not,” Tai says. “You can barely see. You’ll be a danger to yourself and I am not carrying you back here. Maybe later, when I get a better look at the terrain.”
“Then Lacey should go,” Richard says. “She knows the fauna here.” He adds in a low voice, “You obviously can’t be trusted around it.”
“I’m not leaving you,” Lacey says. “You’re still a bit dizzy from,” she gestures to his mangled face, “all this.”
“I’ll go!” I say, jumping to my feet.
Tai’s brows knit together. “You? Gilligan? I don’t think so.”
“Stop calling me Gilligan,” I tell him, following him as he walks back to camp. “I’m going with you.”
“Only if I can call you Gilligan,” he says, drinking from a bottle of water. He hands it to me. “And only if you don’t talk to me. I’m not really in the mood.”
“You’re never in the mood,” I tell him, taking a sip. “Thanks.” I eye the rest of the water supply. “We’re going to run low soon, aren’t we?”
He nods grimly, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “Another reason to head inland. This place is big enough, and the elevation over there high enough, to have a stream, maybe even a pond or a lake. Don’t know how long it will be until the next weather system passes through and gives us rain. Least if we find some water, we can use the purification tablets.”
“So what should I bring?”
He glances down at my flip flops. “Those won’t do. Wear your running shoes, or those water shoes I found your dildo in.”
“It’s a vibrator, not a dildo. A dildo doesn’t vibrate.”
“Don’t think you bought the waterproof version, Gingersnap.”
“I thought it was Gilligan.”
He waves me away and starts walking off into the jungle. I quickly shove my tennis shoes on, still soggy from having worn them the night of the wreck, and run after him. Squish, squish, squish.
With Tai leading the way, the jungle isn’t so bad. If there are any spiderwebs in the way, he deals with the brunt of them, and he deals with them a lot. To his credit, he doesn’t flinch or complain. The only thing that’s separating him from Michael Douglas in Romancing the Stone is a machete.
I’m sure Lacey and Richard would have a field day in this jungle, with all the different ferns, and trees with hanging vines and twisting bark, a million shades and shapes of green leaves. But for me, it’s all just one hot, sticky blur of vegetation. You can barely see the sky in places.
“How do we know how to get back?” I ask him, staring at his back, the way his shirt is sticking to his skin, the sweat at the nape of his neck.
“I have a compass, I’ll get us back,” he tells me without turning around. “How are you holding up back there?”
“I’m fine. Just hot. Sweaty. Tired. Have a crazy amount of chub rub happening.”
He stops in his tracks and I collide right into him.
“I’m sorry, what?” he asks, turning around. “Chub rub? Is that some wankfest innuendo?”
I laugh. “No, it’s when your thighs touch and it’s sweaty and well…friction happens. In other words, I shouldn’t have worn shorts.” I point at my legs.
“But then I wouldn’t be able to ogle you,” he says, totally deadpan, and turns around and starts walking again.
“Yeah right,” I mutter. “Where’s the ogling?”
He doesn’t say anything to that.
We keep walking.
And walking.
It’s not all horrible, there are a ton of colorful birds singing pretty little songs.
Pretty soon I’m humming a song of my own.
“Please stop that,” Tai says, still marching forward.
I hum it louder.
It’s the theme song to Gilligan’s Island.
“Can’t,” I tell him. “It’s stuck in my head.”
“Well, can you keep it in your head?”
Then he stops suddenly and shushes me.
“Don’t shush me,” I cry out.
“Listen,” he whispers harshly.
So I stop humming and listen.
I think I hear the sound of running water.
We both look at each other with wide, hopeful eyes.
Tai even manages a quick smile.
“Come on,” he says, leading the way, heading a little more to the left, and following the sound.
It’s not long until we come across the source.
It’s not just a stream, but a large pool of water, complete with a low waterfall on one end, and a stream running off on the other.
“Oh my god!” I gasp, wanting to cry tears of joy.
It’s beautiful, like something out of a movie. Cue the uplifting music.
The water is a deep blue-green and fairly clear where the sun splices