Page 36 of A Not-So Holiday Paradise

“You know exactly what I mean,” I say as my eyes drop to her lips. “Stop looking at me like you want to kiss me.” I can’t believe I’m saying this, can’t believe I’m actually acknowledging what’s happening here, but it’s undeniable.

And it needs to stop,now.

I remove my hands from her shoulders as though I’ve been burned; I scramble backward, stumbling over my own feet as I go. Then, with absolutely no dignity left to speak of, I all but hurl myself out the door and into the rainy morning.

* * *

When Molly emergesfrom the hut some fifteen minutes later, I’m feeling pretty proud of myself.

I don’t look like a man whose best friend’s little sister was about to kiss him. Idefinitelydon’t look like a man who would have kissed her back.

I look calm. Cool. Like a master of rainwater collection as I drop purification tablets into our containers of drinking water.

Is my heart back to normal? No. Not yet. Mostly because I keep remembering the look in her eyes, and my pulse spikes all over again. But from the outside, I’m pretty confident she won’t know the difference.

For her part, Molly looks completely unfazed. In fact, it seems a little unfair. She’s not blushing as she approaches me; her expression isn’t sheepish or embarrassed or concerned in any way about what almost happened between us.

Nope; Molly O’Malley looks like this is just another day in paradise.

“So we can drink that?” she says, pointing at the large plastic container that’s brimming with water.

“Yes,” I say with a nod. If she’s going to act like nothing happened, I’ll do the same. “There was a bottle of water purification tablets in there”—I jerk my head at the hut behind us—“but even if there hadn’t been, it would most likely still be fine.”

“Excellent,” Molly says, her eyes shining with anticipation as she eyes the water. “I’m crazy thirsty.”

“Drink,” I say with another nod. “Take a lot; as much as you want.”

She looks at me, her eyebrows jumping briefly with surprise before her face smooths out again. “Are you not having any?”

“I will in a minute. I just need to check a few other things,” I say, stalling. Logically my mind knows that there’s more than enough water for both of us here, but I’m still going to wait for her to be done. I do my best to tell myself this isn’t weird; I just want to make sure she gets enough to drink. That’s a normal thing friends do.

Very normal. Very friendly. Not weirdly overprotective.

Molly removes her canteen from her backpack and upends it, dumping the contents onto the muddy ground. Some sort of soda spills out, and I shake my head, sighing. Only Molly would have thought bringing soda rather than water was a good idea. I feel better as I watch her refill the flask, though.

“You got any food in there?” I say as I look at her bag. Last night we didn’t eat anything—which was stupid—but I think we both were so tired and drained that it just didn’t even register. Now, though, my stomach is twisting, collapsing in on itself like a dying star.

“I do,” she says, screwing the lid back on her bottle, “and you’re welcome to any of it, but it’s not going to be very filling.” I watch as she tilts her head back and begins gulping down great mouthfuls of water. Her throat bobs as she drinks, a strangely hypnotizing sight, and I have to tear my eyes away so I can focus.

“Can I get it out?” I say, turning my gaze back to the bag.

She gives me a thumbs up as she continues to guzzle water, which I take as a yes. So I step toward her and reach down, picking up the bag and then beginning to dig. I move past a few bottles and tubes of sprays and lotions before finding a small plastic container that looks promising, as well as a freezer bag with granola bars. One glance inside the plastic box reveals a bunch of little cookies, probably baked by Mrs. O’Malley, and I grab a shortbread Christmas tree before fastening the lid back in place. Then I move to the freezer bag of granola bars and pull two of them out.

“Here,” I say, passing one to Molly.

She takes it but wrinkles her nose as she looks at it, holding it with two fingers like it’s contaminated. “I don’t even like these,” she says. “I just wanted to make myself feel better about bringing cookies.”

“Eat it anyway if you want to keep up any kind of strength,” I advise. “Then we can get going, if you’re ready.” The rain is starting to slow down, which is promising; if the boat is in okay shape, we might be able to get back to the main island this morning.

“I’m more than ready,” she says, and I just nod; I understand the feeling.

We finish eating and drinking, and even though we’re scarfing our food down, it still feels like we’re moving too slowly; every second that ticks by adds another pound to the weight of anxiety I’m carrying. I try not to let Molly see my thoughts churning in my head—thoughts of seizures and sleep deprivation and the medication she doesn’t have—and she doesn’t give any indication that she notices. But if there’s one thing I’m sure of, it’s that people, myself included, probably don’t give that brain of hers enough credit.

So who knows? She could be essentially reading my mind at this very moment, and I likely wouldn’t know the difference.

I try not to think about that.

It takes us a bit to get from the hut back to the boat when we’ve finished our makeshift breakfast, and it takes me a full hour of inspecting the speedboat before I’m finally convinced it’s in good enough shape to get us out of here. I’m glad I had the presence of mind to cover it before Molly and I left the beach yesterday, because I think that’s what’s saved us. There’s a crack in the glass windshield that I don’t remember seeing before, but the cover prevented the interior from sustaining much in the way of water damage—including damage to the in-board engine.

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