by Lily Hayden
She flipped down the sun visor and checked her reflection in the tiny mirror, before pushing it back. She knew she was stalling, and she felt a twinge of irritation with herself. Slowly, she opened the door, planted her feet on the ground and rose to her full height. She drew in a deep breath and started to move her feet, one in front of the other, in the direction of Noah’s abandoned van and the jetty.
She could tell he wasn’t in the vehicle, but she skirted past it anyway on her way to the water. The boats the centre used were kept alongside the tourist centre, and there were people bustling around waiting for the next airboat trip. She recognised a friend of Noah’s, helping passengers aboard and she hung back, waiting to speak to him.
“You’ve just missed him.” He called over to Taylor, his eyes roaming over her body a little too obviously. “You wanna come for a ride?”
Taylor fought the urge to roll her eyes and instead shook her head politely.
He tugged his cap down over his wavy, dark hair and shrugged, turning back to his passengers, launching into his corny jokes as he started the tour. She watched the noisy vehicle disappear from sight and, with nothing to do except wait, she sank down onto a grassy mound.
It was late in the afternoon by now and the sun was high and hot. She’d left without her bag; no sun screen, no water, no phone and, unused to sitting idly, she soon began to grow uncomfortable and agitated. The dominant, practical side of her was already reeling off reasons why sitting here waiting for a man in the blazing heat was a dumb thing to do, and as she stared uselessly out at the swamp, she couldn’t help but agree.
The sensible thing to do would be to go back to the centre and get on with her job. Noah would have to come back or go home at some point. She started to rise to her feet, brushing down the back of her shorts as she did, when her eyes caught sight of the little boat bobbing behind a stationary airboat.
She knew straight away that it was “their” boat. There were two smaller boats that the centre used. Noah had taken the slightly bigger one and Taylor wondered, with a pang of sadness, whether he’d purposely bypassed the boat where they’d shared their magical moment.
A little shiver ran through her, goose-bumps rising over her flesh despite the fierce temperature, at the memory of Noah, shirtless, his muscles rippling as he moved over her body. She could almost feel the sheen of sweat covering their bodies and her heart ached as she remembered the tender look in his beautiful blue eyes. Her legs moved of their own accord over to the boat and she stepped in, lost in her thoughts, suddenly desperate to feel close to him once again.
She knew, in her heart, that Noah was different from the other men she had been with, and she knew that getting over him would be infinitely more difficult than getting over Deon had been. The difference, she realised with startling clarity, was that Deon had wounded her pride. Noah had touched a part of her soul that no one had touched before. She stroked the rope that bound the boat to the dock, the thin fibres reminding her of the soft, golden hair that covered Noah’s arms and chest. The urge to see him, just to be near him, was irresistible and she found herself unwinding the rope without fully thinking through what she was doing.
She’d ridden in the boat enough times over the last few weeks to have a basic understanding of how to operate it. She pushed off and tugged the ripcord before she had time to talk herself out of her crazy scheme.
The boat was easy to handle. Noah had told her that it was specifically purchased from the centre’s meagre funds for its simplicity to function. It meant that the staff and volunteers weren’t always waiting on an experienced deckhand to carry out everyday jobs. Although, Taylor grimaced at the thought, it wasn’t recommended that anyone go out alone. Living and working around the Everglades could make a person a little too relaxed about the dangers that lurked around every corner.
Still, she thought to herself as she swished her braids over one shoulder, clearing her vision to focus on the tricky first corner, she wouldn’t take any unnecessary risks. There was a tour group out here and Noah was floating around somewhere so she wasn’t alone on the water. The airboat had stopped up ahead and she could see the crowd of tourists, stood up, brandishing phones as they captured images of the gators bobbing, beady-eyed, at the surface. A few of the group turned to watch her as she passed.
Noah’s friend had cut the engine and he leaned on the safety railings, calling out to her.
“Hey! You meant to be out on your own?”
Taylor crossed her fingers behind her back and nodded confidently.
“Noah knows I’m coming.” She lied.
She could make out his deep frown, but he shrugged and turned back to his customers.
“Is that Corey Mitchell?” She heard a blonde teenager ask to her friend as they both turned to see who was passing.
Taylor cringed and tried to angle her body away from the group. Sometimes that happened but, thankfully, it was only ever kids who seemed to recognise the Insta set.
“No! It’s her sister!” She heard the other girl respond excitedly. “She’s the one who stole Venice’s boyfriend!”
“No way!” The other girl shook her head. “Why would she be here?”
“I’m sure it is!” Her friend insisted. “Just livestream it, in case.”
Their voices carried across the water and Taylor felt all eyes, and camera phones, turn to her. She tugged sharply on the motor, wishing the boat would hurry up but there was little that she could do to make it go any faster. From the corner of her eye, she could see Noah’s friend was now regarding her with new interest and she deliberately lowered her head, letting her hair fall over her face and obscure her mortified expression from the crowd.
After what felt like an eternity, the little boat ducked behind a clump of mangrove and she breathed a sigh of relief as she was free from the inquisitive stares of the tourists. She hadn’t really formulated a plan; jumping in the boat and searching for Noah had probably been the most spur-of-the-moment thing she had ever done in her life. She did, however, have an inkling for where he would be that was more gut instinct than anything else.
