“Mate,” the biggest man says to him, his eyes a stiff warning. “Don’t make me send you back to Australia, aye? Calm down. It’s over.” His grip tightens on Nick for emphasis. “You hear me?”
Nick eyes him and the other guy holding him back but eventually concedes. They reluctantly let go of him, though they seem poised to take him down if he tries to go after Josh.
I don’t know what to fucking do. Nick was supposed to come back with us; some of his stuff is still in Mr. Orange.
The tough man looks to me. “If I were you, I’d pack up and get out of here. This is a family place. No one wants any more trouble.”
“Of course not,” I manage to say, shooting him a weak smile. I grab Amber, who seems to have been shell-shocked this whole time, and we hurry over to the bunks.
Josh is leaning his forehead against the top bunk, eyes closed, breathing in and out.
“Josh,” I say gently. I carefully lay my hand on his arm. “We need to get going before things get worse. We can pack for you if you want to leave now and take the door that leads to the deck. We’ll meet you on the trail below.”
He slowly rolls his forehead along the wood and looks straight at me, frowning. “I’m not taking the back door. I’m not afraid of him.”
“I know you’re not. That’s the point.”
His brows knit further together. “He called you an ugly slut, Gemma. How can you let him get away with that?”
“It doesn’t matter,” I tell him, “because you didn’t let him get away with it. And I appreciate that you stood up for me. But we need to get going before things get worse. We have a bus to catch to Milford Sound anyway.”
He sighs but pushes back from the bunk and starts packing. He’s fast, and to his credit, he slips out the other door.
When Amber and I are ready, our packs on our backs, I give her a look. “Pretty exciting morning, huh?”
Her eyes are wide. “Tell me about it. I felt like I was in an episode of Buffy. But without the vampires.”
“Well, it ain’t over yet.”
As we quickly walk through the dining hall, keeping our heads low, we’re left alone. At least until I can see Nick getting to his feet out of the corner of my eye, his chair scraping loudly on the floor like nails on a chalkboard.
“Oye!” he yells. “Where the fuck are you going?”
I don’t even look at him.
“Hey! Gemma! What about my stuff?” he cries out, louder now.
I open the door and Amber turns to him. “We’ll mail all your crap to your shitty gym,” she says. “Don’t worry, we won’t forget about the steroids.”
The door shuts behind us and I can hear his embarrassed protests, but now we’re on the trail and we’re quickly running down the path, the sneakers I have tied against my pack banging on my ass as we go.
We round a bend and see Josh standing up ahead. He’s got his whiskey bottle in hand and is taking a shot.
“It’s like eight in the morning,” Amber admonishes as we catch up to him but she grabs the bottle and takes a shot herself, wincing all the way.
“Yeah,” Josh says, “but I’ve already been punched in the face so I think I’ve got a head start on the day.”
I take the whiskey and tip a bit down my throat. I cough, wiping my mouth with my sleeve, and give it back to Josh. “It’s five o’clock somewhere.”
“In China, I think,” Amber says, glancing at the time on her phone.
We head down the track, our feet quick.
And then there were three.
“You know,” Amber says to me as we lean against the rails of the ship, the towering peaks of Milford Sound rising above us on either side, like mystical overlords, “if you want to make a fuss about Nick, you know, letting you go from your job, you could. I don’t know what the rules are in this country but back home you could totally sue his ass.”
“Nah,” I say, my eyes trained on the rock faces, marveling at the way time and ice have sculpted them. “I’m not going to bother with that.”
“But how can you get another job at a gym if he’s going to” she says as she makes air quotes “ ‘trash you all over town’?”
“Maybe I won’t get a job at a gym.”
“What are you going to do?”
I don’t know. I can only shrug, wanting her to drop the subject. It’s all too much to think about right now. I just want to be numb.
Josh comes back from downstairs holding paper cups of coffee, trying not to spill as the ship rolls back and forth. We’re nearing the mouth of the sound, Anita Bay, where the Tasman Sea funnels in, and it’s starting to get rougher.
He hands one to me and as I take the cup, his finger brushes against mine. I try and ignore the thrill it shoots into me. He’s only adding to my confusion and yet I can’t stop bringing my thoughts to him.
When the three of us finally made our way to the Divide Shelter, at the other end of the Routeburn Track, we had to wait around a bit because we were early. The whole time I kept looking over my shoulder, thinking Nick was going to come running out of the forest like a crazy ape, beating his fists into his chest, but luckily the bus showed up before that could happen.
Milford Sound wasn’t too far away, and soon we were boarding a small ship with a bunch of other tourists, swatting at the sandflies that gather around the shore.
The Sound is exactly how you see it on all the New Zealand postcards and travel advertisements. Mitre Peak is the focal point, a giant, soaring monolith sticking straight out of the water, but all the surrounding mountains, with their waterfalls and sheer cliff faces, are equally impressive.