My voice dies as he rips the entire plant from the cliff wall, the roots dangling. He considers it for a moment, and then holds it out to me, a triumphant smile on his face.
Oh boy. "Next time, let's do it my way, all right?"
He shrugs, holding the plant out to me. "This is easiest."
"We're not going for easiest. We're going for the correct way to do it." But I take the plant from him, open my pouch, and begin to shake the seeds out. "You're not a very patient sort, are you?"
A'tam just gives me another wicked look. "I can be patient…for you."
Dude has definitely not learned subtlety at all.
4
BRIDGET
Flirting with A'tam becomes my new favorite pastime. He's just…fun to be around. Every day, he seeks me out, and we talk. We joke and tease each other, and there's an undercurrent of tension between us that grows greater by the day. Flor's noticed. Steph's noticed. Tia's definitely noticed. Shit, even Devi's noticed, and Devi doesn't notice much of anything unless it's dead on the beach.
Me, I'm just enjoying it. Being around him is like…well, it's a bit like a countdown to Christmas. You know something amazing is going to happen, but you also enjoy the buildup. I know eventually we're going to kiss and play at being a little more. For now, however, I'm enjoying the slow tease and “friendship.”
A'tam has made it abundantly clear he wants more than just friendship. For now, though, he seems content to court me slowly. He arrives at meals and sits down next to me, offers to help me repair nets, and basically shows up constantly. I have no idea how he manages to squeeze in time to spend with me when all of the islanders are learning how to hunt in the snowy mountains here. They're being taught how to use bone for weapons and tools—as the wood here is scarce—and they're learning the plants and animals of this place. It doesn't matter if he's gone all day; that night, I'll find him waiting by the fire with a seat for me, a sly, knowing grin on his face.
That grin always makes my heart flutter. Not in a resonance way, just in a nervous-excitement-sexual-tension sort of way. It's been a while since I've had a boyfriend and I'd forgotten how nice it is to be the object of someone's attentions.
Tia's quite the little flirt, though. She hasn't forgotten what it's like to have a boyfriend. The youngest of us all, Tia acts like all the new men on the beach mean that she gets her own personal harem, and she's doing her best to flirt with all of them. Even A'tam. I ignore it, because if he wants to be with me, he'll be with me.
I underestimate just how determined Tia is, though, because one night, there’s a kissing game.
The islanders are, of course, interested. Kissing, from what I've been told, is not a thing where they come from. They've heard Lauren and some of the others talk about it, though, and I know they're interested. A'tam stared at my mouth all through dinner last night, and I suspect he was thinking hard about kisses, but he never made a move. When Tia plunks down a bone and declares a game of spin the bottle, though, I join in. Party games like this are harmless fun, after all. It'll give me a chance to kiss A'tam without any pressure, and maybe it'll break the ice between us.
But when it's my turn? I end up kissing R'jaal. And I'rec. And then the “bottle” seems to avoid me like the plague. Tia kisses A'tam, and I have to admit that I feel a stab of jealousy when she presses her lips to his with such enthusiasm.
Or at least, I'm jealous until they break apart and the look on his face is confused and slightly distressed, as if he didn't like the kiss at all and doesn't know how to handle it. The game ends pretty quickly after that. A'tam spins and gets Penny, and she kisses his cheek, glancing over at me.
An argument breaks out amongst a few of the men, and then Raahosh—Liz's mate and the acting tribal leader—steps in and shuts it all down. "No fighting," he says, and glares at us like we're all naughty little children instead of adults. "If you are bored, I will find you more to do."
We scatter. With a yawn and a reluctant glance back at A'tam, I start to head back to the women's cave with the others. A'tam grabs my hand before I can leave, pulling me aside. "Meet me at the back of the camp," he hisses.
That hot curl of excitement returns to my belly. I'm no idiot. I grew up in boarding school. You snuck out after curfew for one reason and one reason alone—to make out with boys. I nod and pretend to listen to the conversation around me, even as I fall back from the others. I mean, we're not a big group. If anyone looks for me, it'll be pretty obvious where I ran off to. Even so, the part of me that grew up desperate to win my mother's approval hates breaking the rules. I can just imagine the distaste on her face if she knew I was running off to meet a man in the middle of the night.
I'm an adult, I remind myself. I'm on an ice planet and I'll never see my mother again. I can do what I want. But old habits die hard, and I end up peeling away from the group and then sticking to the shadows. I head for the “back” of the encampment. I know exactly the section that A'tam is talking about. Most of the camp is set up to the west of the women's cave, where all of the girls pile in and sleep. There's clusters of tents there, and in the center of everything is the communal campfire. There's talk of a longhouse being built, but nothing's been done with that yet.
North of the women's cave, down a blind canyon, is the “back” of the camp. It's where the makeshift toilet tents are set up. It's where messy projects are left to air out so no one has to walk around a massive half-scraped hide all day, or a bucket full of piss that's fermenting for dye.
In short, no one hangs out in this canyon.
Perfect place for a rendezvous if you need quiet, but maybe not if you need a romantic atmosphere.
It's cold out tonight, the bite in the air noticeable now that I'm not distracted by party games. I cross my arms over my chest and shiver as I head up. As I do, my boot hits something that skids across the sands, and I bend down to pick it up. Another broken piece of bone dining ware. This one's a half a spoon. It seems like daily we break something new, and it makes me sad. Everyone puts so much effort into carving the basic dishes we need, and yet they snap and break from overuse, or get brittle from heat. I wish we had sturdier plates and bowls. Vases that actually held a decent amount of water instead of the tiny bowls or leather pouches we use.
We need pottery. I consider this as I study the broken spoon. Maybe not pottery spoons, of course, but bowls and cups and dishes would make our lives so much easier. No one's created any. The sa-khui don't seem to be aware of another way to do things, and those of us from Earth don't have the skills. It's like knitting. Yeah, it'd be great if we could, but…how?
Except I took a class on pottery once. It was during one summer, when I was supposed to go home and stay with my mother. She'd just been laid off from dance school and had recently been hitting up my sperm donor (we won't call him a father) for cash. I was dreading going home and enduring my mother's raging for three months, so I signed up for a bunch of summer courses instead. I took a pottery class then, and while most of it was dealing with a kiln and pottery wheel, we also did a week of primitive ceramics.