11. Jensen

CHAPTER 11

JENSEN

A fter the turtles, nothing seems exciting anymore. Okay, that’s not exactly true. I am still overcome by the beauty of the natural world, but the turtles were an amazing sight, and nothing has beaten it so far.

Billie seems totally convinced that we’re going to get some sightings of some more birds this evening. But the evening is quickly turning into night and we haven’t seen anything in hours and hours — and I’m kind of getting hungry.

“Hey,” I whisper. “I want to go back.”

She shushes me with a glare.

“There’s nothing here,” I continue.

Her glare intensifies, her eyes blazing with the words shut up!

“Billie, come on. There’s nothing here and there isn’t going to be.”

“There might be,” she snaps quietly.

I bite my tongue from snapping anything in response. Instead, I just sigh and settle back down into the undergrowth. My legs are getting spiked by some weird plant, and my knees and back hurt. I shuffle to try and get more comfortable, and Billie glares at me again.

“Can you sit still?”

“Sorry,” I mutter and do my best to not move anymore.

Clearly, I don’t do well enough and my shuffling gets too much for her because she sighs, throws up her hands, and turns to me. “Okay, fine. Let’s go somewhere else.”

I sit up, my shoulders sagging in relief. “Thanks.”

“Nothing’s happening here — I’ll let you be right this one time. Let’s go stake out one of the turtle spots again, all right? You like the turtles, don’t you?”

“I’m not five, you know,” I grumble. “But yes, I do like the turtles.”

She gives me an I told you so look, then gets to her feet, offers me her hand, and drags me away. Our fingers almost interlock for a second, and the feeling of it makes me catch my breath. Embarrassed, I play the breathlessness off as a result of exertion, just in case she’s paying attention to me at all.

I don’t think she is, but it doesn’t hurt to be safe.

Billie told me after we saw the baby turtles that it was pretty unlikely that we’d see them again, but I begged her to let us try once more. She wasn’t happy at the idea, but I wasn’t happy at the idea of lying on the ground for hours waiting for nothing to happen.

Never mind that I technically never needed to come along at all.

We walk along the beach and go past the place where we hid out the other day. This time, Billie has a scheme to hide us behind a different bush in the hope that we might see something else.

This spot is slightly more secluded than the other one, and we have to squeeze into place together, our bodies bumping against each other, knees and elbows and hips.

I swallow hard, willing myself to pretend that it’s not that deep. We’re just friends hanging out, after all. A few days isn’t long enough to fall in love with someone.

Is it?

Before this, I would have taken that as a certainty. I should know — I’ve had more than enough flings to last me a lifetime. But with Billie… there’s something thumping away in my chest that feels far more than just superficial.

Yeah, she’s gorgeous, and smart, and funny, and maybe her not knowing who I am has something to do with it too, but I’ve never been with a girl as real as she is.

What do I know about love, though? I’ve never really loved anyone.

Once, I thought I did. When I was twenty-one, my high school sweetheart and I discussed getting married. I would have been so happy with her, but her dowry wouldn’t have been enough, and despite how modern the royal family might pretend to be these days, she was still a commoner. In my parents’ eyes, she wasn’t good enough. Her parents had no titles. She wasn’t an heiress or due to inherit a fortune.

Our relationship had been fine during school, they had said. They had even been glad that it kept me out of trouble, by and large. She had been so sensible compared to me, and she had stopped me being rash and stupid.

But it could have gone no further than it did. I had been told that in no uncertain terms, so Clara and I had broken up a few months later, and I had never seen her again.

And that’s when I turned into the man I’m reputed to be today. I spent the next four years of my life going wild, partying and being as outrageous as I possibly could. I don’t need a psychologist to tell me what the motivation for that was.

I haven’t thought about Clara in years. I wonder if she’s happy now. Maybe she’s married. Maybe she’s not. I don’t really have a way of knowing.

No doubt my parents wouldn’t be happy to see me consorting with Billie, either. Not that we’re consorting really — not anywhere except inside my head, anyway. Yes, we’re lying incredibly close to each other, and my mind is running to places it shouldn’t, but none of this has to mean anything.

I don’t have to think about the heat of her body as it presses against mine.

Despite how real this feels in my head, Billie would never be an acceptable match for me. We could never go further than this, in reality. And the worst part is that just makes me want her more.

She keeps her eyes fixed on the horizon, and I keep mine fixed on her: the gentle curve of her chin, the way her blond hair falls around her face and she keeps pushing it back behind her ear with a frown.

I let my eyes linger on her plush lips, noticing the way they’re slightly chapped from the salt air, and betray myself by wondering what they would feel like pressed against my skin.

And I’m thinking about this now, so I might as well finish the thought and then put it away forever.

What’s more, it’s hot on the island and she’s been wearing a lot of T-shirts and tank tops, and her breasts aren’t exactly small. I’ve tried my best not to notice them, but they’re perfectly formed — round and firm and soft-looking, and the shirts she wears do nothing but complement them, giving her just the right amount of cleavage.

A little fantasy of seeing her naked can’t hurt — right?

It’s only weird if I act on it. What’s inside my head can’t hurt her unless she knows about it.

It can hurt me, though.

The more I dwell on this, the more I want it. God, why am I doing this to myself?

I force myself to look back out into the ocean, but my mind is still firmly stuck on Billie. She has less than a week left on her permit. That means we have less than a week of being together.

After that, I’ll never see her again. Somehow that thought makes me ache even more than anything else. Attraction can be fleeting. It could vanish overnight and that wouldn’t bother me, much.

But the bonds we’re forming? This strange, easy friendship? I wish this could be forever.

We lie behind the bush for a while, and this time it’s Billie’s turn to get bored. She huffs a sigh as she sits up, then pushes herself to her feet. “This is a waste of time,” she says. “Let’s just go back.”

“Okay,” I say, jumping to my feet before she offers me her hand again.

I don’t think I can handle skin-to-skin contact again today. That doesn’t stop me looking longingly at her hand as we walk back, though.

I have to stop thinking like this before it really becomes a problem. It’s never going to happen anyway, because she clearly doesn’t feel like that towards me. She’s only just starting to warm up to me, to stop being irritated by everything I do. There’s no way she’s looking at me with attraction at all .

I’d take her looking at me even in friendship , though.

We get back to the cabin, and I excuse myself to my room. She gives me a funny look but doesn’t question me. No doubt, she’ll be glad for some alone time too.

What she doesn’t know is that I’m going to lie on my bed and feel sorry for myself. Today was a complete write-off. I didn’t get any turtles, and worse, I didn’t get Billie.

And I’m pretty sure I never will.