Harlequin E New Adult Romance Box Set Volume 1: Burning Moon\Girls' Guide to Getting It Together\Rookie in Love (22 page)

“I can’t believe I found you here,” I said to them, sipping the champagne that had already been shoved into my paw.

“Oh, this is our little tradition, we come here every night before the party while we wait for the map to come through.”

“Do you have any idea where the party is going to be this year?”

“Nope, it’s always such a closely guarded secret, but that’s half the fun, isn’t it?” He winked at me.

“So…” A conspiratorial smile swept across Red’s face and although he raised his eyebrows at me, his forehead didn’t move. It remained as smooth and silky as Botoxed marble. “So…where is that dish Damien? We were secretly hoping to see him here tonight, I mean, who can forget that little show he put on for us, and of course, who can forget your little smooch. I think every gay man in this club harbors a secret crush on him.”

“Ah.” I sipped my champagne melancholically. “It didn’t work out.”

“No my babes, that’s Sheila (shit). Don’t you think, Bruno?” Bruno just grunted as usual.

“That’s why I’m here actually. I’m kind of here to—”

Red cut me off as he laid a tender hand on Bruno’s shoulder. “Hear that Bruno? She’s here to win him back. Isn’t that the sweetest thing you’ve ever heard?” Another grunt from the Jaw.

“I’m hoping that I will—” He cut me off again.

“Find him at the party. Ahhh. So divine.”

Suddenly he jumped up clapping. “Well, you must come with us, we must all go together! We’ll help you find your guy and get you there safely. It would be so Milly (mad fun)! Don’t you think, Bruno?” He looked at The Jaw and, this time, I noticed a small smile quivering at the corners of his mouth. I smiled back at them. “I would love to come!”

“Let’s drink to it then!” Again another round of expensive champagne, which I must say wasn’t mixing too well with the two shots from earlier and the puff of weed that
had not
given me clarity of mind—remind me to never do that again.

“I’ll drink to that.” I said slightly reluctantly before we all clinked glasses. Then suddenly, and almost scarily, the Jaw opened, and it looked like words were finally about to come out.

And they did.

“Pouvons-nous dîner avant tout?” he said in a high-pitched voice that took me by total surprise, since it completely contradicted his über-manly exterior.

“Of course, dear,” Red said to Bruno before leaning over to me and whispering in my ear, “He’s French. We’ve been together for five years and I swear I don’t understand a word he says!”

Chapter Nineteen

Do you remember when cell phones first came out? How they were the size of small children and how when you needed to talk on them, you had to pull out the long aerial that could easily poke someone in the eye? Remember when texting was cool and futuristic and predictive text was new and revolutionary. Phones didn’t have cameras and GPS and Facebook, and you couldn’t Tweet that you had just posted a picture on Instagram while tossing birds into pigs and simultaneously tracking how many steps you were taking on your pedometer APP.

Soon our phones will be capable of reading our minds and sending friend requests to people we haven’t even met yet.

So precious cell phone in hand, Red, Jaw and I huddled together in the bustling street looking at it as if it was the Holy Grail. A few seconds ago his phone had beeped, vibrated and lit up as a detailed map to the party, as well as GPS coordinated, had popped onto the screen.

Now this was more like it! Modern technology at it’s finest, because two seconds later, Red had typed in the address and an American lady with a soothing, yet strangely commanding, voice was now telling us to travel north. By now I was practically bubbling over with excitement, while next to me Red seemed to be exploding with it.

“I’ve always wanted to do this!” He jumped up clapping his hands and almost losing his phone in the process. “This is going to be so awesies.” He was still clapping so wildly that Bruno and I felt compelled to join in, even though we had no idea to what we owed the enthusiastic clapping and jumping up and down to.

“We’re going to be going on an elephant ride through the jungle and then canoeing…yay!” He shrieked even louder.

“Yay!” I joined in, too, because that really did sound exciting. I mentally chuckled as I tried to imagine what my reaction to those two things would have been this past year.

