After counting up the hour's seal activity, Logan and I headed back to the house, but as we got to the door, Toby's irritated voice got louder.

"Nope, Rea. I think Jia finally snapped and murdered Darrell. I can't really blame her, though," Logan said, and he gestured for me to step off the porch.

I didn't.

"She already smacked him in the face earlier, so that should have tied over her homicidal desires for the time being," I replied.

"She did what? Fuck, I always miss out on the good drama in Paradise City."

"There are seven of us living here. We're all usually directly involved." I looked back at him. "Now zip it. I want to hear."

"You know you're only getting a small part of the story, right?"

"Would you please shut up?"

"Well, since you asked so nicely." He stopped talking and stood behind me with his arms crossed.

I rolled my eyes, then listened in on what was going on inside.

"First, he made fun of me for being adopted, then he made fun of me for being stupid, and then a whore. Am I just supposed to sit here and let him?" Jia asked.

"You called her a whore?" Toby asked.

"I just implied it," Darrell said.

Toby let out a loud sigh. "Still, that's no reason to resort to violence. Thanks to you two, Darrell now has two black eyes."

"To be fair, they're both because of me. Jia didn't have anything to do with that," Brett said.

"Why would you do that?" Toby asked.

"Because I couldn't give him a third," Brett said, and I covered my mouth to keep a laugh from escaping.

I didn't exactly hate Darrell, but there was a certain satisfaction in the thought of Brett punching him in the face. Twice.

"Well, there's your tea. How fascinating," Logan said.

I shushed him and kept listening.

"So are you removing me from the premises or not? Look, I don't really give a shit either way, but I'd like to know sooner rather than later," Brett said.

"I'm not kicking you off the island," Toby replied.

"Are you joking? He literally assaulted me," Darrell spat.

"Maybe you should be less of a douche," Toby said, and despite my efforts, I laughed this time.

Someone skidded a chair across the floor, then Jia said, "Great. I'm glad we're all cleared up then."

"The amount of pure nonsense I put up with for this project is astounding, and this is how you repay me? By letting my attacker stay on the island?" Darrell said.

"He makes really good tacos," Toby replied, and I could practically hear Brett's grin.

"Man, I love the smell of comeuppance in the late afternoon." Jia laughed. "What a time to be alive."

I turned back to Logan. "Did you get all that?"

"Was I supposed to be taking notes or something?"

I took in a deep breath. "Yes. There's going to be a quiz tomorrow."

He sarcastically snapped his fingers. "Damn, I'm gonna fail Paradise City Gossip 101."

I turned away before he could see me chuckle.

Introversion was a funny thing. I didn't like to talk much around strangers, but evenings counting seals built some level of trust between us. I was a little less thoughtful with my words than usual, but he didn't seem to mind.

"I think it's safe to go in now. I just didn't want to interrupt their conversation," I said.

Logan smiled. "Uh huh. Totally."

Inside, Darrell sat at the kitchen table with Toby, but they didn't say anything. Darrell looked up as Logan and I headed back in, and I hoped Logan would just keep his mouth shut for once.

There were times that Logan's favorite activity was being a little bit of an asshole, but I had gotten used to it. In fact, I was beginning to figure out that he didn't always mean what he said. The only challenge was figuring out what those situations were.

But fortunately for me, Logan didn't say anything to Darrell about what we had overheard. The last thing I wanted was to push Darrell's sensitivity any further.

"Dammit, Jia," Brett said from the game room, and from that familiar sound, I figured she was beating him in a game of ping pong. Again.

I wandered in that direction, and surely enough, they were in the game room, smacking a ping pong ball back and forth. Neither of them seemed particularly upset, and perhaps the outcome of the argument with Darrell facilitated their relaxation.

"Hey," I said, not wanting to bring up what was on my mind.

Brett looked up from the game, and the ball zipped past him. "Dammit, Reagan."

I smiled. "Sorry."

"Nah, it's okay. I'm already losing badly anyway." Brett laughed. "I think I've beaten you twice this whole time, Jia."

"Once. I don't ever lose to the same person twice," Jia said, bounced the ball on the table, then hit it over the net.

I smiled at the timing of that statement.

Brett caught the ball with his hand, then held it out to me. "I don't think my ego can take another loss. I should just get started on dinner."

"Do I have to inherit the score?" I asked.

"Mendel says yes, but I say no. Zero to zero. Let's go," Jia said.

"See? This is exactly why I should just cook. I don't even know what a Mendel is," Brett said.

Jia laughed. "You belong in the kitchen. Leave the sports and science to the women."

As Brett headed into the kitchen, he laughed, and Jia smiled at the floor.

"There are some damn good men out there, and yet, there are still so many Darrells. It pisses me off," Jia said, then shook her head.

I nodded, but I didn't add anything to that. If she wanted to rant, I would listen, but generally, I kept my negative thoughts locked up in the labyrinth of my mind.

From the way they looked and carried themselves, no one would have ever guessed that Brett, tattooed and snarky, was the nice one, and Darrell, squared away and professional, was the asshole.

