6. Billie

CHAPTER 6

BILLIE

T he second I wake up, I hear the rain. A full-blown rainstorm can only mean one thing: Jens and I are not leaving the cabin today.

It’s early still, and I lie in bed for a while, listening to the rain drumming on the roof. It’s such a pleasant sound, a gentle white noise that usually soothes me right back to sleep. Usually.

Today, I’m faced with the unpleasant reality that I have a useless man in the cabin who’s probably going to follow me around all day. Again.

If only telling him to go away didn’t feel so much like kicking a tiny dog.

I let myself lie in for just a little while longer, then drag myself up. As I walk past Jens’s room on the way to the kitchen, I hear the faintest sound of snoring coming from inside.

I guess I would be tired too if I had been shipwrecked.

Thankfully, the longer he’s asleep, the less time he’ll be spending bothering me. There’s no way I’m going to wake him up before he’s ready.

Breakfast on the island looks like toast and juice, every day. It’s not exciting, but it’s not too far from what I’d have at home. The fridge space here is so tiny that the orange juice is a special treat, and I try my best to make it last.

I take my time eating since it’s not like I’m in a hurry to get anywhere today. These rainstorms are heavy and can last days, and this one is probably the one that washed Jens up here.

The more I think about him, the more questions I have. Who is he?

After breakfast, I go through to the common area and pull my laptop out. I want to upload some of the pictures from my camera onto my hard drive.

One of the things I’m most terrified about in the whole world is losing all my data, so I make copies religiously. I put all my photos onto my hard drive, my backup thumb drive, and when I get home, I upload to the cloud too. I’d do it here, but the internet is nonexistent.

It’s not like I have anyone I actually want to speak to, anyway.

Before I came out here, I was emailing with a scientist who was very interested in my photos, but she’s happy to wait until I get back before we talk more. I’ve got some great shots of sea turtles that I think she’s going to love.

It’s the thing I like most about this job, though — the isolation. Not having to deal with anyone or anything except myself. I know it would drive some people mad, but it’s perfect for me.

I’m just brightening some of the colors on a few of my exotic-plant pictures when Jens wakes up. I grimace as I hear his door open and shut again, then bare feet slapping against the wood, and the bathroom door creaking shut.

Hopefully he’s smart enough to look in the cupboard under the sink to see if there’s a spare toothbrush. If he uses mine, I might actually kill him.

I busy myself on my laptop, selecting a photo that needs a lot of work so I can look like I’m deep in thought when he comes in.

When Jens walks into the common space, he looks like a completely different man. His hair is greasy and sticking up at strange angles from where he slept. There are bags under his eyes like he’s been tossing and turning all night, and the robe that’s draped over his shoulders engulfs him. It’s easily three sizes too big, but it was the best we could find at short notice.

Fortunately, there’s a box of spare clothes in one of the closets, along with some basic provisions for doing laundry, so he should at least be able to find something that fits him for the next few days. And if he has to wear clothes that he thinks are ugly, so be it. He’ll have to live with it.

I certainly don’t want him to walk around naked.

That thought leads to an unwelcome one. One which asks what his body looks like underneath the baggy pajama top.

Judging from what I saw of his arms yesterday, I imagine he has a well-toned chest, lightly defined abs, a taut stomach. I imagine strong shoulders and even stronger thighs, perfect and beautiful just like the rest of him. I let my eyes run along the line of his jawbone for a second then shake my head to snap out of it.

“Good morning!” he says brightly.

“Morning,” I throw back, not really in the mood for a full conversation.

“How did you sleep?” he asks.

“Fine.” Then, figuring I should be polite, I add, “How did you sleep?

He shrugs. “I’ve had better. Glad to have a bed, though.” He saunters over to me and peers over my shoulder, making my skin prickle uncomfortably. “What are you doing?”

“Backing up photos. Editing them. Nothing complicated,” I say. He gives me a confused frown, and I sigh. “I told you already, didn’t I? I’m a photographer. I take pictures and videos of rare wildlife, and I try to persuade people to like my work enough for them to pay for it.”

“How did you fall into a gig like that?” he asks, coming around the sofa to sit down next to me.

I shrug. “It just kind of happened. You know how it is. You end up doing one job as a teenager, realize you’re pretty good at it, then get paid a massive grant in your last year of high school, go on a fully funded trip to Antarctica when you graduate, then spend a few years getting involved with scientists and researchers who want pretty pictures taken by someone who knows what they’re doing. And then suddenly you have enough saved up that you can go freelance.”

He nods along with what I’m saying like job hunting is fresh information to him. My curiosity sparks again. “What do you do? For work or… I don’t know, whatever.”

His face draws into a distant blank, giving absolutely nothing away. “Charity work, mostly,” he says like it’s boring information. “I spend a lot of time representing charities.”

“That’s nice,” I say weakly, doing my best to sound interested even though this is well outside my knowledge zone. “What sort of charities?”

“Oh, anywhere that needs me,” he says, picking at his battered fingernails. I bet he spends a fortune on them usually.

Clearly he doesn’t want to talk about himself anymore, even though I’m dying to know, so I change the subject. “How’s your arm doing?”

“Fine, I think. It barely even hurts now.”

“Good.”

A long silence passes between us.

