A Place To Bloom

Why Him

I felt like curling into a ball.

Somewhere between the shock of Talys's sudden arrival, the realization that my men could get killed tomorrow, the excitement of seeing Miyani again, and the shame of having let everyone down, I just wanted the world to stop turning.

Doesn't work like that.

How would you feel? You've been deployed to an active war zone in the middle of a jungle filled with plants that will eat you, giant alligators, very, very, very big snakes, and suddenly this girl you grew up with back home shows up. From hundreds of miles away through high, icy mountains and squadrons of mosquitoes. No warning, no explanation, boom. There she is.

What do you mean how would I feel? I'm not Sarina; I'm a voice inside your head. I'm really just proof you're crazy.

Ahmi crossed her arms and shook her head at me while Lacius carried their two boys downstairs.

Bilal slapped my arm. "Good speaking up, friend! The Legend of the Jungle-Tested really came through for us, didn't he?" He shook his head, turned, and left. "I'll see you in the morning."

Dax furrowed his brow, looked away, and left with the others.

A Na'uhui woman sneered at me. "Why you no speak? I come because this!"

I shook my head. "kupade."

She sucked her teeth and walked away.

Caleb Jungle-Tested, they'd said. Jungle accepted him, he speaks. Except he didn't. And because I sat quietly, obsessing over Talys's sudden arrival, all of my men could get killed tomorrow. We weren't ready.

I was distracted.

That's not an excuse.

Miyani brought her picnic basket. God, she was cute. I loved her round face, the way her smile reached all the way across and her eyes scrunched up with her cheeks when she looked at me. And those legs. The curve of her thighs gave way to that lush arse with nothing but a white silk flap draped over...

Ugh. Spare me.

While she and Talys spread out a red-and-white checkered picnic blanket and opened the basket, Blue and I gathered up some bag chairs left behind by the people we fought to protect. He snatched up an extra, piled it on top of the others, gave out a low squawk and tilted his face, fixing a blue-yellow eye with a black vertical slit on me.

He dropped another onto the pile and croak-squawked at me again.

"That's a terrible idea!" I said. Beside us, Talys and Miyani pulled ceramic containers from the basket. Elsewhere, two other families also brought dinner, others sat around talking, but most everyone else had left. "Let's do it!"

I grabbed two more and threw them on top of the others, and between the two of us we piled up twenty bag chairs like a giant hill. I held out my hand and bowed. "After you."

Blue jumped into the air, curled his neck to barely miss the lantern string, twisted his body around, and landed his back in the middle of it. I followed, stretching my arms out and falling face-first like a rigid board onto the pile.

I had to just lay there for a while, basking in the sensation of the mountain of cushions with tremors of Blue wiggling his body back and forth beneath me. My face was in a crack between two of them, so I had room to breathe.

What did you think about?

What if I lost Renou? What if I'd pulled him from that trap, listened to his impassioned speech at the Lake of Doom—