Page 74 of Uncharted

“Let’s get him to bed. Zane, how’s it going?” Sam calls down to the swim platform.

“Coming up now.” Zane takes the stairs two at a time.

We’re gathered around Green like a family at a hospital bedside, all of us staring and no one saying anything.

“How are we going to get him to a bed?” Haley runs her fingers around Calvin’s knee.

“You know, I helped a boxer friend of mine hide one of his passed-out teammates from their coaches. We rolled him onto a blanket and carried it like a giant sling.” I leave out the part where we dropped him—twice. Hard, once, on his head. Come to think of it, I was drunk then too.

“We could put this back under him.” Haley lifts the discarded lounge chair cover from the deck.

“I never understood how the nurses in the hospital could change the sheets with someone still laying on the bed. Let’s move him over,” I say. The cover on the lounger next to Calvin is still in place, and I push it next to him, lifting his limp arm out of the way. Then I try to lift his shoulders. He’s like a rock. “Yeah, this is going to take all of us.” I stare at Dante, who’s sitting at the table, staring at the seagulls swarming the cliff of the island. “Can you help?”

Dante grabs Calvin’s other shoulder. Zane and Sam each grab a thigh.

“I’ll guide his feet,” Haley says. The white of the gauze catches my eye. It looks like a kindergartener set out to make a mummy. I hope for fuck’s sake that I did a better job on the inside.

“One, two...” Even with his size, we easily slide him over. I’m surprised we actually got him over without bashing his head.

Zane un-cinches the underside of the cover, and we each take a corner again. Sam and Zane are in the lead. We travel back through the main salon.

“Where are we going?” Zane slows at the sofa.

“Primary state room.” I’m hoping I don’t have to re-suture him tomorrow. “The light is better there.” The main salon where the sofas are has windows on one side and the study on the other.

Haley runs down to the cabin ahead of us. When we get there, she has the bedding pulled off. “Give me a second.” She gets a clean bottom sheet on, and we roll Calvin into bed.

“What the fuck?” He groggily wakes, but Haley’s got a blanket over him. He rolls onto his side and sighs.

“I’ll stay with him tonight. I don’t want him walking on his stitches.” Haley’s picking up things that she tossed onto the floor earlier.

“If you’re staying in here, Sassy, this is where I’m sleeping.” Dante sits on the side of the bed.

I stare at Calvin. It’s a big bed. But not big enough for six adults. My bedroom is down the corridor, but I’m not giving up a single night with Haley. Not a touch, not a minute, not even a sigh. “I should stay in here to watch Calvin.”

“Same,” Zane says.

The captain grips the headboard. “I’ve thought about sleeping down here before. The cross breeze will make it the coolest cabin below deck. But...”

“We can bring another bed in. This cabin is big enough for three king-sized beds,” Haley says. She takes off down the corridor to my cabin. “Let’s drag the mattress to the primary.”

Zane and I carry it back to the primary suite.

“Fuck no. I’m not sleeping on the floor if there’s a perfectly good bedframe down here,” Dante says. He walks out of the room, and I’m not sure why most of us follow, but we do. He turns into my old cabin. “That’s a good bedframe.”

“Then sleep down here,” Zane counters.

“I said I sleep where Sassy sleeps.” Dante pushes the mattress out of the way. “Only four bolts holding it to the wall. We move the mattress and the frame and make one huge bed.”

Zane drops to the floor. “I’ll get the ratchet set.”

“Good. Call me if you need help. I’ve got a galley to clean.” And Dante’s gone.

And that’s how we spend the next hour: sobering up and then fighting, pushing, and pulling the mattress to the primary cabin, following it up with the frame.

“Do you need help?” Haley asks. “I would have come down, but I didn’t want to leave Calvin alone.”

“No worries, Little Bird. There were lots of words you didn’t need to hear.”

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