Total pages in book: 56
Estimated words: 54110 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 271(@200wpm)___ 216(@250wpm)___ 180(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 54110 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 271(@200wpm)___ 216(@250wpm)___ 180(@300wpm)
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 saved them just in case. He hadn’t really thought they would ever need them.
“There’s still a chance,” Logan heard himself say, putting the seeds back. “Even if they stop searching for us, maybe some ship will pass close enough to see us.” His words sounded unconvincing, even to his own ears. In the three weeks they’d been stuck there, they hadn’t seen a single ship, not even from a distance. The island was clearly away from usual ship routes.
Andrew’s jaw clenched. He gave a clipped nod and averted his gaze.
It was the first time Andrew didn’t take his blanket to sleep at the other end of the island. He stretched out just a few feet away and closed his eyes.
After extinguishing the fire, Logan lay down on his own blanket. Shoving his pillow under his head, he gazed at the night sky. The stars glittered prettily overhead, and he thought about how deceiving some impressions were. The stars were billions of miles apart from each other, no matter how close they appeared in the sky.
He couldn’t fall asleep for a long time, and he knew Andrew wasn’t asleep, either.
Neither of them said anything.
There was nothing to say.
No one is coming, right?
He would plant the seeds tomorrow.
Chapter 5
Logan snapped his eyes open and stared into the darkness, unsure what had woken him up.
There. A sniffle, muffled but audible.
Logan closed his eyes and tried to ignore it. It was none of his business. It wasn’t his job to comfort the guy.
Another sniffle.
“Shut up,” Logan said with a sigh.
Silence.
“Fuck you,” Andrew said finally, but his voice sounded too thick to be convincing. Small. He sounded small.
Logan opened his eyes again, suppressing the urge to swear. He was not in the mood to deal with this. He just wanted to sleep. He wanted Andrew to keep acting like the bigoted little shit he was, not sound like he needed a hug.
“Why are you crying?” Logan said. His voice didn’t come out as annoyed as he thought he was.
There was a long silence.
His eyelids started becoming heavier again by the time Andrew spoke.
“Do you have anyone missing you back home?”
Logan stared at the stars overhead. “I have a mother and two younger sisters. Dozens of annoying but well-meaning cousins. Friends.” He hesitated before asking, “You?”
Andrew didn’t answer.
***
It became something of a habit.
Suddenly, Andrew wanted to talk. It never happened during the day, only under the cover of the night. He asked about Logan’s family, about where he’d gone to school, what he did for a living—
“Really? You don’t look like a hotel owner.”
Strictly speaking, it was a hotel chain rather than a hotel, but Logan didn’t correct him. “What’s with the sudden interest?”