The Island

by Daya Daniels

  I stayed as far away from Anni today as I could, seeing that it’s clear she hates me. I’m not sure if I give a fuck most of the time, but at certain times when I’m making a whole bunch of effort to be nice, I do.

  “Are you going to tell me the story about what happened on Nanga Parbat?”

  “No.”

  Anni huffs.

  I peek just over the top of my book. “You seem quite content with your assumptions.”

  She makes a face then chews on her bottom lip. “Are you saying that my assumptions about you are wrong?”

  “Yes, of course they are.”

  She shifts where she’s sitting and faces me head-on. “So, my assumptions that you’re selfish, thoughtless, heartless, and a manwhore”—she cocks her head to the side— “are all wrong?”

  My left brow tips up in abhorrent disbelief. “Yesssss.”

  She hurls me a smug look. “You’ve never been married?”

  “No.”

  “Or had a girlfriend?”

  I wait a few seconds before supplying her with a bullshit answer. “No.”

  “Or been in love?”

  “No,” I whisper so softly I barely hear the word myself.

  “Do you have children?” She fiddles with her thick hair, pulling it all over one shoulder.

  “No,” I say.

  “Have you ever had a real job?”

  I laugh a little, then twist my lips, knowing how my response will sound.

  Most of my life all I’ve ever done is climb. I’ve never known anything else. Alfred and Catherine supplied all the green a boy could ever need. After finishing university, where I endured four years of finance bullshit, I went straight vertical for the peaks and I haven’t come down since. I don’t know what kind of story Anni is looking for about me, but whatever it is, I can’t give it to her. And it irks me that I won’t be able to.

  Her big blues blink. “Well, have you?”

  I rub at the scruff on my jaw. “No, I haven’t.”

  She points at me. “Well, Prince of the Peaks. I think from those answers you’ve checked all the boxes that a woman can’t be wrong for making any of those assumptions.” She purses her lips. “Sorry.”

  “Why do you call me Prince of the Peaks?”

  Anni smirks. “Isn’t that what everyone calls you?”

  “I suppose it is, but I don’t like it when you call me that.” My mouth is tight.

  “Why, does it make you sound too unlikeable?” She snorts.

  “Yes.”

  “And you don’t want to be unlikeable?”

  I squint, not meaning to.

  My usual response would be: I truly don’t give a fuck. But the circumstances are quite different at the moment. I really do care whether or not this woman likes me.

  “What do you want me to say to that, Anni?” I scoot closer to her, getting in her space.

  “I don’t know,” she whispers. “But I hate when people answer my questions with fucking questions.” Her breaths puff against my mouth, sweet and warm. I inch closer.

  Our jackets rub against each other, causing friction.

  “You fuck every woman you meet?” Her voice is an enticing whisper.

  And I swear I could dive into her blues and take forever to come up for air, like a blue whale. There’s a whole world in her eyes and I’d sink deep and straight to the bottom to find out what lives in there.

  Perhaps, a dream. Or maybe a fucking nightmare. I can’t quite tell.

  “No,” I lie.

  With the lift of a shapely brow, she presses her lips together. “You think you’re going to fuck me?”

  Up here!

  I lower my eyes on her cute little chin. “Yes, eventually.”

  She laughs a little. Okay, a lot. So much so that it shakes her chest.

  I lean in closer to her sexy mouth as her eyes rake over my face. She can’t hide her attraction to me. But this love/hate thing she has going on with me is getting oh, so boring.

  She’s attracted to me. It’s undeniable the way her lips part whenever mine do and her pupils dilate. It’s why I like to be close to her. To see everything she thinks she’s hiding. To smell her want for me. To sniff all her bullshit out like a swarm of giant horseflies.

  I dip down closer to her. She blinks those pretty blues, waiting.

  I get closer, closer, closer and part my lips just as my eyelids fall and I inhale.

  This woman reeks of sorrow and broken dreams.

  “I’ll bite you, I promise, if you come any closer,” she whispers.

