Chapter 6

“LAND AHOY!”

The shout rang out, piercing through my sleepy haze and yanking me to consciousness with a jerk. For a minute, I had no idea what the words meant. Land ahoy? Like in pirate movies?

And then I sat up, blinking against the strong light filtering through the tiny porthole, and remembered where I was—aboard the Over Easy, sailing towards Ever After Island.

It wasn’t the real name obviously; that was an Indonesian name I couldn’t remember, though one of the producers had mentioned it. But Ever After Island was what the production team were calling the island—after the show’s tagline Who’ll get their happy ever after?

I looked reflexively for my phone, before remembering that I’d handed it in to Camille yesterday. Instead, I leaned over the side of the bunk and peered at the little digital clock embedded in the plastic molding above the inbuilt side table. 7:02 a.m. Craning farther, I could see Nico was still out like a light in the bunk below. He had been up late drinking with the other cast members, whereas I’d flaked out after supper, jet-lagged into exhaustion. Now I was fully awake, and I felt the first stirrings of proper excitement… and nerves. This adventure was suddenly becoming real.

“Nico,” I whispered, and then, when he didn’t move, “Nico, are you awake? They just said they can see land.”

Nico muttered something into his pillow that sounded like “Shallah down a mimma” and pulled the blanket over his head. I grinned, swung my legs over the side of the bunk, and ten minutes later I was showered, dressed, and up on deck, my wet hair still dripping down my back.

After the heat of yesterday, the air was refreshingly cool and clear, though I could feel a promise of fierceness to come in the sun’s warmth, even at this early hour. Below me, two crew members were scrubbing the decks and chatting away to each other in Indonesian, and in the distance was a little slip of land, edging closer moment by moment. All my London worries—my job, Professor Bianchi, how I was going to write up the paper without my laptop—they all felt very far away. I could worry about that when I got back. If I was going to lose my job anyway, did it really matter if I did the paper now or in a few weeks? I could write it up in the evenings if I had to. And God knows, I needed a holiday. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had a proper break.

I was leaning over the side, staring at the little island in the middle distance, when a voice sounded from behind me.

“Lyla, right?”

I swung round, putting a hand to my chest. Standing there, smiling, was the tanned, handsome face of the guy with the Mickey Mouse tattoo. I could remember his girlfriend’s name—Santana—it had stuck out to me for being unusual, but I couldn’t for the life of me remember his.

“Oh God, you scared me! I thought I was the only one up.” The name was hovering at the edge of my memory, then it came to me. “Dan, right?”

“Yup.” He came up alongside me, shading his eyes as he gazed out over the horizon. He had a light tenor voice and a faint northern accent, though I couldn’t place where. Liverpool, maybe. Or perhaps Manchester. It was so slight it was hard to tell. Standing next to him, I could tell that he bleached his hair—what had looked like sun streaks from a distance were clearly hairdresser highlights close-up. “So that’s it, huh. Home for the next however long we survive.”

“That’s it,” I echoed, following his gaze.

“Looked pretty sweet in the photographs,” Dan said. “I tried to check it out on Tripadvisor, but apparently the resort is brand-new—they haven’t even opened for business yet. Hope it lives up to the first impressions.”

“Unlike the boat, you mean?” I said dryly. Dan laughed at that, a surprised “Hah!” that bubbled out of him irrepressibly. He put his hand over his mouth and grinned, looking a little guilty.

“I take it you had one of the shit cabins as well, then?”

I nodded, then shrugged.

“I mean, I’m not complaining. It just didn’t really live up to… all this.” I waved my hand at the teak decking and gleaming polished handrails.

“Well, I am complaining,” Dan said. He tossed his head. “I don’t want to come over the diva so soon into production, and I know Santana and I aren’t exactly A-listers, but we are the talent. You’d think they’d give us something above the waterline at least. I bet that Connal guy got a suite.”

“Conor?” I was surprised. “How come?”

“Oh, he’s like best mates with Baz apparently. Dated his niece or something, that’s what my agent was telling me.”

“Best mates? They didn’t seem very matey yesterday,” I said doubtfully. And Zana was very definitely not Baz’s niece, so clearly something had happened there. Dan shrugged.