She followed the narrow route away from the tourist path: the mangroves grew in thick clumps, close together here, and only the little boats could slip through. The swamp grew shallower, tailing off to the banks where alligators were frequently seen basking. The banks dropped away on the opposite side into meadows of saw grass that, once the rains came, would extend the swamp by acres and acres, but until then were home to dozens of species of little mammals and their predators.
The swamps had been plagued with an invasion of pythons. The colossal creatures were a nightmare for the natural habitat. Noah had started his work for the centre as a trapper when he was still in High School. His role had been to rid the area of as many of the nuisance non-natives as possible and this was a common stomping ground for the invasive beasts.
As she approached the bank, she saw his little boat bobbing against the shore. It was tethered to a makeshift anchor, but the man she was searching for was nowhere in sight. She steered the boat as close as she could before killing the engine and awkwardly rocking her little vessel as close as she could get. Taylor rose to her feet feeling the capsule rock beneath her feet and she realised what a foolish idea this had been.
It was one thing being out here with a group or even with Noah, who knew the swamp and the dangers better than anyone else, but, as she swayed precariously with less than an inch of fibreglass between her and a gruesome death, she was regretting her haste. Noah’s boat was within arm’s reach, but the floor of the swamp was thick with vegetation, hiding any danger from sight. She scanned the bank nervously. She couldn’t see any gators, but that didn’t mean there weren’t any out there. She squatted back down on her haunches as she weighed up her options.
She could wait for Noah to come back. It was decidedly safer than risking trying to get up the bank for so many reasons, but if she did that then she may as well turn around and go wait for him at
the jetty. She could pretend like the whole grand theft boat never happened. She threw one more nervous look at the dark, murky waters and decided this was the most sensible option. Common sense won every time.
She pulled at the motor and, in the second before the roar cut through the stillness, she thought she heard Noah’s voice call out. She turned her head, craning her neck to see over the embankment, but everything was the same. She hesitated, hand on the motor, knowing that she had probably imagined it, but a nagging doubt had set in and she silenced the motor, tilting her head to the side to listen.
Everything was still: just the lapping of water against the hulls of the boats, a distant rumble of the airboat, by now far away, the occasional gentle splash of aquatic activity and the rustle and chirp of insects in the grass.
Yet, she knew Noah was somewhere close by over the grassy mound and she couldn’t shake the feeling in her gut that something was not right. With a head that told her she was being foolish, she rocked the boat towards the bank once more, this time not hesitating as she deftly knotted her rope to Noah’s boat. She rose to her feet and hopped carefully from her own vessel to the other. Here, she crept forward carefully, ignoring her racing heart, and made the short jump onto land.
She scrambled, on her hands and feet up the bank, moving quickly to stop herself overthinking her next move. The grass was long and damp beneath her fingers and she shuddered at the thought of all the things that would be moving beneath the vegetation. Once she was on to of the bank, she allowed herself to pause, sweeping the scene ahead of her.
There was no denying that it was beautiful here. The pale blue sky stretched on for what seemed like forever and the meadows of grass merged into the swamps for endless miles. Her eyes picked up a figure in the distance. Even from afar, she could appreciate the perfection of him. His broad shoulders beneath a white t-shirt tapered down to a narrow waist. The sunlight picked out the golden highlights of his hair and she stopped for a moment just drinking in the flawlessness of him.
The sensible voice within reminded her to be careful, and this time she wasn’t referring to the predators lurking close by. As she forced herself to snap out of her trance, she noticed that Noah was motionless. She squinted, feeling her pulse begin to quicken as she processed what was going on.
Noah was stood with his back to her, maybe four hundred yards away. His hands were outstretched in front of him and as she watched, he began to slowly edge in an arc to the left. She knew instinctively that he was in the process of trapping a gator, but she was too far away to see the creature.
Taylor had seen Noah in action many times, but there was something almost wary in his stance. She’d watched him moving with ease, assessing and evaluating the risks while laughing and joking, and it wasn’t for show. It was genuinely like second nature to him. His movements now were slow and hesitant. She could see a tension in the way he carried himself.
She moved closer towards him. Moving quickly but silently through the long grass. As she walked, she swept her eyes from side-to-side. She might have been acting out of character today, but she didn’t have a death wish. She slowed when she was about one-hundred yards from him, unsure whether to call out to him, but not wanting to risk distracting him and putting him in danger.
All the time she had been moving, he had continued to move in a wide arc around whatever he was facing, and he was almost side-on to her. She saw his head move a fraction in her direction and she knew he had seen her.
“Stay where you are.” He called.
His voice was calm and steady, but she could sense some concern beneath the words.
She drew to a stop and peered past his wide shoulders, wondering how big the gator must be to have him worried when she saw it.
Noah was ankle deep in a trench of shallow water and facing him, she could see the head of a rearing python. The body of the reptile was coiled, its head raised threateningly. There was only a metre or so between them. The snake was big, and Taylor could estimate it probably weighed in excess of forty pounds, but that alone wouldn’t be enough to invoke Noah’s hesitation.
