Page 61 of Here for a Good Time
Leila bites her bottom lip as she considers. “To… tell the truth?”
“So, like, Truth or Truth?”
She flashes a smile. “Why not? I’ll go first.”
“Leila—” I lean back and stretch out my legs, shifting my weight onto the heels of my hands. I didn’t realize how sore I was until this moment, but my calves are burning with relief. As though finally relaxing, my bandaged ankle begins to slightly throb. I want to keep on sitting for an hour or five. “Truth or truth?”
“Truth,” she answers immediately, eyes glinting as she looks back and forth between me and Zwe.
“Who… is your least favorite coworker?” I ask.
“That’s not fair! You’re going to tell on me afterward!”
I hold up my right pinkie. “I won’t, promise.” She opens her mouth, and I quickly remind her, “It has to be the truth, though.”
She works her jaw as she thinks. Finally, hands raised, she answers, “I don’t have one.”
“Lies!” I gasp.
“It’s the truth! I genuinely love everyone I work with. Now, management on the other hand…” She verbally trails off, but her face tells a different story.
“You don’t like the management?” Zwe asks.
Her shrug is weary. “Frankly, I think they’re out of touch about a lot of things. They come once a year and point out all the things we could be improving on, and all the ways they’re going to make this placebigger. Meanwhile, they’re not hiring any more staff because surprisingly, it’s very hard to recruit for a role that involves you living on a remote island for the whole year, barring three weeks. But that just means that it’s up to the staff whoarehere to go to even more ridiculous lengths to keep the increasing number of guests happy, and it’s not like we get the most easygoing guests either. No one comes all the way out here and spends this much money to just happily sit on the beach with a cocktail in hand. No, they want unique, personally tailored experiences for a once-in-a-lifetime trip, but it’s also like, how many once-in-a-lifetime trips can a single team of hotel staff create?”
Judging by the way she has to sit up to replenish all of that oxygen she just used, I don’t think evenshewas aware that she was about to go on a rant.
Zwe lets out a half snort, half chuckle. “So that’s a ‘no’ then? To liking management?”
“Ugh, you’re going to make me say it out loud, aren’t you? Fine, I would say ‘no.’ Okay, my turn.” She points at me. “Poe, truth or truth?”
“Truth.”
“What… is your… biggest regret?”
I blink. “What?”
“I know it’s kind of morbid, but if this were an end-of-the-world situation, what would be your biggest regret? Like, the thing that when you think of it, you go,God, I wish I had twenty-four more hours?”
Even without looking at him, I can sense Zwe’s gaze on me, anticipating my answer.
I know what it would’ve been if she’d asked me just forty-eight hours ago:I only published one book.
But now I pause, picking through the note cards in my mind, each holding an equally plausible answer.
I wish I’d seen more of the world.
I wish I’d gotten matching tattoos with my mom like we’d always joked we would.
I wish I’d made the time to fly to Oxford and meet Soraya’s kid in person.
“I’m not sure,” I muse. “Probably something clichéd and cheesy. Like… I… wish I’d found true love before I died. As you might have pieced together earlier, my last relationship wasn’t exactly the pinnacle of unconditional love, to say the least,” I say.
“Yeah, sorry, that sucks,” Leila says quietly.
I cast a glance at Zwe. Something ticks in his jaw, and he looks like he’s trying to figure out if I’m lying.
“Oh wait, I got it,” I say as one card finds its way to the top of the pile.
