Morning Sun

And is not time even as love is, undivided and paceless?

VP and BP Standings
Erin - 95 VP - 2600 BP - 2 Achievs
Sam - 87 VP - 5700 BP - 2 Achievs
Marissa - 77 VP - 3000 BP - 2 Achievs
Norah - 74 Vp - 2350 BP - 3 Achievs
Claire - 69 VP - 8900 BP - 2 Achievs
Liesa - 69 VP - 4200 BP - 2 Achievs
Emily - 57 VP - 6100 BP - 1 Achiev
Dawn - 54 VP - 6300 BP - 2 Achievs
Emi - 46 VP - 3550 BP - 1 Achiev
Chloe - 45 VP - 4275 BP - 1 Achiev
Riley - 18 VP - 5600 BP - 2 Achievs
Myra - 14 VP - 4800 BP

The Suite, in the morning, belonged to another world. Andy woke first, though it was hard to tell: his eyelids wouldn’t open without effort, every inch of him heavy and fused with warmth, as if he’d grown into the bed overnight. He was pinned—not by the covers, but by the woman stretched across his chest, her body sprawled full-length and unselfconscious as a cat. The early light poured through the tall glass, catching the minty shine of her skin, painting every curve in a kind of holy pallor.

Erin breathed slow, her face mashed against his heart, auburn hair wild and streaked with gold by the angle of the sun. Her arms held him—one looped under his ribs, the other draped across his chest—and he could feel the prickle of her fingertips even in sleep, like she didn’t trust the universe to keep him if she let go.

He tried not to move. But as the minutes collected, as the light shifted from cool blue to gentle cream, Andy felt the restlessness in him start to percolate: a carbonated, stupid joy that threatened to make him laugh out loud. He flexed his hand, running it along her shoulder, down her back, until it rested at the dip above her hip. He could feel the faint stick of dried sweat, the ghost-marks from their night together, and he wanted to memorize it all.

“Are you awake?” he whispered, feeling her breath hitch against his sternum.

A pause, then a low, throat-cracked murmur. “Only if you are.”

He smiled, kissing the top of her head. “I’m not sure yet. Might be dreaming.”

She made a noise—something between a sigh and a growl. “If you’re dreaming, I hope you’re not planning to wake up soon.” Erin stretched, pushing her tits into his side with deliberate emphasis. “I could stay like this forever.”

He let himself imagine it, just for a second: the Suite suspended in permanent morning, Erin’s skin electric and cool, her breath synced perfectly to his. He stroked her back, tracing the sweep from shoulder blade to waist, the line so familiar now it felt like it belonged to him.

For a long time, neither spoke. There was nothing left to say about the night before, and anyway, Andy didn’t want to risk breaking the spell. But then Erin shifted, rolling onto her side, pressing her nose under his jaw. She inhaled, and her voice lost all pretense of sleep.

“Do you ever wonder how you’d explain this to your parents?” she said. “Not the sex. The…” She gestured to herself, the green, the nakedness, the fact of her.

Andy thought about it. “I’d start by inviting them over for breakfast, then act completely normal until they noticed.” He smirked. “Maybe add some green food dye to the eggs as a subtle hint.”

Erin barked a laugh, the sound muffled by his collarbone. “You’d actually do that, wouldn’t you?” She pushed herself upright, the blanket falling to her waist, leaving her breasts free in the sun. “You always were terrible at subtlety, Andy.”

“Better than denial,” Andy replied, then propped himself on his elbows to meet her gaze.

She looked at him, for a long moment, as if trying to gauge whether he was serious. Then she relaxed, a smile blooming wide and unguarded. “I’ve been scripting it for days,” she said, “like it’s a hostage negotiation.”

Andy tried to keep a straight face. “Do you have a powerpoint?”

Erin pursed her lips, the corners trying hard not to climb. “Don’t tempt me,” she said. “If I had a captive audience, I’d probably use slides. Mom in the kitchen, Dad at the end of the table, me… green, naked, holding a laser pointer.”

“You’d lose them at slide two,” Andy said, a hand drifting up to comb through her hair. “Your dad would be Googling ‘chlorophyll in humans’ before you finished your thesis statement.”

