Page 45 of The Best Wrong Move

“I wanted to try something that looks nothing like my life back in New York.”

Dom leans his forearms on the table, closing the space between us, sucking all the air out of my lungs.

His brows draw together before he speaks again.

“What would you want your life to look like then? If you could pick it off a shelf, like you’re shopping for a new life in a store, which model would you choose?”

I consider his question. I’ve never thought of it like that before. But, clear as day, a vision of the life I want instantly pops into my head, and starts tumbling from my lips, fueled by the liquid courage I’ve consumed tonight.

“I want to tell stories that make people laugh. Or cry. Or laugh until they cry.”

His smile grows wider, urging me to go on.

“I want to sit in an overgrown garden somewhere, wearing some gorgeous granny-chic kaftan that makes me feel beautiful, with a million gold bangles jangling up both my arms while I feverishly type out the next incredible story. The one people want to watch twice. And I want to write hundreds of them. Until my hair is long and gray. Most of all, I want to be in love. Not just with someone I think my parents would approve of. But truly, madly, deeply in love. I want to get off the rat race treadmill too, and fall in love with my entire existence. Live in some quiet corner of the world and just soak up everything that makes life beautiful and worth living.”

The corners of his mouth curl up toward the stars.

He sits quietly for a minute, letting everything I’ve said sink in.

I shift on my chair, feeling like I’ve just laid myself out naked before him. Unsure of where all that came from. I can’t imagine telling any of the guys I’ve met back in New York something so personal right off the bat. This place has put a spell on me.

“So this trip was meant to be your first ‘wrong’ move?” he asks. “Toward the life you’d choose off a shelf?”

“Maybe?” I raise my brows at him, then shrug, scrunching up my nose. “Does that sound crazy?”

“Not even a little bit. It sounds kind of perfect, actually.”

I slide back in my chair and study the faces around us. A few yards down, Cliff leans against the counter, chatting back and forth with someone he knows before letting out with a hearty laugh. The musician has switched to Bob Marley’s“OneLove,” while a table of college-age kids next to us start to sway and sing every word together. A couple sitting at a nearby table lean in for a quick peck on the lips, cartoon hearts filling their eyes.

Everything about this moment makes me feel more intimately connected to the world than a thousand days of my regularly scheduled life.

I turn back to Dom, drinking in his green eyes while they dance together in the firelight.

“I don’t think I’ve ever done anything in my whole life that could be classified as so wrongfully right.”

Then I lean across the table and do exactly what I’ve been dying to do since he rolled away from me on the beach. I kiss him softly, until the song comes to an end and another one begins.

Chapter 28

When my alarm goes off the next morning, I’m already lying awake in bed. I didn’t sleep very well last night. I kept tossing around what Dom had said, shifting back and forth from hip to hip, pillow to pillow. Frustrated that I couldn’t stop his words from playing through my head over and over, wondering if any of this is real to him.

Maybe you’re just differentthere.

Maybe this place helps you remember who you’ve always been.

Something along the way just made you forget.

I picture Dom sitting on a New York City subway back home. The grayness of winter reflecting in his eyes, instead of flickering firelight and sunsets.

He would be different there too.

On one hand, I’m amazed that he seems to see me so clearly, and so quickly.

On the other hand, I’m not sure I’m ready to face the woman he sees in me, deep down. There’s a painful, tugging feeling emerging in me that, once I let her out, she won’t go away again without a fight. And that’s not a fight I’m sure I can win.

My entire life is back in New York.

But it seems like my entire soul is emerging here.

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