“I actually have that covered,” he said. “It’s about the only thing on this island that’s covered.” And he gestured at his groin.
I laughed, because it was either that or cry, right? Big beautiful hunk of man standing right in front of me, and I couldn’t even look down at his magnificent equipment without being totally obvious about it.
Because friends wouldn’t do that to friends, right? Not even if those friends were totally mouthwatering.
“Anything you could help me learn would be great, by the way.” Jendan’s words broke my concentration. “I’m really not great at this survival stuff.”
Island life discussions, I could handle. “Did you research before you came out here?”
He winced. “No. Was I supposed to?”
“Nah. No one does,” I lied. I’d researched my tail off for the prior season so I could come out and be useful to my group. Not everyone did. “But I know a little about the island from studying on the plane. Do you know how to find taro root? Or tapioca? We’ve been eating those to supplement our coconuts.”
He looked astonished. “Those are on the island?”
“They are. I can show you where to find them and what they look like, if you want. Do you know how to cook them?”
“Can you show me that, too?”
I really shouldn’t if I was being cutthroat and all, but I couldn’t resist those gray eyes with the crinkles. “Yeah, I can.”
“I could totally kiss you right now, Annabelle,” he told me. “I’ve had nothing but coconut for the last five days. I had wet dreams about you and those donuts you ate yesterday.”
Boy, he wasn’t the only one. I’d had dreams of a rather uncomfortable nature myself, involving eating pastries off of his rock-hard abs. I flushed bright red, thinking of that. “Well, hang in there. There’s bound to be a fishing tackle reward coming up. Come on. I’ll show you what the plants look like.”
“Lead the way.”
Jendan and I walked through the jungle, making idle chatter to pass the time as I scoured the leafy floor looking for the plants. We went over the basics, like strangers on a blind date do. He grew up in California; I was an Alabama girl. He got a degree in Kinesiology - I dropped out of college and when I did go to school, my major was Anthropology. He liked hockey, I liked baseball.
Even though we didn’t have the basics in common, there were parallels between us. We were both middle children. We were both the peacemakers in our family. We were both methodical and tried to think things through before acting. And we both shared an optimistic view on life.
I felt like I knew Jendan. Even though we’d met on the island and had only spent an afternoon or two together, he was one of those people that I felt like I knew, right to my bones. This was a man I could trust. A man who was good and kind and thoughtful. It was there in his actions - from the way he held my hand to help me over a particularly large fallen tree, to the way he averted his gaze from my br**sts when we talked.
Jendan was a nice guy. A friend.
It was kind of refreshing after being stranded for a week with someone like Kip. Someone that expected to get by on looks and charm alone.
“Ah, there’s a taro plant,” I told him, spotting one of the elusive creatures. I headed forward and approached it, running my fingers along the edges of one large leaf. “See these? They look like elephant ears. You want to dig up the root, though. A stick will do.”
He glanced around, and then headed off to the side. “I think I saw a decent stick over here.” As he walked forward, I admired his body. Something caught my eye, and seeing it, I froze.
There, right in front of Jendan, was a tree with a neat split right down the middle.
Chapter Nine
“Hello, my name is Jendan Abercrombie, a permanent resident of the f**king friend zone. Every damn time.” — Jendan Abercrombie, Day 7, Endurance Island: Power Players
I didn’t say anything about the split tree.
Maybe I should have, but I was playing the game for myself, right? I couldn’t show my whole hand right away. That’d be stupid for sure. I did hold my breath as Jendan dug at a taro root close to the tree, but if he realized it was forked, he ignored it.
Maybe he didn’t have the same clue I did. Maybe there was a Pandora’s Box for each team and he had a different clue. Maybe Sunnie had the clue. My head spun with all the ‘maybes.’
We dug for roots a bit longer, finding both taro and tapioca. Jendan insisted on sharing the findings with me, so we’d both have something good to eat back at our respective camps. When the cameraman notified us that the Judgment challenge would be in an hour, Jendan hugged me, which made me intensely aware of his body against mine. He thanked me for my help, and asked to meet me again the next day.
Of course I agreed. Visiting Jendan made the long, boring day go by so much faster. While things looked exciting on TV, the ‘reality’ of reality TV was that for every five minutes of interesting television, it equaled out to lots and lots of boring hours on our end. Talking to Kip always seemed to shred my temper, so I avoided him.
It was just…really nice to talk to Jendan and have someone on the same level as me. Someone whose conversation wasn’t the equivalent of “Tits or GTFO.”
Jendan waved goodbye and headed further into the jungle. I returned to camp and was immediately hustled toward the waiting speedboat for the next Judgment Challenge.
“Hey, do you have your canteen?” Kip asked me, yawning as we boarded the boat. “Mine’s empty and you weren’t around to boil me some more.”
I shot him a scathing look. “Boil your own water.”
“If you don’t boil me some, I’ll just take yours when you’re not looking.”
He would, too. And then I’d have to boil some anyway, and he’d just take what he wanted. Seething, I plopped down in the boat and didn’t speak until we got to the challenge.
That particular Judgment challenge was a tricky one, with a stair-step puzzle and an obstacle course to retrieve the puzzle pieces. Nevertheless, Kip and I performed well as a team, and we ended up in second place, safely out of danger. To my relief, Jendan and Sunnie pulled into fourth place. Jendan had put Sunnie in charge of organizing the puzzle while he did all of the physical work, and it ended up working to their advantage. In last place were Emilio/Leslie - Team Seven - and Jerry/Saul — Team 5. Kip wanted to vote to keep Emilio and Leslie out of solidarity for our own prior season. I was fine with that, since Jerry and Saul would end up being a tougher team to beat in future challenges. It seemed like we weren’t the only ones thinking that way — Jerry and Saul lost the vote and went to Judgment, and after a water-hauling challenge, Jerry went home. Saul was now playing solo.