  Epic fail.

  My eyes shoot open to find her blank expression.

  I back away, very slowly, and we remain in this odd moment for a while.

  Her staring at me. Me staring at her. Neither one of us saying anything.

  The wind outside pushes against the tent and for a few seconds I forget how cold it is because I’m boiling beneath this puffy jacket.

  “Annika Weathers!” a voice just outside the tent calls. “Annika!”

  Anni watches me carefully.

  I back far away over to the corner of the tent and snatch up my thermos.

  Anni unzips the tent and peeks out.

  I almost spill my tea at the sight ahead of me.

  Then, I’m also reminded that there are more climbers headed this way all the time right behind us.

  “Yes.” Anni smiles at the woman.

  “The other team leaders want to speak with you about the routes,” our guest tells her.

  “Sure,” Anni says.

  “It’s about...” the woman starts to say, peeking around Anni’s form, seeming lost for words. “I-I…"

  I back a little more out of sight, feeling panicked.

  She leans in farther. Anni dips back, searching for the same thing the woman is. And fuck me, I can’t remember our intruder’s name. It begins with an H.

  “It’s you.” The woman’s eyes go brighter. “Kai.”

  I force a smile. “Hey, how are you?”

  Anni’s previous smile falls while I search my brain for this woman’s name.

  I come up with zilch.

  The woman with the familiar face places a hand to the center of her chest. “Han-na.” She says the two syllables slowly like I’m a donkey or some other mammal that’s incapable of understanding the language she’s speaking.

  With the snap of my fingers, I point as if I know what the hell I’m talking about. I have no clue! “Yes, that’s it. Hanna.”

  Hanna’s face collapses. “You couldn’t remember my name?”

  Shit.

  “Yes, of course. It’s been a busy few days. I’m exhausted. All this trekking and high altitude have me dizzy,” I lie. With a shrug, I toss my book down like it’s about to explode. “I can barely remember my own name sometimes.” I fake-chuckle.

  Hanna’s eyes fill with tears.

  Anni’s scowl deepens and I feel so very awkward at this moment.

  I’m aware she thinks I’m an asshole and now clearly Hanna does too. I scramble around looking for my beanie. I put it on as quickly as I can. I nudge Anni to the side, ignoring the blue lasers she’s shooting me with her eyes. I bolt out of the tent and into the cold. I rush across the rocky landscape feeling like I just escaped a crime scene.

  Sebastian is marching toward me, extending an arm. When I make it to where he stands, he spins around and walks in the direction I’m headed in, after he tosses his arm around my shoulder. He slaps his other hand against where my heart, that’s about to pound right out of my chest, beats.

  “Is everything okay, man?” He laughs a bit as we keep trudging toward the mess tent.

  I’m close to hyperventilating.

  “How’s everything with Annika?” He breathes in the crisp air.

  “Fine.”

  “She likes you. I can tell. Like how Racine likes me.”

  I don’t think so.

  Laughing a little, I shake my head. Sebastian couldn’t be more wrong. “No, I d
on’t think so. It’s nothing like that. It’s complicated and weird and just, I don’t know, possibly bad.”

  “Bad?” His brows knot.

  “Yes, bad.”

  “She’s pretty hot for an old broad.”

  I toss him a fierce look, unsure of why I even care he’s just insulted her.

  “I’m sorry. I take that back. I didn’t mean that.” He exhales loudly, then smirks. “I mean she’s forty years old and she doesn’t look a day over thirty.”

  “Yeah,” I say slowly. “She’s only a year older than you.”

  He sucks his teeth. “Maybe it’s all the mountain air she’s been exposed to.”

  Whereas you’ve spent most of your adult life doing the late-night bar crawl...

  “Yeah, I suppose that’ll do it.”

  I sniff, disgusted, and eyeball Sebastian. “Have you been smoking?”

  He releases me, giving me the chance to inspect his face. He tosses his arms up in surrender. “I’m caught.”

