Once Upon a Caveman (15 page)

Anniah
started talking a mile a minute and, even though Lucy didn’t understand a word
of it, she was soon enjoying herself.  Anniah was good at making herself clear,
even without a shared language.  Her expansive hand gestures were hilarious.  Lucy
actually liked this girl and Lucy wasn’t used to liking anyone except Rhawn. 
It was kind of awesome.

They
were so busy talking that they nearly missed Warren waking up.  He made a low
groaning sound and his eyes half-opened.  “What?”  He croaked.  “How fast was I
going officer?”

“Warren?” 
Lucy blinked in surprise and moved to kneel down beside him, relief filling her. 
Thank God.  She wasn’t aware of how concerned she’d been that he wouldn’t wake
up until he finally woke up.  “Warren, you scared me, you jackass.  Can you
hear me?  How’s your head?”

He
tried to focus on her.  “Moose-y?”  He got out.  “I think you killed me with a
rock.”

“I
hit
you with a rock, but you’re still alive.”

He
blinked groggily and then switched his attention to Anniah.  “I’m not dead?  Then
why’s there an angel…?”  He murmured and then he was out again.

“War-ren? 
War-ren?”  Anniah gave him a shake, trying to bring him around.

“I
think he’s okay.”  Lucy assured her.  “If he can use bad pickup lines, he’s on
the mend.”  Plus, Warren seemed to be snoring, now.  That seemed like a good
sign.  It probably wasn’t smart for a guy with a head injury to be sleeping,
but how many brain cells did Warren really have to worry about losing?  “Trust
me, he’s recovering.”  She added an impressed “oooh, he’s doing
great
” facial
expression to the assurance.

Anniah
gave an encouraging nod.

“Alright. 
Good to know I’m not an accidental murderer.”  Lucy got to her feet.  “I’m
outta here, then.”  There was only so much socializing an anti-social person
could do in one day, but that had gone pretty well.  Lucy was proud of
herself.  “You keep watching over Warren and think about raising your
standards.”  She gave a very deliberate wave, trying to get her point across. 
“Good-bye, Anniah.”  She said, spacing out the words

Anniah
tentatively waved back.  “Gud… Bide… Looo… ceeee.”  She pronounced one syllable
at a time.

Lucy
beamed.  “Perfect!”  Hell, the girl was already too articulate for Warren. 
“I’ll see you later, alright?  I gotta go home and find something vegetarian
for lunch.”

She
continued up the path to Rhawn’s cave.  It didn’t occur to her until she was
halfway there that she’d called it “home.”  Shit.  That probably meant
something that she didn’t want to consider, so she decided to ignore it. 
Instead, she headed inside and grabbed up the plate/shell full of flowers he’d
left for her to eat.  They seriously weren’t that bad.  They sort of tasted
like fennel mixed with mango.

While
she polished them off, her eyes went to all the drawings on the walls.  Pieces
of Earth mixed with Rhawn’s own thoughts, like the bulletin board in some
eccentric professor’s office.  Diagrams of a water wheel.  Images of New York. 
The Golden Arches.  A big, blue swirly thing.  Plans for some kind of crop
rotation on the island.

Lucy
arched a brow at that one.  Oh good.  He’d discovered agriculture.

Jesus,
underestimating Rhawn really would be a
huge
mistake.  In a world where
other people probably ate their own lice, he already had some kind of
rudimentary table of elements sketched out on the rock.  If he could correctly
calculate the atomic weight of zinc in a
cave
, he could certainly see
through her lies.

Of
course if didn’t help that Lucy kept forgetting to be wary of him.  He was so
frigging
handsome,
and he stood between Lucy and all the people wanting
her dead
,
and he said things that made her smile and he looked at her
like she was the most interesting calculus equation he’d ever come across. 
That was so incredibly arousing.  Her whole life was a mess, but Rhawn made her
feel wanted and safe.  In the midst of chaos, he was the only thing that made
sense to her.

She
trusted him and Lucy wasn’t a girl who trusted
anybody
.  She’d always
been a loner.  Something about Rhawn just slipped past all her defenses.  Like
she knew him.  Like she’d always known him.