“I thought about starting with a joke,” Erin mused, running her thumb in a circle over his heart. “Something to soften it, you know? Like: ‘Remember when you said you wanted a daughter who stood out from the crowd? Surprise.’” She let the idea land, then winced. “But then Mom would start crying, and Dad would go into Fix-It mode, and by the time I got to the ‘also I’m never wearing clothes again’ part, they’d probably have a team of botanists on speed dial.”

Andy lost it, a deep belly laugh rolling through his chest and shaking her in the process. “Why not just lean in?” he said. “Show up to Thanksgiving dinner in a flowerpot and ask if anyone wants to help prune your leaves?”

Erin tried to glare, but the image got her—she snorted, then tried to hide it behind a mock-scowl. “No. No. That’s—” She covered her face with her hands, but the giggles punched through anyway. “Don’t make me picture you wheeling me in on a garden cart.”

“Better than bringing you in a compost bin,” Andy said, and then: “You think your parents would try to water you, or just spritz your leaves for optimal growth?”

“Stop,” she choked. “You are so—”

“—or we could go full Farmer’s Market. I’ll set you up on the porch with a little sign: ‘Take home a rare perennial, only slightly high-maintenance.’”

Erin was laughing too hard to speak. She batted at his chest, then curled into it, her forehead pressed to the spot just above his sternum, body shaking with laughter she didn’t even bother to muffle. When she finally got her breath, she said, “They’d do it, too. Dad would have me staked up in the side yard. Mom would try to feed me Miracle-Gro.”

Andy grinned into her hair. “She’d have you on a special vitamin regimen before you even finished dessert.”

“Dad would sneak out at night and try to graft new branches onto me,” Erin shot back, wiping her eyes. “By Christmas, I’d be a quarter rosebush, half cactus, and a quarter whatever the hell grows best in shade.”

“You could befriend Sir Spikes!” Andy chuckled.

They let the laughter settle, the sun climbing a fraction higher, the world outside the Suite taking shape in small, irrelevant sounds. Erin lingered, face hidden, the mood softening to something less frantic, more like the last fizz of a good champagne.

It was Andy who broke the hush, his voice back at half-volume, tentative but sure. “You know,” he said, “none of that would make me love you less.” He flexed his hand over her back, palm cupping the smooth dip just above her tailbone. “Green, blue, cactus, whatever. You’re still you.”

Erin went still, and for a moment Andy was sure he’d misjudged the tone. But then she turned her face up, eyes raw and shining, the skin under them gone gold in the morning. “You mean that,” she said, and the tremor in her voice told him she was testing the idea for cracks.

He nodded. “I do.”

She searched his face, probably looking for a lie or at least a polite hedge, but found none. Then her mouth twisted, and she said, “You’re an idiot, Andy. You realize what you’ve ended up with? A girl who can’t wear clothes, who sunbathes for fun, and whose tits are so big they’ve got their own zip code?”

Andy pretended to ponder it. “A dream come true,” he said, and when she snorted, he added, “I think Arabella custom-ordered you for me. She was like, ‘What if I take everything Andy’s ever wanted and make it totally illegal in every state?’”

Erin rolled her eyes, but she didn’t hide her smile. “You’re not suffering, then?”

He kissed the bridge of her nose. “Not even a little. In fact, I plan on bragging about you to everyone who’ll listen.”

She swatted at his side, but her hand lingered after, splayed over his ribs as if she wanted to anchor herself. “You’re such a dork,” she said. “But thank you.” Then, softer: “I think I needed to hear that.”

“Any time,” Andy said, and he meant it.

They let the hush return, but it was no longer the delicate kind. It was the kind you could live in, even after the jokes faded.

After a while, Erin’s voice returned, less guarded, more a shared secret. “You know,” she said, “I was never going to tell my parents about us. Back then, I mean. I thought you’d be my little rebellion, the thing they’d never get to ruin with their opinions.” She traced a line up his chest. “But now I wish they could see me happy. With you. Even if they never understand.”

Andy squeezed her. “They’d love you. How could they not?”

She shrugged, the movement rolling through her shoulders. “Maybe. Or maybe they’d just see the weird. The ‘otherness.’ I don’t know.” She sighed, but it was not a sad sound. “But you see me. That’s what matters.”