  “Are you serious, Sebastian?” I point toward the peak. “We’re about to scale one of the most difficult mountains in the world and you’re smoking? What the fuck?”

  Sebastian drops his head a little, feigning shame. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t resist. Besides, the nicotine doesn’t affect me way up here like it does when I’m way down there. It’s different. Less toxic.”

  Huh?

  “Whatever, man.” I walk ahead.

  “Wait, wait, wait.” He pulls on my jacket. “I wanted to talk to you about something important.” He walks faster to keep up with me. “I’m going to ask Racine to marry me when we get back to Islamabad, before we have to head back to London.”

  I scrunch my face. “Are you sure you’re ready for another wife, Sebastian?”

  “No, but I love her. Or at least I think I do. So, I’m going to marry her. At least that’s my plan.” He chuckles. “I was thinking what if I did something romantic like ask her when we get to the summit. You know, proposing marriage on the second highest peak in the world. I don’t think it’s something she’d ever forget. The proposal to rival all proposals.”

  Yeah, sure...

  But that’s if you can see her face through the likely thick falling snow.

  That’s if you don’t collapse from exhaustion before you pull the ring out.

  That’s if the cold doesn’t freeze you into a solid block of ice.

  “Yes, sounds good either way, okay.” I look up at the clouds, observing their shape and the way they drift over the surrounding jagged peaks. So beautiful and easy in their movement as they glide across the night sky. Still dense. Impossible to touch. Elusive. Out-of-bloody-reach.

  “Yeah, it does,” Sebastian says, partly earning my attention once more.

  I’m still staring at the sky when he whacks me in the shoulder.

  “Annika’s husband is dead.” Sebastian stares at me blankly.

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah, Winston told me. He perished right up there.” He points up to the summit.

  I grunt in response.

  “He was one hell of a climber.” Sebastian whistles. “He loved to free solo.”

  “I see.”

  Sebastian smiles. “She’s a widow, man, just be gentle with her.”

  “I have no plans to do anything with her.”

  When had that changed?

  Sebastian regards me as though I’ve sprouted another nose. “Whattttt?”

  I keep walking when Sebastian slows his gait.

  “Not even when we make it back to Askole?” He wipes a hand across his face.

  “No.” My response is terse.

  Yes.

  No.

  Yes.

  Christ!

  “Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. Wait a minute, Kai. You seem confused.” Sebastian laughs, patting my chest softly, halting my gait.

  “I’m not confused.”

  He looks behind me, toward the tent where Hanna and Anni are still talking. “What happened back there?”

  I exhale. “Nothing.”

  Sebastian jerks his head back. “Kai, come on. I’m your best friend.”

  Just the mention of the moniker reminds me I’ve known this man all my life. We would spend the summers combing Lulworth Cove for seashells while our parents sat on the shoreline sharing laughs and enjoying cider and ginger tea.

  Sebastian and I were young then. We measured our penises from time to time and had pissing contests often, attempting to see who could aim the farthest. We saw girls as strange creatures we only wanted to do dirty things to and ditch after...just as we do now. Maybe, just maybe, Sebastian has now abandoned his wild ways, which only leaves me swimming in the mire.

  “Surely, you can tell me you made it at least to first base with the professor.”

  I stare him down and pick up speed again, maneuvering over some of the larger rocks. “I didn’t.”

  And I probably never will...

  I shake off all the weirdness from my skin and suck in desperately needed fresh air.

  My spirit becomes a little more alive when I spot the bonfire roaring ahead and the climbers who are circled around it. Ugh. I stop immediately when I see those two fools I’d met back in the teahouse in Askole. Madman is shirtless, drinking a beer and dancing. Shit for Brains is doing a handstand, trying to see how long he can hold it.

  “What is it?” Sebastian’s head dips forward.

  “Nothing.” We start off walking again.

  “Do you know those guys?” Sebastian laughs.

  “They’re just kids,” I mutter.

  We make it closer to the bonfire.

  Sebastian stares up at the mountain. “I can’t believe we’re here yet again.”

