Reckless (Wrecked) (20 page)

Jonathan disappeared below the surface as if he’d been yanked down by a lake monster, making Sarah’s breath catch in her throat.  But when Jonathan came up sputtering and Kevin appeared a moment later, laughing his butt off, she started breathing again. 
Idiots
.  She was sorely tempted to join them but wasn’t interested one bit in Kevin messing with her.

“Are you going in?” asked Candi.

“No.  I’ll put my feet in, maybe, but I’m not in the mood to deal with Kevin.  He’s on the warpath.”

They both watched as Jonathan tried to escape Kevin’s clutches, but failed.  He couldn’t get away fast enough and was pulled back into Kevin’s range by the ankles.  He yelled once, his scream getting cut off when Kevin pushed the top of his head below the surface.

Sarah was about to yell at her brother about harassing poor Jonathan, when a big arm came up out of the water from behind Kevin and put him in a choke hold.  Kevin disappeared underwater with Jonathan rising up over him, yelling, “Ah-haaaa!!  Take that, butthead!”

The next ten minutes were a battle back and forth between the two idiots, both of them trying to drown the other and claim superiority.  Eventually they gave up, doggy paddling over to the dock because they’d run out of energy to do anything else.  Candi helped drag Kevin out onto the dock and he helped Jonathan up after him.  They all laid on the sun-faded and slightly warped wood surface, the boys breathing heavily.

Sarah walked over and sat down, dipping her feet into the water. 
Wow, that does feel nice.

Candi sat up and scooted to the edge of the dock next to Sarah, putting her feet in too.  “Ooooh, that is scrumptious.  As soon as I’m done with the cleaning, I’m coming out here for a swim.”

“It’ll be too dark.  That place is a mess.”

“It would go faster if I had help,” she hinted.

Sarah sniffed, totally unconvinced.  “Maybe.  Ask Kevin to help.  He’s a neat freak.  You should see his room at home.”

“Cleaning’s woman’s work,” said Kevin, snickering.

Sarah raised an eyebrow.  “Someone wants to die, apparently.”  She twisted around to see what Candi was going to do.

Candi got up and went over to her boyfriend, putting her foot on his chest.  “You want to try that again, mister?”

He grabbed her ankle.  “Cleaning is woman’s work.”  He ran his hand up her leg, probably intending to tweak her butt, but Candi was too fast for him.

She grabbed his arm and yanked back as hard as she could, effectively flipping him over onto his stomach.

“Hey!” he yelled, sounding surprised.

She twisted his arm around behind him and yanked his hand up high towards his head, going down on her knee in the middle of his back, pressing it into his spine.  “One more time for good measure.”

“Oh, shit … no!  I give, I give!”

“Say,
cleaning is men’s work.
”

“Never!” he yelled, grunting as he tried to move, but stopping every time the pain hit him.

“Say it or the arm goes!”  Candi was grinning evilly down at him.

“You got three seconds to get off me, Shirley, or you’re going down.”  He put his free arm slowly up under his chest, and Sarah knew exactly what his plan was - but Candi didn’t because she was sitting at the wrong angle to see it.  Sarah said not a word, smiling as she waited for the inevitable.

“Cleaning is men’s work!  Say it!”

“Three!”

“Say it!”

“Two!”

“I’m not kidding!”

“One!”

Kevin launched himself up and to the side, a kamikaze dive into the water with Candi on his back.

The look on her face was classic.  Shock, surprise, anger …  Sarah was immediately seized with hysterical laughter, watching them go over in almost slow motion.

Candi struggled around in the pond, either trying to brain Kevin or hug him, Sarah wasn’t sure.  All she could see was a lot of bubbles and churning water.  Her stomach hurt from the laughing.

“You think that’s funny?” asked Jonathan, getting up off the dock and slowly coming towards her.

“Yeah, I do,” Sarah answered, more focused on Candi’s struggles than her boyfriend.

“A poor defenseless girl being forced into the water?” Jonathan stopped when he was in front of her.

“Move, you’re blocking my view.”

“Make me,” he said.

Sarah frowned, looking up at him.  The sun was so bright behind him, it was impossible to see his face.  “Say what?”

“You heard me.  Make me move.”