She looked up, her eyes chestnut brown and twice as alive. “About last night,” she started, then faltered, the flush blooming up her neck. “Did you mean what you said? About… about wanting all of it? Marriage, kids, the future?”

Andy didn’t hesitate. He put a finger under her chin, lifting her face so their eyes met. “I did,” he said. “Every word.”

Her breath stuttered. “Even now?”

He leaned in, forehead pressed to hers, and let the answer fill the space between them. “Especially now,” he whispered.

A slow, wonderstruck smile unfurled across Erin’s face, the kind that erased every shadow and every scar. She closed the last gap, her lips finding his, slow and deliberate, as if she wanted to memorize the taste of the words she’d just heard.

They kissed, and the sun climbed, and in that moment the Suite felt less like a cage and more like a greenhouse—one where strange, impossible things could grow, if only they were tended with enough light and love.

When the kiss broke, Erin snuggled in, her skin pressed along every inch of his. “You know,” she said, “if we ever do have kids, I hope they get your stubbornness and my tits. If they’re girls, I mean.”

Andy laughed, letting the joy bubble up and out. “And your sense of humor,” he said. “God knows the world needs more of that.”

She nipped his shoulder, then rested her head right where she’d started, above his heart. “We’ll figure it out,” she said. “Whatever comes next.”

Andy held her, letting the certainty settle in and spread. “Yeah,” he said. “We will.”

For a minute they just lay there, the hush comfortable, the sunlight climbing slow and golden through the glass. Erin, balanced half atop him, traced lazy circles along his collarbone, the tip of her finger barely grazing the skin. He felt it all the way down. The night before hung in the air, a leftover charge that neither had the will to dissipate, and Andy found himself wishing the Suite could freeze time at this exact hour, this exact temperature, the exact placement of her green thigh across his lap.

“Happy birthday, by the way,” Erin said, her voice muffled, lips pressed just below his ear. “I almost forgot, in all the, you know…” She gestured vaguely at their tangled limbs and the state of the sheets, but her smile made it into a joke. “Excitement.”

Andy blinked at the ceiling. He’d genuinely forgotten. For the first time in years there wasn’t any anxiety or pressure attached to the idea of another year gone, no existential dread, no list of unfinished ambitions. It was just a day, and he was here, and Erin’s skin was cool against his. “Thanks,” he said, which felt inadequate, so he added, “I can’t think of a better way to wake up.”

Erin propped herself on one elbow, her hair a wild tangle from sleep and sweat and everything that came before. She made a show of considering this. “Well,” she said, “technically, you haven’t received your present yet.” Her gaze locked with his, the grin taking on a mischievous tilt. “Unless you count the breakfast show.”

Andy opened his mouth to reply but she put a finger to his lips. “Shhh,” she said, “I’m working on it.” She slid down his body, slow and deliberate, as if mapping out every inch for reference. Her hands pressed into his chest, then drifted lower, her palm flat and warm against his stomach. He shivered, anticipation sparking along his nerves.

She paused at the hem of the blanket, her eyes flicking up. “You know, Emi said she’s coming by soon,” Erin murmured. “Something about an adventure.” Her tongue darted over her bottom lip, a nervous tell that Andy recognized from a lifetime ago. “I figure I’ve got time to give you mine first.”

She said it lightly, but there was a question in her voice, a faint seeking for permission. Andy nodded, once, certain.

Erin’s smile shifted, blooming into something wicked and full that Andy hadn’t seen since before the island, before the world had rearranged itself and every touch had to negotiate with caution or consequence. She ducked under the blanket, a flash of green and copper hair, and he felt her hands—one bold, one trembling—splay on either side of his hips as if to anchor herself against the undertow waiting inside him. The first touch of her lips was a benediction, not a demand: soft, almost reverent, as if she needed to remind herself that her own mouth wasn’t poison after all. She trailed kisses along the sharp ridge of his hipbone, up each rib like she was counting them, skipping the obvious in favor of rediscovering every part of him she’d ever loved or memorized or missed.

Andy tried, at first, to keep some purchase on the moment, to observe the way the blanket made a little tent over her hunched shoulders and how the sun streaming through the glass painted the outline of her back in a shifting, leaflike grid. Erin’s skin was a marvel—vivid against the white sheets, speckled with dew where the morning chill met the heat of her intent. He could see the slope of her neck and the way her shoulder blades flexed with each movement, an animal grace entirely at odds with the frantic, nervous energy she’d carried into the Suite the day before. The longer she worked, the more he realized she was not on autopilot, not performing an old script, but inventing a new language for them both, one where each press of her lips or flick of her tongue was both apology and promise.