  “Yeah, me neither.”

  “I’m going to get to the top no matter what.” His words are a promise.

  “Yeah, me too.”

  His eyes narrow. “How much are you willing to sacrifice this time?”

  I scratch my chin.

  Probably everything...

  “I want to go down in history.” Sebastian’s smile could light up the Himalayas. “And I know you do too.”

  “I’m not doing this to go down in history, Sebastian.”

  He slants his head to the side, looking me over. “Really?”

  “Yes, really.”

  “Okay, man. I’ll leave that for you to sort out in your therapy sessions.” He laughs.

  I exhale big and long, observing Madman and Shit for Brains when they toss beer on the bonfire, making it roar, its orange flames stretching up to the sky.

  They’re angry, just like the lies I’ve told Anni earlier. The ones I hope she’ll let rest.

  If you liked Anni and Kai and would like to read more of their story.

  The Climb - A Romance Novel by Daya Daniels

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Lover of words. Author. Ghostwriter. Poetry glutton. Cynic. Idealist. Art collector. Lip gloss addict. Wife. Mommy. Music fan. Book whore. Beach bum. NERD. Madwoman. Water rat. Wine drinker. Bermudian. Las Vegas resident-wannabe. Hopeless romantic.

  I'm an independent author who had this crazy idea during one very, very hot summer to start writing books and I haven't stopped. I'm loving the ride and I appreciate all the readers who take the time to enjoy my stories.

  I live on the small sub-tropical island of Bermuda in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean with my husband and two children. If you can't find me here on the beach, you can bet your G-strings I'm in Las Vegas!

  Love is what keeps the world spinning! XOXO

  Follow me on Instagram @ authordayadaniels

  I love hearing from readers! Feel free to email me with questions and comments @dayadaniels@yahoo.com

  OTHER BOOKS BY DAYA DANIELS

  Finders Keepers Series

  Part I

  Part II

  kitsune duet

  dirt {a novella} – part one

  diamond {a novella} – part two

  The Human Series

>   Body Parts {A Novella} – Book One

  COLOR-BLIND – A Novel – Book Two

  Poster Boyz Series

  Playmate - Chapter One

  Stand-Alone Novels

  An Education in Calcutta {A Period Novel}

  The Space Between Rachel and Evie {A Sci-Fi Romance Novel}

  Once Upon a Time {A Dark Romance}

  In the Eyes of Adeline {A Period Novel}

  If Only {A LGBT Romance Novel}

  Murphy’s Bedfellow

  Stripped {A Dark Romance Novella}

  Midnight Special

  Mouthful {A Novella}

  Words Left Unspoken {A Novella}

  For Her {A Lesbian Romance Novelette}

  Crocodile Tears {A New Adult Romance}

  In Loving Memory of Isobel

  Blue {A Love Story on the Bermuda Shores}

  I Wanna be the Girl... {A Lesbian Romance Novel}

  I Hate You/I Love You

  Becoming Benjamin {A Gay Coming of Age Story}

  The Wolf - A Hood Tale {An Urban Romance Novella}

  Breathe {A Lesbian Romance Novel}

  TRAPPED {An Urban Romance Novel}

  High Altitude {A Novella}

  Free Flesh

  The Climb

  LOCKDOWN {A M/M Romance Novella}

  I Am #4 {A Princess Rebellion}

  STONE LOVE {An Ice Age Novella}

  tammy gun {An Urban Romance Novel}

  RUIN {A M/M Romance Novel}

  Doctor Ashbury (A Dark Romance Novella)

  RACEHEAD {A Lesbian Romance Novel}

  WILD – A Love Story

  Sparrow – A Dark Romance Novella

  break point – a m/m romance novella

  Non-Fiction

  It Could Be Arranged

  Series

  Inferno Series – Part I

  A Poster Boyz Series – Chapter Two

  Finders Keepers Series – Part III

  Table of Contents

  Copyright

  Author’s Note

  Acknowledgments

  Dedication

  Playlist

  Quote

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four