To his right, lurking in the water, a smaller version of the same animal was watching the stand-off. He was maybe two metres away from Noah, forming a motionless, dangerous triangle.
Taylor felt her fear propel her closer. She could see Noah had no gloves, no bag and no container.
Why was he still stood there? She wondered, feeling sick with fear at the danger he was in.
“Who are you with?” He called, sensing her creeping forward.
She cleared her throat nervously. “Just me.”
His head snapped to stare at her, surprised, before glancing back at the python.
“You came here alone?” He asked incredulously. “In the boat?”
“I needed to apologise.” She said feeling any bravery evaporate.
“You took a boat alone and walked through reptile-infested swamp to apologise?” He repeated, and she flinched at the reminder of her stupidity.
She exhaled between clenched teeth, almost grateful that his attention was pinned on the two man-eating predators and not on her mortified expression.
“Yes.” She forced herself to respond.
“Go on then.” He countered, surprising her.
“Huh?”
“You did all that just to apologise.” He clarified. “That’s some effort y’all are going to.”
Taylor shifted from one foot to the other. Suddenly this didn’t feel like a such a good idea.
“Do you want to maybe back away from the snake?” She suggested, her eyes moving between the two reptiles.
Noah shook his head. “If I move, this lady is gonna come at me. See the way she’s rearing up? She’s gonna strike the minute she gets chance.”
Taylor felt her blood run cold at his tone. He’d been light-hearted, if a little concerned, up until that point, but she knew he was in grave danger. She had seen enough wildlife documentaries to know how fast these things could strike if provoked. One huge python was just a challenge to Noah, but two was deadly.
“I’m going to move a little closer.” She warned him. “I want to be on hand if they both strike.”
“They won’t both come at me.” Noah said, but she could tell by his tone he wasn’t convinced.
“So,” She started her slow walk towards the triangle, one foot in front of the other. “I, uh, guess you saw the pictures online.”
Noah nodded his head and she saw him tense a little.
“That was before we got together.” She said, immediately regretting how defensive she sounded and following it up with an apology. “And I should have told you that I had still been seeing Deon, but we literally finished the day that picture was taken.”
“Literally?”
She could hear his smile in his tone and, despite mocking her accent, it didn’t feel malicious and she felt her hopes rise a little.
“Literally.” She confirmed, smiling a little herself. “I knew after that day that I didn’t love him, and we had no future.”
“Y’all think maybe it was a bit soon to be jumping into bed with another guy?” He asked without judgement.
She knew this wasn’t a comment on her “numbers” but a genuine query into how certain she was, and she respected that.
“To cut a long, boring story short,” She said. “He was the only serious boyfriend I’ve really had. We broke up four years ago and we hooked up a couple of times over the last two weeks.”
“And he knows that you’re done?”
“I kinda developed feelings for this other guy.” She threw caution to the wind and just put it out there. “So, I told Deon I didn’t have feelings for him and it was over, and then things kinda escalated with the guy that I do like.”
“Really?”
“Really.” Taylor nodded even though Noah wasn’t looking at her. “And I really like this guy more than I’ve ever liked anyone. I know that it’s early days and I feel dumb putting myself ou
t there, but I’m kinda hoping he feels the same way even after seeing pictures of my breasts on the internet.”
In that instant, she saw Noah’s shoulders relax and his head spun automatically to look at her. As he did, from nowhere, the python shot forward rearing its head and shooting across the space between them.
Taylor flew forward, and she heard herself yelling out in warning. Noah’s reflexes were like lightning and he hopped backwards, stumbling but caught himself, bounced forward and caught the python deftly at the base of its head. He dropped to his knee, using his weight to pin the thick body to the ground. The serpent thrashed against him and as Noah wrestled it to the ground, Taylor saw the second snake draw backwards menacingly.
Noah was too distracted by the larger creature and Taylor launched herself through the air towards the second creature, with no plan of action except to protect Noah. She thrust her hand down sharply, catching the animal at the back of its head as she’d seen Noah do. She pushed her bare knee down onto its back as it twisted in her hands. Utter terror filled her chest as she felt it writhe around in her hand. Its eyes were flashing wildly, and she couldn’t believe how strong it was.
“You’re doing great.” Noah’s cool, calm voice cut into her panic. “That’s right, hand behind his head. Grip him right there in the middle. Yep, now slide your hand closer to his head.”
His words snapped her from her terror and she concentrated on following his direction.
“You might wanna use your knee.” He continued. “Good, good. You’re doing great, baby.”
She managed to get a firm grip on the python and she held it tight for a moment, testing her hold before she dared to stand up. Her heart was still racing wildly from the adrenaline, but even in the midst of the panic, she dared to shoot a glance over her shoulder at him.
He was on his feet now, gripping the huge python securely and grinning at her with undisguised pride.
“Did you just call me baby?” She asked, firing a shy-but-hopeful smile at the man of her dreams.
“You got him?” He moved closer and checked her hold, nodding in approval before he responded. “I should have a couple of sacks on the boat if you think you can make it?”