She teased him, at first—scratching lightly with her nails, biting at the soft flesh of his stomach, nipping the inside of his thigh where she’d once mapped out the Morse code of “I love you” during a high school sleepover turned not-so-innocent. He guessed at her aim, but she surprised him, changing tempo and trajectory whenever he thought he’d figured out her rhythm. She knew the landscape of his body with a familiarity that left him helpless, almost embarrassed at how quickly she could unmake him.

He expected her to take the lead, to devour him outright the way she always had when nerves crashed into need and everything else blurred to static. But she held back, circling the obvious, applying a slow, methodical pressure that bordered on worship.

He surrendered to her, at last, letting the rest of the world dissolve beneath the blanket. All that remained was the precise geometry of her mouth, the unhurried journey she charted up and down his body, the way she would look up at him with a question in her eyes and wait for his answer before moving on. At one point, she paused and drew a lazy spiral above his navel with her tongue, then rested her cheek against his hip and just… breathed, as if recalibrating her courage. She threaded her fingers through his, squeezed once, and he squeezed back, the old, automatic squeeze they’d used in crowded train stations and hospital waiting rooms, a code that meant I’m safe, don’t stop, I’m here.

When she finally touched his dick, it was with a gentleness that bordered on clinical, as if she were still testing the boundaries of what her body could do, what his could bear. He felt the tremor in her hands, not from fear or uncertainty but from the sheer effort of holding herself back, of making every movement intentional and careful, as if she believed the moment depended on absolute precision. She used her mouth, her hands, her breasts, the whole length of her body in a slow-motion choreography that built and built without ever tipping into chaos. He tried to watch her, to catch her expression, but the blanket and the sun and his own breathing kept short-circuiting his focus until all he could see was green skin and the glint of her hair and the blur of movement that was both her and not her, both wild and domesticated.

It went on forever, or maybe just a minute, time compressing and stretching in the way it always did when he was half out of himself, half in love. He lost track of how many times she brought him to the edge and let him dangle, how many times she started over, tracing the same arc as if to prove she could repeat perfection indefinitely. At one point he gasped her name, and she stopped, looked up at him, and grinned—a feral, triumphant grin that made him want to laugh and cry and beg her never to stop.

When it ended, it did so with an inevitability that surprised him: a clean, bright rush that left him gasping and boneless, splayed across the bed and utterly emptied of anything but gratitude. Erin slid back up, just as slow, and laid her cheek against his chest, the cool of her skin a perfect counterpoint to his hammering heart. She listened to it for a while, the same way she used to on lazy Saturdays when neither of them had anywhere to be, and when she finally looked up, her face was so open and unguarded it almost hurt to see.

Andy couldn’t help himself—he reached up and tucked a strand of her wild, sleep-mussed hair behind her ear, the gesture so familiar it broke the tension all over again. Erin grinned, wiped a thumb over the corner of his mouth, and then kissed him with a theatrical flourish, like she was sealing an envelope full of secrets.

The world came back in increments: the scent of sweat and sun-warmed skin, the sound of gulls through the open window, the distant murmur of other contestants waking up and moving through the halls. But none of it mattered, not really, because the only thing Andy could focus on was the way Erin looked at him—like she’d just finished a painting and wasn’t sure if anyone else would see what she saw, but she was proud nonetheless.

They lay there for a while, her head on his chest, his hands tracing lazy patterns up and down her arm. Neither of them spoke, and neither of them needed to. It was the kind of quiet that could last an hour or a lifetime, the kind that made every other sound—every distant footfall, every muffled laugh from the courtyard—seem like it belonged to someone else entirely.

After a while, Erin shifted, propped herself up on one elbow, and studied him with a look that was equal parts devilish and earnest.

“Did I do good?” Erin asked, and somehow made it sound both earnest and absurd.

“Off the charts,” Andy said, still breathless. He brushed her hair off her face, tucking it behind her ear.