Surprisingly Bruno seemed to be quite the organizer, and in under two minutes he had hailed a taxi (a proper one, one with four wheels and real doors that opened and closed) loaded our luggage into the trunk, given instructions to the driver, bought snacks and ice-cold beers and was ushering us into the back seat while talking loudly in French.

And then we were off.

The drive out of Phuket went by in a flash of excitement and we soon came to the great Sarasin Bridge at the southernmost tip of the island, an impressive long bridge that joined the island to the mainland. A few more hours later and we arrived at our final destination, just as the morning sun was beginning to light up the sky. Even though it was morning, the humidity and heat was already scorching and we felt it the second we climbed out of the air-conditioned taxi.

“Oohhh, this is amazing,” Red said while looking around. And it was all pretty amazing. We were surrounded by an enormous, lush, green tropical jungle. And when I say enormous, I mean that everything was literally enormous. Some of the leaves were almost the same size as me, and in places the bamboo was as thick as my waist. The jungle was so dense and thick, that in between the massive green foliage, everything was pitch black. The vegetation was a mixture of tropical palms and gargantuan trees that seemed to go up forever. It was so damp that all the once-brown trunks were painted bright green by a moist moss, and every so often the green was punctuated by a splash of red, where a large alien-looking flower peeped out from behind the thick, green curtain. Huge vines hung from the branches above us and also wound themselves around and over the trees in an intricate web-like structure that was everywhere. I was finding it pretty hard to keep myself from wondering how big the bugs must be in there! But there was no turning back now.

“Your man is somewhere in there.” Red was suddenly behind me pointing into the dense bush. “Oh em gee, maybe he’ll come swinging down for you from a vine, hopefully with his shirt off like Tarzan or something.” He nudged me in the ribs. “No, I have a better idea. You should go swinging down from the tree without your top on!”

Well, he certainly had a way of taking my mind off of any lurking creepy crawlies.

“Um…” I smiled at Red. “Hopefully there will be no swinging from vines!”

“Fine.” He sighed dramatically, seemingly genuinely disappointed that I wouldn’t consider some form of vine swinging. “But I hope you’ve planned something—some kind of gesture? Or I hope you at least know what you are going to say to him?”

I thought about this for a moment and realize that I had absolutely no plan.

None.

Red looked at me with wide blue eyes. “Please tell me you at least know what you’re going to say to him. I mean…you’ve come all this way, what are you going to do?”

He suddenly put his hand on his hip and flicked his hair back, I assume in an attempt to imitate me, although I don’t think I’ve ever done that before. “Surprise, Damien, it’s me!” His imitation of me was horrible, and he made me sound a little like a drunken Cher.

I was thinking quickly now. “I don’t know what I’m going to say okay! I haven’t thought that far.”

Red shook his head worriedly. “Well, how do you plan on being together after this? Since he’s still traveling and you’re still working? Are you going to quit your job and life and go traveling with him?”

Oh crap,
these were all very important logistical details I hadn’t yet thought about! All I knew was that I loved him, and that this year without him had been torturous. I think Red must have seen the worried look on my face, because he was suddenly by my side taking my hand. “Don’t worry. I’m sure it will be fine. Love will conquer everything.” He said leading me toward the dense jungle.

I sure hoped so.

Being inside the jungle felt like being inside a hot, suffocating greenhouse and I instantly broke into a sweat. We continued carefully down a small path, following some small red arrows as we went. Although I couldn’t see any animals, any giant hairy spiders or whale-sized snakes, I got the distinctive feeling that the jungle was alive with all sorts of creatures: hidden under the moss, disguised on the leafy floor and lurking suspiciously behind the large leaves. I tried not to think about the TV show I suddenly remembered watching a week ago about the king cobra, which was indigenous to Thailand and with a venom that could kill a man in minutes. Instead, I focused on what I was going to say to Damien. Was I prepared to leave my life behind and travel with him? This time, a year down the line, the answer was definitely
yes!

