Exiled

CHAPTERSEVEN

Day Nine—Eleven teams remaining

Lauren

Our camp was primitive,to say the least. We slept on rows of hard bamboo and sat on rotting logs around the fire. But I couldn’t deny that our bare-bones home was in an actual paradise.

I was walking the beach, searching for snails and watching Archer, who was out fishing on his raft.

The translucent turquoise water here took my breath away. Our view of open sky and a nearby island was majestic. I could never afford to vacation at a place like this; the show was my only opportunity to experience it.

I missed mugs of steaming, fresh coffee and deli sandwiches on pillowy white bread like nobody’s business, but this was the trade-off. I slid out of my shorts and walked out into the water in just my swimsuit, little waves lapping at my calves. One of my favorite things here was the feel of wet sand squishing between my toes. Walking out a little further, I squished with every step and then closed my eyes, putting my arms out and my face up to the sun.

It was morning, and the air was already muggy, but the wicked tropical heat hadn’t set in yet. I loved this time of day here, and I dreamed of one day returning with my parents and my sister Layla to show it to them.

I missed my sister terribly. Back home, we only lived about a thirty-minute drive from each other. At least a couple times a week, I spent evenings at her house helping her cook dinner over a glass or two of wine. I loved her husband and my two nephews and was often still there when the boys went to bed for the night.

Remember every last little thing so you can tell me about it when you get home, Layla had said before I left. And try to sneak some fire ants into Archer’s shorts while he’s sleeping.

My sister wasn’t a fan of Archer. She’d seen how hard our breakup was on me. I wondered what she would think of present-day Archer. Like me, she’d probably begrudgingly admit he’d gotten even hotter. And she’d probably say he was EU—emotionally unavailable.

One of the burning questions I wished I had the guts to ask Archer was what his life was like now. He didn’t have a girlfriend, so was he that stereotypical athlete who swiped right and hooked up with a different woman every night?

“Lo!”

Archer called out to me from his raft. I put a hand over my forehead to shield my eyes from the sun as I looked over at him. He was proudly holding up a huge, flopping fish, grinning and flexing with his free arm.

I smiled, about to congratulate him on the catch when I felt a sudden burning sensation on my ankle. Instinct made me pull my foot out of the water and when I looked down I saw the culprit—a jellyfish.

Cringing, I pursed my lips and tried not to let out the cry of pain I would have if I’d been alone.

I failed, unleashing a string of expletives that probably scared away every fish in the vicinity.

God, it hurt. It was like getting stung by ten bees all at once. I ran from the water to the safety of the sand, where I immediately flopped down and examined the sting.

Red and inflamed, it was several inches long. What the hell had we learned in our training about jellyfish stings? I couldn’t remember a thing.

An approaching splashing sound distracted me and I looked over. Archer was swimming my way, his arm looped through a towing line he had hooked to his raft.

“You okay?” he asked, breathing hard as he stood and ran the rest of the way, pulling the raft up onto the sand.

“Jellyfish sting.” I showed him the angry looking red line near my ankle.

“Shit, Lo.” He dropped to his knees in the sand, water dripping from the ends of his hair and droplets clinging to the lines of his defined chest. “What should I do? I don’t have any first aid supplies.”

“It hurts like hell,” I said, cringing.

“There has to be something I can do. Should I pee on it?”

He jumped to his feet and reached for the waist of his shorts, and I put up a hand to stop him.

My laugh was half-amused, half-crazed. My ankle burned like I’d just been branded, and the thought of Archer whipping out his dick and peeing on it was almost too much.

“No! I don’t think that’s really a thing,” I said, closing my eyes and forcing myself to take a deep breath. “God, it burns.”

“What if it was venomous? Box jellyfish are venomous. What did it look like?”

I groaned. “I don’t know. It just looked like a jellyfish.”

“Peeing on it will at least help rinse it.”

“Archer, you are not peeing on me,” I practically growled. “They told us in our emergency training that it’s not a thing.”

He ran a hand through his hair, his brow creased with worry. “We at least need to rinse it.”

He bent down and scooped me into his arms, and I didn’t protest because all I could think about was the pain. Nutter was following us, filming as Archer ran to our camp, my arms around his neck.

This was bad. I didn’t want the world seeing me as a damsel in distress and Archer Hale as my ripped rescuer who swooped in and saved the day. I’d been saving the day all by myself for years and was doing just fine, thanks.

Archer gently put me in the hammock and rushed over to grab a canteen.

“Just give me the canteen and you can go back to fishing,” I said, irritated by the whole situation.

He gave me a skeptical look. “How are you feeling? Is your heart racing?”

“It’s just the sting that hurts, and even that’s not as bad as it was.”

Walking over to the hammock, Archer stared down at me. I stared back. The dark stubble on his face suited him. He was a little leaner than when we’d started the show, and of course, that suited him, too. As did his bronzed-by-the-sun skin.

I had no doubt that if he needed to, Archer could survive on this island indefinitely. Whereas I…could not.

“Hey.” He crouched down and took my hand, the contact radiating warmth throughout me. “Your health means more than this show. If you need me to call for medical help, I’ll do it right now.”

The producers had given us a satellite phone for emergency use. But they had been clear—calling for any reason meant we would immediately be eliminated from the show.

“I’m fine,” I assured him. “If it had been venomous, we’d know by now.”

“You need to be more careful,” he said, his tone slightly scolding.

“Jellyfish stings happen every day,” I replied, rankled by his warning. “If I want to walk in twelve inches of the clearest water I’ve ever seen, I will.”

He shook his head. “Why are you so damn stubborn, Lo?”

“Why are you acting like you’re my caretaker?”

Did he realize he was still holding my hand? I was having a hard time thinking about anything else. His hand was big and warm, and even though I’d dated other men since we broke up, none of them had ever held my hand.

“Out here, I am your caretaker,” he said, his tone softer now. “And you’re mine. We’re partners, Lo.”

I clenched my free hand into a fist, fighting back the urge to cry. It would be humiliating for the whole world to see me getting emotional over Archer calling us partners, but having him see it would be even worse.

We were partners here, and there was no double meaning in what he’d said, but for some reason, when he said it while looking into my eyes, his hand wrapped around mine, it felt different.

“Will you get me some water?” I asked, desperate to move past this moment.

“Yeah, of course.”

He got up to get a canteen, and I closed my eyes and composed myself. I’d sworn I’d be a badass bitch out here, not an emotional weakling.

Archer returned and passed me a canteen.

“Thanks,” I said, not looking at him.

“I’m going to grab the raft and my fish. Be right back.”