Love Island

Chapter 9 - This is Not the End

Nearly an hour had gone by, and Blake remained on the balcony. He was so still that for a moment, I thought he'd fallen asleep. I glanced up at him now and then while Peach and I relaxed in the deep end of the pool. Our arms were crossed with our elbows resting on the concrete to keep us from sinking; neither of us could handle the six-foot depth gracefully.

Peach lifted her chin off the cement and turned around to watch the sky. "It's getting way darker." She looked around and spotted Amelia in a nearby daybed, tanning alongside Polly. "Ames, are you awake?" she asked gently.

Amelia lifted her sunglasses to the top of her head. "Yeah, hon. What's up?"

"Can we get an update on our weather system?" Peach pointed up at the dark clouds rolling in but still miles from the villa.

Amelia sat up and surveyed the sky, then reached her palm upward with all fingers flexed. "It's getting kinda windy. Maybe half an hour?"

"Thank you!" Peach called and turned to me. "I think we should play a game before the storm gets here."

I glanced up at the balcony and saw it was empty. "Like what?"

"I don't know," Peach looked around. "Marco Polo?"

"You want to play a game in the water with a storm on the way?"

Peach lifted a hand in self-defense. "I'm just suggesting. We've played hide and seek, and some of my other favorite childhood games really wouldn't work here. At least, I don't think."

"Give me an example," I suggested.

"Well, like capture the flag. I want to play so bad! But that requires a huge area. Our only option would be one team takes the villa and the other takes the garden, but even then, there are only two ways in and out of the villa, so... that kinda makes the game too hard. Everyone would get tagged," Peach explained.

"Point taken. Any others?"

Peach tapped her chin. "Oh my god, ghost in the graveyard. I played that when I was like six. It's like hide and seek, but instead, there's one person hiding that's the ghost, and the rest are seekers. And the ghost keeps trying to tag the seekers, turning them into ghosts. It's pretty fun, but we'd have to play it at night."

I drummed my fingers against the concrete. "We'll save that for later, though. That sounds kinda fun." I looked around, waiting. "This would be a great time for somebody to text us to play a game!" I projected my voice into the air, hoping someone's mic caught it.

Peach giggled alongside me. "Honestly. I can't think of anything! The only thing left is tag."

"No way!" Amelia interjected. "I'm competitive as hell. So when I start sprinting across this grass, I don't want my tatas to fall out of my swimsuit," she joked and made a point to pull up her bikini top.

"Noted," I smiled.

There was a brief pause, and then Peach slapped the water. "I've got it! Wink murder!"

"Wink murder?" Amelia questioned.

"Yes! Okay, everyone! Gather around!" Peach hoisted herself out of the pool and sat down at the edge of the concrete. I followed her lead as the islanders gathered from every corner of the villa. "We're playing wink murder!" Her announcement was met with a mixture of cheers and confusion.

Blake stepped forward out of the crowd. "Actually, Maddie, could we have that talk now?"

"Oh my god, I'm sorry you guys, but I'm not waiting to play this game so you can kiss and make up, can we just do this?" Amelia whined.