I have no idea what to say to him next. I don’t know anything about him. I don’t really want him here. And he doesn’t seem to want to tell me anything either.

He could be a worse guest, I suppose. At least he’s polite enough to say thank you, and his puppy-dog enthusiasm, though too much for me, is genuine enough not to be irritating.

I also can’t help but notice his posture. He sits completely straight on the sofa, his shoulders pushed back, his chin lifted ever so slightly. It gives him an air of complete confidence and a superiority that isn’t smug, but isn’t quiet. This is a guy who is used to having some power, but tries his best not to exert it.

I can’t work him out at all.

“What’s for breakfast, then? Please tell me nothing else from a can.”

I shrug. “I’ve got bread and jelly, cereal, long-life milk, granola bars, that kind of thing. Nothing of the quality you’re used to, I’m sure.”

He doesn’t comment on my attempt to lead him into telling me about himself, and I let it drop. He’ll tell me more when he’s ready to. Or maybe he won’t. I’m curious, but I don’t really care. Once these two weeks are up, I’m never going see this guy again. Why should it matter to me if I know anything about him?

“I think I’ll risk the cereal,” he says, looking around as if to find it. “Where is it?”

“Let me show you around the kitchen,” I say. I don’t need him bothering me at all hours because he can’t find stuff. Best to get that out of the way now. “You can take whatever you want; you don’t have to ask.”

He follows me through the cabin to the kitchen, which is only really big enough for one person to cook in — a stove, a tiny fridge, a bit of cabinet space. There’s a pantry too, though that’s pretty empty right now.

“There’s no particular order to where anything lives,” I say, gesturing around aimlessly. “You just have to look in all of the cupboards to find what you want.”

People are always coming and going from this place, and it goes for long stretches without being used at all, so it’s hard to keep any sort of system that makes sense. Just as soon as I get it the way I like it, someone will come along and totally rearrange everything.

“Cool,” Jens says absently, as if he wasn’t really listening, then starts rummaging in the cupboards.

“I’ll leave you to it, then,” I say, backing away towards the door and breathing a heavy sigh of relief when he doesn’t even glance in my direction as I go. Maybe he really will stay out of my way.

Unfortunately, I’m not that lucky.

I get about twenty peaceful minutes to myself, then Jens saunters back in and comes to stand behind me, peering over my shoulder to look at my pictures. It takes all my strength not to give in to the prickling in my fingers and slam the lid of my laptop shut.

“I think it’s really interesting,” he says suddenly. “All this stuff.”

“Do you?” I ask suspiciously.

“Yeah. Show me some of your photos!”

I twist my head around to look at him. I’m not sure why I expect him to be leading me on, but I’m surprised to see nothing but genuine interest in his eyes.

“Okay,” I say, still not entirely trusting, but patting the sofa next to me anyway in permission for him to come and sit down.

He does, and looks at me expectantly. “What have you been doing?”

“Well, this island has some of the rarest hummingbird species in the world, and I managed to find some of them the other day, which was awesome. Hang on, let me just…” I navigate through the files and pull up a couple of images of the tiny blue birds. The sight of them still makes my heart leap in delight.

“Oh,” Jens says. “That’s wonderful.” On most people, that tone would seem sarcastic, but I can tell he completely means it. His eyes widen as he takes the picture in, like it’s absorbing him completely.

“I’m particularly looking at birds on this trip,” I continue, flicking through some more photos. “The scientists I’m technically hired by are writing a paper all about the rarest bird species in the world, and most of these birds that I’m taking pictures of now — last time they were photographed was in the eighties or nineties, so the quality of the pictures isn’t that good. And some of these birds, I’m taking the first photos of maybe ever .”

“That’s a real privilege,” he says quietly. “You must feel really lucky.”

“I do,” I say, feeling myself softening. “I get to see some amazing things.”

“I bet.”

It’s against my better judgment, but I keep showing him photos, and he keeps showering me in flattery. I am good at what I do, but there are a hundred other wildlife photographers out there, and Jens is acting like he’s never seen a picture of a bird before.

But it’s nice to have someone show an interest in my work, and despite appearances, his interest seems completely genuine.

I haven’t had anyone care so much about my work in a long time.

Eventually there’s a lull in our conversation, one that feels like we’re both working out what to say next. “Hey,” Jens says suddenly, “would it be okay if I took a book off the shelf? I borrowed one yesterday when I was bored. I hope I was allowed to touch them.”

“Sure, no problem at all. It’s what they’re there for.” I smile.

Bookish, polite, bumbling. Every new fact makes him more of an enigma. There’s an intelligence in there, but it seems to be buried under layers and layers of performance.

“Can I ask you something else?”

“Shoot,” I say, my chest tightening. This had better not be something stupid. I’ve only just begun to find him tolerable.

“If it’s okay by you, I’d like to come with you next time you go out. To see you in action, I mean. I think it would be cool to see your work.”

“Do you?” I raise both eyebrows, dubious. “You realize it’s outside, don’t you? There’s bugs and dirt out there.”

He folds his arms like he’s accepting a challenge. “I can take it.”

“All right, then,” I say, surprising myself as much as him. “I suppose if you can be quiet and don’t distract me, you can tag along.”

“You don’t have to worry about me at all,” he smiles in a way that almost makes me believe him. “I promise I’ll make myself useful.”