Page 7 of Sunburned

Tyson shook his head. “He’s been renting the trailer since Christmas. I don’t know the full story.”

He angled his face away from Ian, returning his attention to me. “So. What are you gonna do?”

“I don’t know,” I answered honestly. “I’ll figure that out once my mom gets through this. I’m not even totally sure I want to work in the tech sector anymore.”

Even in the semidarkness, I could see the confusion on his face. “Why? You’re so good at it.”

“I like identifying a problem, finding a way in, figuring out a puzzle. But doing it for a company is…I’m bored out of my mind. And as much as I love computers, being in front of one all day is draining.”

“I get that,” he agreed. “I hate school. But it’s just a stepping-stone. Some of the people I’m meeting will be useful, and investors like to see a pedigreed background.”

“Investors in what?”

“Whatever company I start.”

“Are you developing some amazing tech I don’t know about?” I asked.

“I’ll figure that out,” he said.

He sounded so confident, so self-assured. Was that what being raised with a security net gave you? Or was it just his personality? Maybe that was what attracted me to him, I thought as he placed his hand on my leg beneath the table.

My gaze collided with his. “So what’s the goal?” I asked. “World domination?”

A sly smile crept across his face as he leaned in and whispered, “One day they will all bow down to their king.”

I laughed. “Me too?”

“Oh no. You’ll be queen.” He placed his empty beer bottle on the table, his gaze dropping to my mouth. I could feel the familiar magnetism of him, pulling me closer against my better judgment. I shouldn’t get involved with Tyson. I knew that. But I was only twenty-one. “I’ve missed you,” he whispered.

I went home with him that night, and we didn’t sleep a wink.

Chapter 2

“Here we go.”

The deeply tanned pilot of the twelve-passenger prop plane grinned as we rose into the air, adjusting the captain’s hat perched atop his shock of white hair. There was no co-pilot for the short hop from St. Martin to St. Barth’s, and I’d readily accepted the opportunity to sit up front when he offered.

“How many times a day do you do this?” I yelled over the hum of the engines.

“Depends on the season. Twelve today.”

I looked out over miles and miles of deep blue sea, dotted with white-ringed islands edged by turquoise shallows. Tyson’s jet had gotten me as far as St. Martin, but jets couldn’t land on St. Barth’s, so here I was on the commuter plane to the famed island playground of the wealthy, where I was to meet Tyson.

I hadn’t seen him since long before De-Sal took off, and I had no idea what to expect. I’d reached out to our old friend Ryan, who was now an attorney in Charlotte, hoping he might have some insight to share, but he hadn’t seen Tyson in years either. He did report that last time they’d hung out, he found that Tyson had become obsessed withthe occult, with vibrations and energy. That tracked with something his ex-wife’s nanny had said in one of the many tell-all articles on him that I’d consumed since I’d agreed to this trip, about his fasting and chewing khat leaves until he heard voices that gave him direction from a different dimension.

In most individuals, this might be seen as a mental break, but people were used to tech titans behaving strangely and the consensus was that the ideas the voices gave him on desalination and natural energy could quite literally save the world, so it was hard to argue that he should stop.

As we drew closer to St. Barth’s, I could make out rocky cliffs giving way to sandy shores around the ragged edges of the mountainous island, a mix of green- and red-roofed houses scattered over ridges and valleys and clustered around the port where yachts were stacked like bricks in the azure water.

“You ready for this?” the pilot asked.

Suddenly the harbor was beneath us, the earth rising alarmingly fast in front of us. My heart leaped to my throat as we crested the steep spine of the island then plunged with the slope of the hill to the runway, touching down front wheel first and skidding to a halt at the edge of the turquoise sea.

The sound of propellers filled the air as I climbed down from the plane into the strong sun, holding my panama hat on my head so it wouldn’t blow away in the steady wind. Benji and Alex didn’t have phones yet, but I texted Rosa to let them all know I’d landed safely, then collected my compact roller bag from the plane’s belly and dragged it into the small, uncrowded airport, past the lone passport control stand, where the remarkably handsome immigration officer obligingly directed me to the exit.

As I exited through the glass doors and wandered toward the taxi stand, I couldn’t help but notice that, like the sexy immigration officer, the tourists and locals loitering in the shade outside the airport trended toward good-looking and well-dressed. More than trended. If someone snapped a photo and printed the name of a luxury fashion brandat the bottom, the scene would be believable as a fashion ad. But of course, this island was a territory of France. I heard snippets of French and caught a whiff of cigarette smoke. At home, I would have made a face and waved the smoke away—even in college I’d never been more than a social smoker, and it had been years since I’d so much as taken a puff—but here, I was surprised to find I kind of wanted one, preferably paired with a cold glass of rosé.

Hot in the layers I’d worn on the plane, I stuffed my sweatshirt into my purse and tied my long hair back with the rubber band I always kept around my wrist. I felt underdressed in my ripped jeans and T-shirt, and was immediately glad I’d allowed Rosa to talk me into packing my most fashionable clothes. The clothes I so seldom had occasion to wear in my regular mom life.

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