a moment. Finally, he accepted it and allowed Logan to pull him up to his feet.
His knees were shaky, and the world around him wasn’t quite in focus, but Logan caught him when he stumbled.
It felt symbolic, somehow.
Chapter 4
Days dragged by.
Logan had explored the small island completely, so now he had nothing to do but watch the empty horizon.
It was mind-numbingly boring. Back home, business kept him so busy that Logan had had little time for sleep, and he wasn’t used to doing nothing.
At least the other inhabitant of the island was providing a break from the boredom. After their confrontation on the beach, Andrew had been… better. The guy still mostly kept to himself, but at least he no longer walked around like a ghost. He no longer tried to provoke Logan into beating him up. He started eating with Logan, though he threw tantrums for some inane reason a few times a day before storming off to sulk like an overgrown child. Apparently it wasn’t enough that Andrew was a bigot; he was also a whiner. He whined and bitched about pretty much everything, but Logan didn’t mind. It was almost a relief. Confrontational was better than depressed. Not to mention that Andrew’s hissy fits were somewhat entertaining, and entertainment was sorely lacking on the island. Their laptops’ batteries had died ages ago, as did their phones and powerbanks, so Logan found himself growing increasingly restless, almost looking forward to the inevitable confrontation every day.
“I’m sick of fish,” Andrew said with resentment, looking at the fish on his plate. “It’s barely edible.”
Logan leaned against the palm trunk and picked at his fish. It was a little burned, as it always was. The fish were plentiful around the island but small and bony. And bland. “I’ve never claimed to be a culinary genius. I’m a businessman, not a boy scout. If you don’t like it, feel free to cook yourself. Feed yourself. An alien concept, isn’t it?”
Andrew shot him a baleful look, pouting fiercely. He was the only person of Logan’s acquaintance who managed to pout fiercely. It was bizarre. It also made him want to shove his cock into that pouty mouth, just to shut him up.
Right. Anyway.
“How old even are you?” Logan said. “You’d make a five-year-old proud with your tantrums.”
Andrew glared at him. “I’ll have you know I’m thirty-two.”
Logan stared at him, genuinely surprised. Andrew didn’t look like he was in his thirties. His skin still had the healthy glow of youth, perfect and smooth, not a wrinkle on his face. He looked great. Logan was annoyed with himself for even noticing it, but he was a healthy gay man with functional eyes, and Andrew was a very attractive guy, with a toned, surfer’s body, a handsome face, and plump, pretty lips that were practically begging for—
“You look younger,” Logan said, averting his gaze. “I thought your wife must have robbed the cradle.”
Andrew’s expression shuttered. “She’s—was eight years older than me,” he said, his voice toneless, and then walked away. Not sulking this time. Just sad.
***
It was the evening of their twenty-first day on the island when Andrew said, “No one is coming, right?”
Logan lifted his gaze from his fish—frankly, at this point, he was as sick of fish as Andrew was—and met the other man’s eyes.
They stared at each other over the fire as the crickets chirped in the night.
No one is coming.
That was something he’d been trying hard not to think about, but it was undeniable that it should have taken people less time to find them. Maybe something had gone wrong with the plane’s communication system and the search and rescue teams had no idea where to look. The Pacific Ocean was enormous, and who knew how much the storm had altered the plane’s flight path?
Or perhaps they had found the other part of the plane—it seemed as though the plane had been ripped apart high in the air. It was possible that the other wreckage had ended up a great distance from where they currently were and had already been found—and people had stopped searching, thinking them all dead.
Logan turned away from Andrew and walked to their dwindling supplies. His gaze stopped on the piece of cloth that held what he’d been carefully avoiding thinking about: the tomato seeds he’d saved from the sole tomato he’d grabbed from the plane.
He unwrapped the cloth and stared at the tiny seeds, his stomach twisted into an uncomfortable knot. He’d