“I dunno. I’m just passing on what I’ve been told. Didn’t you think there was a definite sense of hierarchy at the meet and greet?”

I had to nod. There had been a feeling of that.

“Plus of course, he’s fit as a ferret, which certainly doesn’t hurt.” Dan sighed. He leaned over the rail, looking wistfully at the island, which was getting closer by the minute, close enough now to see the white sand edging the land. “I wish Elijah was here.”

“Who’s Elijah?”

“My boyfriend,” Dan said, and then slapped his hand over his mouth. “Fuck. I did not say that. You have to promise not to tell Baz!”

“Of course I won’t,” I said, puzzled. “But why does it matter?”

“Because we’re supposed to be a couple, me and Santana.”

“Wouldn’t they let you on with Elijah, then?”

Dan shrugged.

“I didn’t ask, mate. But I couldn’t see it happening. It fucks up the format, doesn’t it, if you’ve got a same-sex couple buggering up the maths? Love’s only for the heteros, apparently.”

“Well, that sucks,” I said slowly, but I could see that he was right. Love Island, The Bachelor, they were all relentlessly heteronormative.

“In some ways it makes it easier,” Dan said. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’d like to have had Elijah here, but I wouldn’t have enjoyed watching him play the field if I got eliminated—and vice versa, I don’t think he’d have enjoyed sitting at home watching me try to cop off with a load of hotties. But this way, he knows it’s all for show. I’m not going to be running off into the sunset with Santana. Not that she’s not fit, but I’m like a candy stick, me. If you snapped me in half, I’d have G-A-Y running all the way through, and Elijah knows that.”

“What about Santana?” I asked curiously. “Does she have a boyfriend?”

Dan shook his head.

“No, they broke up a few months ago. She’s been pretty depressed about it. That’s why I signed us up, in fact—I wanted to give her something fun to think about, you know? It’s a bit shit when the bloke you think you’re going to marry passes you up for a younger, skinnier model.” There was a silence while I tried to imagine who on earth could possibly be more gorgeous than Santana, then Dan said with a laugh, “We really do have matching tattoos though, that bit was true. How does your man feel about all this? Isn’t he jealous?”

“Nico?” I said, surprised. “I mean… no, I don’t think jealous exactly. I agree, the whole format’s a bit fucked-up. But like you said, it’s only for show. He knows I’m not here to meet anyone. Besides, I’m not planning on hanging around.”

“What d’you mean?”

“Well… keep it to yourself, but since you told me about Elijah… I only agreed to this to help Nico. I’ve got a job, and I’ve only got two weeks off. I’m going to have to try to flunk one of the early challenges. But… yeah, maybe don’t tell Baz that either. I think he wants us all to be cut-throat competitors.”

“Or hot to trot,” Dan said, and gave his bubbling laugh again, though this time it had a surprisingly dirty edge. “He’s probably filming us right now, with some caption about our growing bond.”

“Jesus!” I looked around, surprised. “You don’t really think that, do you?”

Dan shrugged.

“Maybe. Maybe not. But there’s a camera up there.” He pointed to a neat little white box mounted below the guard rail on the deck above. I hadn’t even noticed it before he’d said, but now I couldn’t tear my eyes away from it, from its little black eye, impassively reflecting the sparkle of the waves. Was it true? Were we being filmed right now?

I shivered, and resisted the childish urge to stick two fingers up at the camera, then turned my back to it, looking out to sea again.

“Well,” Dan said, stretching his arms behind his back as though working out kinks in his muscles, “I don’t know about you, but I’m going to make sure I’m packed. It doesn’t look like we’ll be much longer, and I want to make sure I’m first off the boat to get dibs on the best villa. Nice to meet you, Lyla.”

“Nice to meet you too,” I said, and watched as he made his way, a little unsteadily, along the deck towards the door that led to the cabins. I had been intending to follow, begin the work of getting our stuff together, but instead I turned back to the horizon, watching the island, Ever After Island, edging closer. It was almost hypnotic—the blue of the sea, the blue of the sky, the little slip of white sand in between, moving in time with the rise and fall of the boat.

Just a minute more, I told myself. Just a minute more alone, just me and the horizon.

Well, and the cameras.