She basked in the praise for a minute, then her gaze went soft. “Don’t get mushy,” she warned, biting his lip for emphasis. “You’ll ruin my image.”

He laughed, the last of the tension gone. “Noted.”

They lay together, soaking in the glow, until Erin rolled out of bed with a theatrical groan. “I need to shower,” she announced, “or Emi’s going to make a scene about my hair. She gets weird about presentation.” She stretched, arms overhead, the movement making her silhouette even more improbable in the golden light.

Andy watched her cross the room, a lump in his throat he couldn’t quite swallow. He wanted to follow, to corral her back into bed, but she’d already disappeared into the bathroom, humming one of Marissa’s jazz standards under her breath.

He let himself drift, eyes tracing the pattern of light across the sheets, the ordinary made holy by the afterimage of her. The Suite filled with soft sounds—water running, distant seagulls, the faint thrum of the volcano’s heart. It felt like the first time in his life that he was exactly where he belonged.

He was still smiling, half-dazed, when the door buzzed and Emi’s voice piped in over the intercom, bright and insistent: “Rise and shine, birthday boy! We have plans!”

Andy looked at the clock. He had no idea how long he’d dozed, but the world outside the Suite was already in motion, and the promise of adventure—whatever that meant—beckoned like a tide. He rolled out of bed, pulled on the first thing he could find, and went to meet it, the ghosts of Erin’s laughter still clinging to his skin.

---

The elevator doors opened to a flash of color and movement. Emi stood waiting in the lobby, all six arms waving like she was guiding in a lost airliner, her hair a blur of black. She wore a white tank top over a blue skirt, and she bounced on her toes as if the floor might launch her skyward at any moment.

When she spotted Andy, her grin went wide enough to crack her face. “Birthday adventure!” she announced, voice so bright it echoed off the marble. Two left arms grabbed Andy by the wrist, and before he could find his balance, she was towing him toward the main doors.

“Where are we—”

“No questions!” Emi beamed. “Just trust!” Her other four hands flailed for emphasis, gesturing at everything and nothing: the light pouring in through the glass, the long shadow of a lobby fern that crept across the floor like a lazy animal.

Andy let himself be pulled. The **** of Emi’s joy was impossible to fight, and anyway, he was curious. The day outside was already hot, the sky a hard blue, the air wet with the smell of cut grass and salt. Emi navigated the front steps like a marathon runner, then charged across the drive and into the footpath that led toward the Lagoon.

The path wound through jungle, the canopy overhead a patchwork of sun and leaf. Emi chattered the whole way, her words running together in an endless, unfiltered stream.

“There was a lizard here yesterday, super green, kind of like Erin? Do you think she would eat a bug if it landed on her nose? I bet she would, but only if it was a dare. Look at that flower! See, the red ones are always first in the morning. I read it in a book, but maybe it’s just this island. Oh! Careful—roots are tricky here, don’t trip. And don’t step on the ant trail, they have like a schedule, I swear.”

Andy followed, not even trying to keep up with her train of thought. He ducked under vines, hopped over roots, and breathed in the sweet, heavy air.

They hit the Lagoon clearing just as the sun topped the far ridge. The water was a deep, impossible turquoise, the sand around it studded with shells and half-buried driftwood. On the dock, two paddleboards waited—one blue, one pink.

Emi pulled down her skirt, took off her tank top, and revealed a bikini underneath. Without waiting for him, she grabbed the blue one, tucked it under her arm, and tossed Andy the pink. “C’mon,” she said, already racing down the planks. “It’s easy!”

Andy had never paddleboarded in his life. He watched Emi drop hers in the water, hop on, and start gliding with the effortless balance of someone who had been born in water. He tried to copy her, but his board spun in a slow, humiliating circle, then jerked out from under him and dumped him in up to his chest.

Emi howled with laughter, then paddled over, her six arms steering with uncanny precision. “You’re a natural,” she said. “Most people fall off right away!”

“I didn’t fall,” Andy grumbled, climbing back onto the board. “I was demonstrating worst-case scenario.”

She nodded gravely. “Very educational.” Then she stuck out her tongue and shot ahead, trailing splashes in her wake.