Like
he was
hers
.

Which
was crazy.  Lucy needed to forget the whole idea of keeping the guy, because it
was totally impractical.  Totally,
totally
not going to work.

…Which
was why she wasn’t
at all
thinking up ways to make it work.

And
in the meantime, those damn dreams needed to
stop
rerunning in her head,
reminding her of all the really nifty caveman-y things he could do to her
body.  His huge arms holding her still as he ripped off her clothes… The thick
weight of his fingers inside of her, making her beg…  That low, erotic growl in
her ear, wanting submission from his mate…

Lucy
swallowed.  Yeah…  It was
far
safer to steer clear of Rhawn.  In fact,
she needed to stop
thinking
about him, too.  If he popped into her mind,
she’d just imagine him doing boring, unsexy things.  Like working on those dry
and complicated boat plans.

Boats
he’d
designed
, because he was brilliant.

God,
that was hot.

And
now
she was thinking about him again.  Damn it.  Lucy turned away from
the wall of pictures.  This was ridiculous.  She needed to…

Something
moved outside the cave.

Lucy
froze, her heart pounding.  For half a second, she thought it was Skoll, come
to kill her.  The muscle-bound bastard was already looking for a chance to beat
her to death with a rock.  If he found out she was abolishing all the creepy,
arranged marriages and encouraging Anniah be with Warren, he’d
really
be
pissed.

Instead
of that criminal caveman, though, she saw a flash of neon orange fabric and a
head full of professionally streaked hair.

Lucy
blinked, realization dawning.  “Taffi?”  It couldn’t be.  Woodward High’s prom
queen couldn’t
possibly
be on the island.  The end of the world…
everyone thinking she was a wicked goddess… no Cheetos for sale in this entire
dimensions… She could handle
all
of that.  But not Taffi.  Not even
Lucy’s luck was
that
bad, right?

Wrong.

“Lucy?” 
Taffi poked her head into the cave, her face wary and mascara stained.  “Is it
really you?”  She was wearing the oversized orange t-shirt from the
Ardin’s
gift shop, so her beloved dress must not have survived.  The withered remnants
of a corsage were still on her wrist, though.  “Oh my God!  I thought it might
be you, but I couldn’t be sure.  I was sure my eyes were playing tricks on me
when I saw you on the beach.”  She rushed forward to give Lucy a bone-crushing
hug.  “You have no idea what I’ve
been
through!”

“Oh,
I have an idea.”  Lucy tried to squiggle free of her death grip.  “Are you
okay?”

Taffi
ignored her efforts to escape.  “Of course I’m not okay!  The cruise ship
sank!”  She wailed as if only she’d been aboard.

“I
know.”

“And
this island is full of Neanderthals!”

“I
know.”

“I
think a big volcano is going to erupt.”

“I
know.”

Taffi
frowned, not pleased that Lucy had ruined her big reveals.  Her crying switched
off like a light switch, replaced with strident indignation.  “Well, if you
know all that, what do you plan to do about it?  Why are you just standing
here?  It’s your
job
to get me off this damn island.”

Lucy’s
eyebrows climbed.  Taffi had said plenty of stupid things over the years, but
that one might just be the all-time champ.  “
My
job?”

“
Yes.
 
You’ve always said you were Little Miss Special.  Now’s the time you prove it.”

“I
never said anything like that!  I tried not to say anything
at all
to
you, as a matter of fact.”

Taffi
scowled as best she could through the Botox.  “As head of the Alumni Committee,
I
need
to survive and you need to help me.  It’s your duty.”

Jesus,
it was a wonder Lucy hadn’t dropped out freshman year, just to escape this kind
of craziness.  “Take a breath, okay?  I’m going to try to get
everyone
out of here, but it might take some time.  I’m not sure where we are or…

“Well,
find out!”  Taffi started to cry again.  “You’re supposed to have the highest
GPA –like--
ever
, but you don’t even know how to get us home?!”

“No,
I don’t know.  I’m not sure we can get back to New York.”  Lucy admitted
quietly.  She didn’t like to say that out loud, but try a she might, she
couldn’t think of a way to return to Earth.  It wasn’t like she could whip up
another shipwreck to recreate however it was they got here.  “We could be permanently
stranded in whatever reality this is.”