She loved the challenge in his voice and couldn’t help herself from rising to the occasion.  She reached out and slapped him on the calf.  “Move it or lose it, bud.”  She half expected him to just do it without a fuss.

“No hitting.”  He didn’t move an inch.

She pulled a couple of hairs out of his leg.  “How about that?  Is that allowed?”

He reached down and grabbed her under her arms, lifting her high in the air.  “No.  Leg-hair pulling is definitely
not
allowed.”

“Jonathan!” she screeched.  “Put me down!  Right this second!”

“Okaaaay, whatever you say,” he said gleefully, just before launching her through the air and into the water.

The shock of the cool water hitting her body took her breath away for a second.  And the exhilaration of her normally very compliant and non-aggressive boyfriend being the reason for it made her want to attack him - both with anger and passion.  She came to the surface ready to let him have it.  “Jonathan!” she screamed, looking around for him.  “I’m going to kill you, you idiot!  Where are you?”

All she could see was the dock.

“Jonathan?  Where are you?”  She spun around, but he wasn’t behind her.  The surface of the water only moved because of her.  “I’m not kidding, Jonathan.  Where are …”

The rest of her sentence was cut off when something unseen grabbed her by the ankles and pulled her completely under the water.

***

Candi and Kevin climbed up onto the dock in time to see Sarah surfacing next to a laughing Jonathan.

“You stupid jerk!” she yelled, splashing him in the face. “You scared the crap out of me!  I thought a sea monster was eating me!”

“A sea monster?” he laughed.  “We’re nearly eight hundred miles from the nearest salt water.  There’s no access from this pond to the ocean.”

“Shut up, turd-for-brains, you know what I meant.  Arrrghh!”  She swung her arms out widely, trying to drown him above water with her splashing.

Jonathan swam over to her, heedless of his own safety, wrapping his arms around his seriously cranky girlfriend.

“He’s brave,” said Kevin, softly.  “I wouldn’t go near that pond monster if it were me.”

Candi giggled.  “Me neither.  Let’s get out of here.”  As she waited for Kevin to gather his clothes, she watched her brother convince Sarah to give him a kiss and forgive him for trying to cool her off.  Candi couldn’t help but feel all warm inside at the love they shared for each other, even though they seemed to be no better matched as a couple right now than they had been before they’d really met -  before the cruise had wrecked their lives and thrown them together.

Kevin took her by the hand and led her to the cabin.  “What’s for dinner, chef?”

“Something from a can.  I can’t cook in a dirty kitchen.  I’ll work on cleaning it tonight with help from you guys, and then tomorrow I can get serious about making good food.”

“What’d I tell you about cleaning?” asked Kevin, laughter in his voice.

“That you’ll do as much of it as I tell you to do because you fear the consequences?”

“Exactly.”  He pulled her to his side, squeezing her close.  “And now, in exchange for the cleaning I know you’re going to force me to do all night against my will, I’m going to require that you take a shower.”

“No need to require it; I was going to do that anyway.”

“With me.”

“Yeah, right,” said Candi, her face getting warm over the idea of seeing him naked.  She hadn’t been with him in that way since they’d been marooned on an island together - and then only once.  She’d had a vague idea that maybe he’d been planning some sort of sexy event for after the prom, but she hadn’t let herself think too much about it; and then of course it had all become a moot point.

“I’m serious.”  They stepped up onto the porch, and Kevin stopped her from going inside, turning her so that they were face to face.  He leaned down and kissed her thoroughly, now making the rest of her go warm.

As his lips moved against hers and his tongue invaded her mouth, a shower with him in it was sounding more and more like a good idea; and then when he reached down and squeezed her rear end, pushing their hips together, she decided it was a perfect plan.  “Okay,” she said against his mouth, “but no sex.”

Kevin smiled devilishly, pulling away.  “We’ll negotiate that in just a couple minutes.  I’ll meet you in there.”  He jumped down the entire staircase to the ground and jogged over to the trunk of the car.

Candi went into the cabin, headed for the bathroom at top speed, nervous about what was going to happen.  She wondered if he was going to get not only the soap and shampoo they’d purchased, but also the monster-sized box of condoms that Jonathan had insisted on putting in the cart. 
“One teen pregnancy is more than enough, thank you very much,”
he’d said at the time.  Candi colored all over again with the memory, as she stripped off her wet clothes and stepped into the steaming shower.