"I just want to go home. I'm sick of this," Jia muttered, but instead of playing ping pong to distract her, there seemed to be a better, more helpful option for both of us.

"Tell me about your home," I said. "If you want to, that is."

She smiled. "That'd be nice."

She mentioned something about being adopted while she was explaining herself to Toby, and I wanted to know about it.

She shrugged. "I mean, I'm pretty lucky. I lived just outside of Boston almost my entire life until college, and my parents have always been supportive. I guess that's what makes it so difficult to be in the middle of the ocean. There's a world of people that we essentially have no contact with."

The people were what I missed the least about normal life, but I nodded anyway. "Do you at least have pictures on your phone?"

"Of course. Here." She took her phone out of her pocket and scrolled through her photo album before finally picking a picture and holding it up to me.

I looked at her parents, who looked like the most stereotypical suburban white parents ever, then back at Jia, who clearly wasn't white.

"I'm adopted. Made in China." She laughed. "But it's not that large of a part of me. I don't want anything to do with a culture that doesn't want me, just because I have a vagina."

"Really?" I asked.

She nodded. "You know, the whole one-child policy. It's not an entirely accurate name, but long story short, I couldn't carry on the family name, and therefore, I wasn't wanted. It's really a blessing to even be here."

Maybe it was a bad move to bring up her life off the island. Way to go, Rea.

"But anyway, when Toby asked if I was willing to help someone with his project that somehow got completely destroyed the year before instead of the one I had in mind, like any good person, I said sure. Can you imagine how much better it would be if Darrell was just working by himself, like Carter?" Jia said.

This time, I couldn't help but indulge in a little gossip. "Yeah. He likes to make himself seem like he's the only smart one here, but he's the one that failed his project last year."

"Right? And I don't know why the fuck we've just taken it up until this point."

"Well, you did kind of slap him across the face earlier. That's not just taking it."

She nodded. "Valid, but in all honesty, I'm just going to be a bitch until he simmers the fuck down."

"So your plan is to drive Darrell crazy, so he stops acting like a psycho?" I asked.

That was absolutely the best plan I had ever heard in my life.

Amazing.

"Not just me. Brett's gonna be a little bitch too," Jia said.

I looked at her for a moment. "Maybe you should get some fresh air."

"I did today while Darrell and I were hunting for hatching eggs. I got yelled at three times. I'm done playing nice." Jia thought for a moment, then continued. "Look, I don't know how the group last year didn't just throw him straight into the ocean, and I'm not saying we should do that, but maybe we can get him to throw himself into the ocean on his own."

"Jia, no."

"Okay, maybe not, but this is where you come in. All I ask is that you act normal."

I blinked a couple times. "I think I can do that."

"You're the best. You're pretty much the only person besides Carter whose loyalties don't lie with someone else. Your only loyalty is to the whales."

I smiled. Up until that point, that was only the impression I had hoped to give off.

***

At eleven, Darrell typically liked to be asleep, because he and Jia had to do their morning round-up of the gull population and their conversations at five every morning.

Instead, that night, he glared at both Jia and me, who had just brewed another pot of coffee.

Of course, that was pretty normal for me, but Jia wasn't nearly as accustomed to so much caffeine so late.

Jia laughed. "My eye is literally twitching right now," she practically shouted.

"When you crash, you're going to be miserable for a while, so you need to just stop right now. You're not Reagan, and I don't think I'd be able to tolerate another version of her on this island," Darrell said.

Wow, okay.

Logan sat with his computer at the table, and he looked up for a moment. "That was rude."

"Well, it's not like you'd be able to tolerate another Reagan, since you don't even like the original," Darrell replied.

What the hell did they talk about while I wasn't around?

Logan shrugged and nodded, then went back to his work.

A small ache rose into my heart, but I swallowed it with a swig of coffee.

This is just one of those times when he says what he doesn't mean, Rea. Don't worry about it.

"You know," Jia said as she poured sugar into her coffee, "there was this one time that—"

"What are you doing?" Darrell interrupted. "Sugar is practically poison, and aren't you a vegetarian? You're going to kill yourself with that instead of animal products."

Jia stopped talking, looked Darrell directly in the eye, and poured more sugar in.

I laughed, and like he always did, Darrell shot me a glare.

I was doing a pretty good job at being the normal Reagan, I thought.

"Fine. Just die, since I don't think anyone's going to be that torn up about it," Darrell said.

Jia smiled. "Would you like to hear the list of people who would be really upset if I died? I'll tell it to you in its entirety. There's my mother, my father, Reagan, Logan, Brett, Carter, my dog—"

"I can't handle this anymore," Darrell mumbled.

"Then go to bed if you can't hang," Brett said.

"I'd love to, but I'm pretty sure they can hear Jia in Canada, so that's not an option."

Jia laughed. "Yeah. Lucky them."

Fortunately for Logan and me, the next day, we'd be in the middle of the ocean, but even from there, I had a feeling that we'd be able to hear Jia's master plan.

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Happy good morning/afternoon/evening! Thank you for reading!

So how is Jia's plan going to work out? Is she going too far, or is she justified?