We soon came to a large clearing in the bush where we found a small village, comprised of only a few small bamboo houses. They were all very quaint and well built, some of them even balanced elegantly on stilts and one or two were actually built into the trees like a child’s dream tree house, complete with rickety rope ladders. A few children ran around outside playing, while a few others busied themselves with the morning duties of washing clothes and cooking. Our arrival caught their attention and they started calling out to us in greeting, waving and smiling as we approached, prompting a young man to appear and gesture for us to follow him. He ushered us to the back end of the buildings, where about ten other people had already gathered. Many of them looked vaguely familiar but that didn’t seem to matter at all, because within a matter of moments everyone was hugging and greeting each other like long lost friends. You really couldn’t help but get caught up in the party spirit. I had felt that contagious feeling the year before, and this year was no different.

We were still talking and laughing when another man came around the corner pulling two elephants behind him. I’d never been this close to an elephant before and I was momentarily taken aback. Although the Thai elephant is much smaller than its African counterpart, that doesn’t detract at all from the fact that it’s massive. They were incredible to behold, imposing and intimidating with their strange, grey leathery skin and long trunks. But despite all this, and despite my steadily growing misgivings about riding one of these beasts through the jungle, they were, in fact, remarkably calm and surprisingly affectionate—especially after we’d fed them some lettuce.

Each elephant had a kind of box strapped onto its back, which allowed for four people to climb in quite comfortably. So my BFFs and I hopped in, together with a gorgeous—and I mean simply stunning—German woman named Friederike, whose profession could only be model or actress or Miss Universe (if that counts as a profession?). Although I’ve never been attracted to a woman, have never “kissed a girl and liked it,” I simply couldn’t help but stare at her. Women like this always made me feel self-conscious and at least two sizes bigger than I really am. But I had other things to think about right now, like holding onto the sides of this little box for dear life as the elephant stood up.

Riding an elephant is an amazing experience, you move through the world in a kind of slow, rhythmic sway. None of us said a word, and the only sound we could hear was the cracking and snapping of the jungle under the elephant’s huge, deliberate feet. Our journey took us deeper and deeper still into the rainforest, crossing deep green rivers as we went and climbing up steep rocky slopes, until we finally stopped at a large green pool of water—after what seemed like a few hours and more than a few insect bites later.

A soft, delicate mist hung over the water, giving it an ethereal quality. It looked like something plucked directly from the mystical Middle Earth depicted in
Lord Of The Rings
. Once we’d disembarked—which I’m not entirely sure is the correct word to use when referring to the act of climbing off the back of a large mammal, but it felt like the most appropriate one—we made our way to the shoreline, where a few canoes patiently waited for us.

The water was a deep-emerald color, surrounded by a brilliant pallet of deep greens and blacks created by huge rocky overhangs that were decorated in vines and the twisted, mossy roots of trees that looked hundreds of years old. As we rowed across the water a gentle tide softly pushed us forward, making it much easier to navigate down the winding river and around the massive mangrove roots that rose out of it. But in some parts the river became so narrow, framed on both sides by large rocky cliffs, that you had to use your oar to push yourself along. My arms were really starting to hurt when Red shouted out that we were almost there.

Although the last stretch was short, it felt like it took hours to get through, as we carefully weaved our way through a series of dark caves and tiny tunnels carved out of the enormous limestone rocks. The final stretch, and possibly the most daunting, was going through a long, dark cave, with a ceiling so low you had to lie flat on your back to avoid scraping your head on it. As we got further into the cave’s rambling maze and closer to the Phang Nga Bay area, you could feel the deep bass reverberating and echoing around us; the party was not very far away now.

We finally popped out on the other side of the cave and straight into a lush, green paradise—a small, green lagoon that was surrounded by pebbly beaches and thick jungle. Directly across from us a high waterfall cascaded down into the pool, whipping the water up into a white, foamy frenzy. My eyes followed the sheet of water all the way up, but I couldn’t see the source with all of that thick, misty white foam shrouding the top of the hill. On the other side of the lagoon, the music drew my eyes to the familiar sights of Burning Moon. The dance floor—a large wooden platform that seemed to be floating on the water—was already filled with gyrating bodies, all swaying together to the loud beats that were reverberating all around us. There were the usual tents that had been erected on the shoreline, and beautiful floating candles had been release into the water.