Chapter Six

Settling In

JONATHAN AND SARAH DEBATED THE idea of sleeping outside on their first night to avoid the dust and other things that might be lurking unseen in the cabin, but the lure of a semi-comfortable mattress won out in the end.  Jonathan did his best to go outside and shake out all the sheets and blankets, trying to remove as much dust as possible, but they still spent a few minutes sneezing before finally falling into a deep sleep.  He woke up the next morning feeling somewhat refreshed but totally determined to make sure their second night in that room would be more pleasant.  Sarah was much more fun to be around when she’d had a good night’s sleep.

Jonathan crept out of the room as the first rays of the sun were coming into the windows.  He found Candi and Kevin busy cleaning out the cupboards in the kitchen.  “What’s going on, guys?”

Kevin’s voice came out muffled, his head buried in a cabinet.  “Candi refuses to make me pancakes until this place is clean.”  He came out of the small space and faced Jonathan.  “This is slave labor.  Blackmail.  Tell her to feed me.”

“Jonathan, grab that cloth and clean out those three cupboards over there,” said Candi, pointing to the other side of the kitchen, near the sink.

Jonathan sighed.  “Yes ma’am.”

“Oh, come on!” complained Kevin.  “Just like that, you cave?”

“You caved.  Why can’t I cave?” asked Jonathan, opening the first cabinet, dismayed to find bits of stuck-on grossness in the bottom of it.  There was even a mouse trap that hadn’t done anyone any good, long since having gone off without snaring anything.  He pulled it out gingerly, telling himself he was going to have to thoroughly disinfect not only the cabinet but his hands and arms when he was done.

Kevin smacked his towel on the ground with a snap.  “I caved because your sister has the power of the pootie over me.  What’s your excuse?”

Jonathan heard the distinct sound of a head being slapped.

“Ow!  What the heck was that for?  Did you see that, Jon?  Physical violence.  Add physical violence and intimidation to the charges against this woman.”

“I’m going to add pit bull attack to the list too, if you don’t shut up and finish your work,” she promised.  “I swear, you could have been done already if you’d just cleaned instead of complained.”

“Ha!  Xena’s too busy snoring and farting over there to bite me.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not.  Get cleaning.”

“Oh, hey now …
you
biting me?  Now that’s a different story.”  Kevin’s head went back into the cabinet.  “That sounds interesting.  I’m cleaning now!  Look!  I’m cleaning!”

Jonathan smiled as he returned to his work, scrubbing away at the stains.  He couldn’t imagine being stranded with anyone else out here in the middle of nowhere besides them.  The irony that they were going through nearly the same type of isolation as they had when their cruise ship went down was just overwhelming.  He knew that if he told this story to anyone who didn’t know their history, they’d never believe it.  The calculations of the odds of all of this happening again were too complicated right now.  His mind kept straying back to his conversation with Kevin about chess moves and staying ahead of the game with these bad guys who were probably after them.  It gave him an idea.

He pulled his head out of the now mostly-clean cabinet.  “Hey, guys?  I just thought of something.”

“What?” asked Candi.

“I know.  Let me guess …,” said Kevin.  “You’ve discovered the theory of relativity.”

“No, the theories of general relativity and special relativity were already introduced by Albert Einstein.  But technically, he didn’t
discover
these ideas, since they always existed and were never hidden, per se.  He just made the ideas clear for the first time.”

“Whatever, dude.  What did you want to tell us?” asked Kevin.

“Oh … yeah.”  Jonathan paused for a moment to gather his thoughts before continuing.  “I wanted to say that I think I know how we can get some messages to our parents without being figured out.”

Kevin got up off the floor and stood up, jogging in place.  “Talk to me, Goose.”  He shadow boxed a few punches, backing up so he wouldn’t hit Candi.

“Who’s Goose?” asked Jonathan.

Kevin sighed, halting his running and rubbing his stomach.  “Talk to me,
Jon
.  And hurry up.  Candi was just about to make me some pancakes.”

“Not until you finish!” she insisted, hands on her hips.

Kevin pointed down to his cabinet.  “I finished, harpy!  Look!”  He ducked out of her way, coming over to join Jonathan as she inspected.  “Tell us your grand plan, dude.”