“Oh,
you’re just like Tony.  Full of excuses.”  Taffi rubbed at her eyes, refusing
to accept the facts.  “He’s not even
on
the island, you know.  Sickness
and health obviously mean
nothing
to my loser husband.  No wonder we’re
in couples’ counseling.”

She
broke down in hysterical daddy-didn’t-buy-me-a-pony-for-my-birthday sobs.  Lucy
recalled them from most of Taffi’s childhood parties.  …Until her father
finally bought her a horse when she was eleven, right before he got busted by
the IRS.  Taffi hadn’t cried half as hard about him doing twenty years in the
Federal pen.

Taffi
kept wailing, oblivious to Lucy’s immunity to her drama.  “Tony’s probably
forgotten all about me by now!”

Poor
Tony was probably
trying
.

“Taffi,
it’s not going to do any good to…”

She
cut Lucy off.  “I never should have married him.  His mother locked up all the
family money in some stupid trust, anyway.  It’s for my
kids
, she says. 
I’m not having kids!  Do you have any idea how fat I’d get?!  Maybe
you’re
okay with being huge, but I’m
not
.”

Lucy
rubbed her forehead.  “Taffi, can we please focus on the real problems here?”

“I’m
broke, my hair is a mess, and my husband thinks I’m sleeping with the dog
groomer.  Those
are
real problems.”  She sniffed, the tragic heroine of
her own soap opera.  “I
barely
got to second base with Carl.  Tony blows
everything out of proportion.  He’s the one who wanted that stupid Pekinese, in
the first place.  It’s really
his
fault that I got so lonely during
Taffi-Two’s weekly blowouts and needed Carl’s companionship.”

“Let’s
not bring cute little dogs into this.”  Lucy warned.  She was going get a cute
little dog one of these days, so she felt the need to defend Taffi-Two.  “I
mean, you’ve already done enough damage, just naming her something so stupid.”

“It’s
a
boy
.”  Taffi snapped, barely paying attention.  “Why doesn’t anything
ever work out like it’s supposed to, huh?  Why does everything
always
go
wrong for me?”

“Probably
karma.”

Taffi
missed that insult.  “I was going to be a movie star, you know.  Everyone said
so.  I was too beautiful to me anything else.  It was going to me up there on
screen.  I knew it.  I just don’t understand what happened to ruin my dreams.”

Lucy
considered the idea that Taffi was in some kind of shock, but quickly dismissed
it.  The girl had always been like this.  “Do you
really
want me to
stand here and tell you you’re pretty, Taffi?  Is that what you need?”

Taffi
ignored that, too.  She was a champ at ignoring things she didn’t want to
hear.  “And I had so much
talent
.”  She gave a small smile, lost in her
own maudlin thoughts.  “I was really good in
My Fair Lady
, wasn’t I?”

“You
were.”  Lucy said in a humoring tone, going along with Taffi’s sad remising.  And
it wasn’t a lie.  The senior play hadn’t sucked nearly so much as Lucy had
anticipated.  Taffi’s Liza Doolittle was no Audrey Hepburn, but even Lucy had
been impressed.  On some level, she’d always expected Taffi to make it big.

So
had everyone else.

…Especially
Taffi.

“And
I never doubted it would happen, you know?”  Taffi mused.  “Never doubted I’d
be an A-lister.  I
knew
I was born to do something great.”  She stared
at nothing for a long moment.  “High school was the best time of my life.  I
had everything in front of me.  So many possibilities.”  She sniffed again,
shooting Lucy a frown.  “I guess that sounds silly to you.”

“No,
it doesn’t.”  High school had sucked for Lucy, but she understood the confusion
and disappointed of looking back and not being able to see where you even
started.

In
a way, the regrets were much quieter on the island, though.  Being stuck here made
Lucy reevaluate everything else in her life.  It burned away the bullshit that
cluttered her days.  Lucy had never really fit in, back on Earth.  She’d always
been out of step.  The island had a way of clarifying her thoughts and linking
her to other people.  Sometimes, she almost liked it better here.