Page 44 of Uncharted

“Take a seat.” I close the door behind her.

“Sam?”

“You’re not—” Then I see what she’s looking at.

“Were you sleeping on the floor?”

“Yeah, until I hit the reef. It made getting up in the middle of the night to take star positions a heck of a lot easier.”

Haley puts her hand on the wall behind the bench. “Your cabin is on the other side; it’s like three steps away from here. It’s not like you were down in the primary’s cabin.”

“Yeah, I would never. It was fine. Penny liked it.”

“I imagine she did.” Haley cocks her head to the side.

I glance at where I had her picture taped on the bottom of the console. It’s in my room now, taped to my lamp. “Listen...” I step closer to her. “I took your picture from your cabin. I taped it up there. I talked to you. You kept me alive.”

There’s a knock on the starboard door. Zane’s there.

“Come in,” I grunt.

“Hey Little Bird. What’s it like to be back? Weird, right?”

“So weird. But shockingly, other than not having a working engine, I think the yacht was in worse shape when I first came on board.”

“What do you need, Zane?” I try to keep my tone light, but I’m not sure I succeed.

“I’ve talked to Calvin. He thinks it’s okay to use a few gallons of fresh water to rinse the worst of the mildew off the port-side. It must stay in the shade most of the day. I’m going to pressurize the tank, if that’s okay with you?”

“Sounds good. There’s a foot pump down by the tank. When I run out of rainwater, I’ve been doing the same thing.”

Zane stands there looking at Haley and then me. “I’ll do that, then I’m going to go help Calvin. He said he wants a few quiet minutes to really study things.”

“Good.” I cross my arms over my chest. That gives me more time to talk to Haley too.

“All right, I’m going to go do the thing.” Zane nods and backs out of the room. His eyes are glued to Haley.

When the door clicks shut, she blinks at me. “I bet Penny likes sleeping in your cabin better.”

“Oh, yeah. I suppose. Would you like to sit? Easton seemed really excited about that hard chair.”

“Sure, thanks.” She slides onto the back bench and sucks in her lower lip.

“I... I wanted to make sure you feel safe.”

Her head slumps forward, and I’m afraid I’ve been too direct. “Safe? Yeah, weird to say it. We’ve only had a roof over our heads for a night, and I feel safer than I ever have. More than safe.”

“Okay, it’s just... Did anything happen on the island?”

“Anything? Well, I guess lots of things happened. Zane and I were chased by a boar that wanted to eat us. But we ate it. I sprained my ankle trying to... fix something I shouldn’t have. We built a shelter, found a cat... Oh, there’s this amazing waterfall...” A blush rises up her neck, and now I’m having visions of what might have happened at said waterfall. Fuck, all night, that’s all I could think about. Them touching her. At first, I was furious. But the more I thought about it, the more fucking hard I got, until I had to take myself in my hand. Tonight’s going to be so much worse. I’m not sure I’ll be able to handle it.

There’s a thud on the starboard side, and Haley’s head swings to the opposite door. I should have chosen a room with fewer windows. There’s another knock, and this time it’s Easton.

“Hey, fuck, that was the most comfortable nap I’ve ever had.”

“Nap? It’s been like ten minutes,” Haley says.

“It was a great ten minutes, Firefly.”

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