Chapter 7

Noah put a hand over his exposed package—the natural response to having your clothes fall off in front of a total stranger on a clear blue day with a thousand miles of sky and sun all around you. He had the most adorable full-body blush.

Aw. So cute.

The guilty party slapped his hand over his own open mouth. Yes, he did it to mime shock. But he also did it in a vain attempt to hide his laughter.

He was still far too entertained by our unconventional attire. Or, in Noah"s case, lack of attire.

And his amusement was so not cute. Not even a little.

You"re lucky to be alive, buddy. If I thought you intentionally caused that wardrobe malfunction—if I thought there was even the most remote, distant, opposite-side-of-the-galaxy chance that you did this on purpose—I"d be kicking your ass halfway to the center of the Earth right about now.

"That wasn"t cool, dude," I said. "You know that, right? Don"t even pretend you don"t understand. That was totally fucking uncool what you just did."

He might not catch the words, but my tone came through loud and clear. The smile vanished, and he made more of an effort to look thoroughly sorry.

"Keep your shirt on, Slate," Noah said. "It was just a stupid accident." Forcing a pink-cheeked smile, he turned to catch the dude"s eye.

The gesture of forgiveness worked too well. He took it as a sign to cheerfully jump in to help Noah fix the toga.

The unintended consequence was they both bent over at the exact same moment.

Just in time to knock heads together.

Not hard, but hard enough for the straw hat to fall off. With a little help from the sea breezes starting to whip up, it bounced several yards along the beach.

Noah"s turn to be all apologies. "Sorry, sorry."

The other guy was probably saying the same thing. Only he was saying it in a language I couldn"t identify. Not English, Spanish, or French. Not Vietnamese or German.

Maybe nothing I"d ever heard.

Where were we? How did we get so far from home?

The poor dude had been in the process of grasping a handful of hem to help Noah pull his toga up. Now, turning to dart after his hat, he found a way to step hard on a corner of the drooping sheet.

Rrrrripppp!

Noah"s toga had just acquired an interesting new tear.

The poor guy looked from his hat to Noah"s ripped toga. If he"d had any hope of earning a tip before from these weirdos, he"d surrendered it.

"It"s OK," I said. "I"ll get the fucking hat."

Not waiting for him to understand, I dashed and scooped before the growing sea breezes could take it even farther down the shore.

He turned back to Noah, who gave him a gentle outward push. "No, really, it"s OK. You don"t have to help me. I can do this. I"m a big boy. I dress myself all by myself every day."

The strengthening breeze concerned me. So did certain puffy blue-gray clouds on the horizon. My earlier joke about the rainy season wasn"t necessarily funny.

"Here." I thrust the hat at the guy.

Already smiling again, he put it back on while nodding his thanks multiple times. In case the nods weren"t enough, he added a thumbs-up gesture.

I smiled, nodded, and thumbs-upped him back.

Bobblehead communication is very fucking primitive. How could I get him to understand that, no, we weren"t somehow pissed off at him, but, yes, we needed to blow the hell out of Dodge?

Would it do any good to hand this guy a written message?

Help! Am pressed into slavery in the fortune cookie factory. Send in SEAL Team Six.

I didn"t expect him to be able to read it. But maybe he"d get curious and give it to somebody who could.

Then again, maybe not.

Hard to scribble a message when I didn"t have anything to scribble with.

Noah"s golden body shifted beautifully as he fumbled to get his toga tugged and knotted back into place. The pillowcase of supplies was tangled up in the fabric, making the job harder.

A fine time to be ogling the boyfriend.

Boyfriend? Is that what he was?

I pushed the thought away. No time for that now.

A part of me wanted to help him.

Another part of me wanted to stand back and admire the show.

The stranger was more interested in adjusting his straw hat. Once he had it how he wanted it, he looked around for the backpack he"d dropped while feeding his feathered friends. Grinning triumphantly, he thrust it in my direction.

I didn"t need Microsoft Translator to know I was supposed to take it.

He wasn"t going to save us, but we"d saved him a long hike up the mountain.

Glad somebody was having a good day.

When you don"t have anything new to try, keep trying what already didn"t work.

"Look." I pronounced every word—every syllable—with painful precision. "SOS. That means save our ship, only we ain"t got a ship. Just us."

He smiled his usual uncomprehending smile. Nodded his usual nod.

"You"re going to send back help for us, right? You know we need to get out of here, right? Vacation"s over. We want to go home."

Still nodding and smiling, he began to ease the dugout into the water.

"Well, that went well." I turned to Noah.

He was finally decent again.

Too bad, if you ask me. If help wasn"t on the way, we weren"t in dire need of being decent.