Andy got the hang of it after a few tries, but he was never graceful. Emi, on the other hand, moved like she’d fused with the current. When Andy lagged behind, she looped back, teasing him, sometimes making deliberate circles around his board before speeding away again. She narrated everything—every fish she saw, every odd shadow in the water, every passing cloud. And every time he caught up, she’d blurt some new observation, sometimes about the world, sometimes about him.

“You look happiest when you’re wet,” she said at one point, splashing him deliberately.

“I’m starting to think you planned this,” he replied.

She nodded. “I did! It’s your birthday adventure. Rule one: no dry skin allowed. Rule two: no sad faces. Rule three…” She paused, thinking. “If you break rule one or two, you get tickled.”

He almost lost his balance again laughing. Emi didn’t let up. At one point, when he was concentrating so hard on not tipping over that he forgot to steer, she snuck up behind him and jabbed him in the ribs with a toe, sending his board into a wild wobble and him into the water again.

He surfaced to find her drawing in her notebook—one arm steadying the paddle, another holding the sketchbook, two more working a pen and a brush, the last two gesturing for him to “hold still!” He did, treading water, while she captured his sodden, slightly defeated glory.

When she showed him the drawing, he couldn’t help but laugh: a caricature of Andy on a half-sunken paddleboard, hair plastered to his face, grin goofy and wide. Emi had drawn herself in the background, arms flung overhead, a queen of chaos.

“Hang it in the Suite?” she asked.

“Only if you sign it,” Andy said.

She did, all three right hands at once, and the result was a riot of overlapping E’s and K’s.

After a few laps around the Lagoon, Emi led the way inland, to where the trees thinned and the ground rose into a low hill carpeted with wildflowers. She plopped down in the grass, cross-legged, and patted the ground beside her.

Andy flopped down, letting the sun bake his skin dry. The heat was sharp, but the breeze was good, and the air tasted like honey.

For a while, they just lay there, watching clouds scud across the sky. Emi pointed out every shape she saw, usually with all six index fingers at once: “That one’s a dragon, and that’s a pineapple, and that one looks like Riley if Riley was a mean cloud with an angry face.” Andy argued, insisting the dragon was actually a dog, the pineapple a chicken, the Riley cloud clearly a cat, and every time Emi would shriek, “No! You’re wrong!” and laugh herself breathless.

After a while, Andy stopped caring whether he was right or wrong. He just liked hearing her laugh.

Emi rolled onto her stomach, propping her chin on her fists. “You know, I don’t remember ever having a real birthday party as a kid,” she said. “My parents were weird about them. Like, if you had too much fun, something bad would happen. So mostly I just read books and drew things, or hung out in the library with the librarians.” She watched a bee drift from flower to flower. “This is better, I think. No cake, but I’d trade a hundred cakes for this day.”

Andy looked at her. “You deserve all the birthdays you want,” he said.

She shrugged. “I don’t really need them anymore. I just want to make other people happy. Like… like if I can make someone laugh, even just once, maybe it balances things out. Does that make sense?”

“It does,” Andy said, surprised by how much it did.

Emi was quiet for a long time, her fingers picking seeds out of the grass. Then, suddenly, she sat up, face serious. “Promise me something?”

“Anything,” Andy said.

She reached out, her six hands all tangled together, and made him wrap his hand around them, sandwiching his palm in a cloud of warmth. “Promise you’ll keep laughing,” she said. “Even when the world gets heavy. Even if I’m not here, or you don’t want to, or everything is… hard. Just keep laughing. You need it.”

Andy nodded. “I promise.”

She let go, but not before squeezing his fingers, all six thumbs pressing in.

“Good,” she said, smiling. “That’s the whole point of today.”

They lay in the grass until the sun started to dip, trading stories and cloud shapes, every so often getting up to chase a butterfly or see who could find the weirdest rock. Emi’s hair got full of burrs and petals, and when she noticed, she just laughed and stuck more in, weaving a crown of weeds and seeds.

When it was time to head back, she grabbed his hand again, swinging their arms in exaggerated arcs as they walked.

“You know,” Andy said, “for a day with no plan, this was pretty perfect.”

Emi giggled, bumping his shoulder. “Who says there’s no plan? I planned everything. Even the part where you fell in the Lagoon.”

Andy groaned, and she grinned wider.

They returned to the Suite as the sky shifted from blue to pink, Emi humming under her breath, Andy feeling happy for this day with her.