Page 35 of The Best Wrong Move

“What else have you written?”

“A few theater scripts, and a short film. This would be my first full feature-length film script. What about you? Are you here on vacation with Rex?”

“No, I grew up here.” She smiles. “Well, I guess if you count moving here when I was twelve. Hence the Aussie accent I haven’t been able to shake.”

“You grew up here?AndAustralia?”

She nods, glowing. She sets her mug down and Pru flips over in her arms like a baby.

No wonder she seems so comfortable in her own skin, both in and out of the water. She was probably born in a bathing suit. Her face doesn’t have a drop of makeup from what I can tell, and she’s still absolutely glowing.

“I can’t imagine this being my life every day.” I wave my hands around the scenery surrounding us. Green, rugged mountains line the bay, rising up toward the blue sky behind us. “What do you do here?”

She smiles. “I own a coffee shop.”

“That explains the delicious coffee,” I mumble, taking another sip.

“Actually people come to my shop more for the smoothies and açai bowls than the coffee.” She curls her long legs up beneath her. “Also, it’s more like a little shack on the side of the road, so not like the coffee shops you’d have back home in New York. I guess I should start saying I’m a smoothie shack owner.” She laughs, and I let myself join her. “But I guesscoffee shopsounds quite a bit more posh to me thanroadside smoothie shack surrounded by stray cats and chickens. I grow the fruit on my land, then have my employees blend up whatever is the most fresh that day.”

I imagine her roaming down a row of banana trees, barefoot and tan, with her hair pulled up in some colorful scarf, accentuating those precision-cut cheekbones as she turns to offer a fresh-picked mango to Rex with a grin. Sun cascading down her slender arms as she reaches up to kiss him, tasting of tropical fruit and sunbeams. No wonder he fell in love with her.

“Sounds like the perfect life,” I say wistfully. “I was just telling my best friend back home that I can’t believe people live like this here. It makes my life back in New York look—” I want to say chaotic and soul-crushingly cold “—complicated. And gray. I love it there, but it’s not the same brand of magic as this island.” I wave my arms up toward the sky, which looks like a mirror image of the ocean beneath it, dotted in foamy white clouds.

She rubs Pru’s belly before kissing her upturned nose.

“That’s what I hear from Rex. He says he never wants to go back.” She smiles at me, and I swallow my shock. I thought Rex loved New York.

The whole world wants to be us, Olivia, he’d say.We’re at the center of the universe here.

“Anyway, I’m blabbing on while you’re here to do something important.” She stands up. “I should let you get back to writing.”

She looks back out at the water, her crystal blue eyes searching the surf, until she spots Rex falling off his board again.

We both laugh, and she rolls her eyes at me.

“If Rex survives this morning, we’ll be back out here at five o’clock doing our happy hour thing again. Join us if you need a break from writing! And bring that hunk of a man with you, if he’s free too.” She gives me a mischievous grin, raising her brows.

I give her a half-grin, shielding my eyes from the sun, while I watch Rex take another faceful of saltwater.

If he wasn’t the man renting the townhome on the other side of my wall, this whole crazy notion of me running away to Hawaii on sabbatical to finish my script would have been working out perfectly.

Chapter 23

A few hours later, and I’m still dying to hear from Dom after he’s done working. Then I hear the heavy door slide open in the other unit.

I peek over my laptop for a clear view of the lanai, just in time to see Rex and Juju slip out toward the deck railing. She turns to give him a quick peck on the lips, but he pulls her back in, his hand wringing in the length of her hair, wrapping his other arm tightly around her tiny waist. He presses his body into hers, like he can’t wait to take her back behind closed doors. To tear her clothing off, to lose himself when he pushes into her again and again.

Woof.

I shake my head, trying to rid myself of that visualization. I shouldn’t be watching this. I send Dom a text without thinking.

Rex and Juju are playing tonsil hockey on my balcony. Wanna make them jealous?

I watch and wait for his little text bubbles to appear, hoping he responds right away. Wondering if that was too forward. Maybe the real reason I’m here is for personal growth that stems from pure torture?

I wait another beat, then send him a second text.

Kidding . . . kinda???

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