Page 62 of My Favorite Bad Decision
“There are thirty miles on this island, a tiny twelve-room hotel and only thirty-eight homeowners—who aren’t here often. Speaking of which, if you’re hungry, there’s a restaurant at the hotel. I also had them stock the fridge before we got here.”
I grin. “I hope you have the stuff for a good stew.”
He takes a sip of his coffee. “That’s one way to send you running back to Manhattan. And let me make it clear that I don’twantyou to go running back. My office still thinks I’m in Africa, so I’m here as long as you want to stay.”
“You’re lucky I’m joining the finance team a week from tomorrow, or I’d make you regret how open-ended that offer is. Let’s go to the beach.”
He nods, biting his lip as he takes in the robe one last time. “Okay, although I’m a little scared to see what they sent along for swimwear.”
I’m a little scared too, but also...regrettably excited. I shouldn’t be excited to prance around in front of Miller in some barely-there bikini, to watch his gaze stutter in response. Knowing I shouldn’t feel this way, however, doesn’t change the fact that I do.
And indeed, when I return to the suitcase, I discover the two bikinis they’ve sent are basically pieces of floss up top and more floss below. I can’t imagine that my father was behind this, because heisstill my father, the same man who once forbade crop tops, but it sure looks as if somebody was trying really hard to get me laid.
I twist my hair up on my head, grab a towel and flip-flops, and find him in the family room.
“Jesus Christ,” he mutters, wincing as he looks away. “If your dad could see what they packed for you, he’d be shutting that entire magazine down.”
I grin and turn toward the open doors, with him in my wake. We step off the back porch and steer around the pool to reach the long white beach. Ahead, the crystal blue water stretches out toward a sandbar about two hundred yards away, as sparkling white as the sand we’re on now. How is a beach like this so empty? There isn’t a single person, a single chair, a single trash can, or other sign of life.
We could strip out of our suits, wander out to that sandbar and have sex repeatedly in the middle of an endless blue sea, and as long as a plane didn’t fly over, no one would be the wiser.
I point toward it. “I want to go out there. I have no idea why.”
He steps forward and grabs my hand. “Come on then,” he says.
I don’t normally hold hands with myfriends, but this time I’ll allow it. We wade in and the water’s so clear I can see the chipped polish on my middle toe.
“Unbelievable,” I whisper.
“Yeah,” he says, but he’s only looking at me. As if I’m the thing that’s wondrous to him here and not the view, as if I matter more than everything else combined.
You deserve someone who has your back. And you belong with someone who wants to have it for you.
I’d never thought he was suggesting thathemight want to be that person when he said it. The way he’s looking at me now, though? It makes me wonder.
“I think if I owned this place,” I say as the water reaches my waist, “I could never be persuaded to go do something like Kilimanjaro instead of coming here.”
“But how much more amazing does this trip seem to you, having just suffered through the climb we did? How much more do you appreciate the ease of our lives?”
He’s right. Maybe we need to suffer a little. Maybe we need to spend some time in the dark so we can spy the tiny bits of light we couldn’t distinguish, so we can marvel at the sun when it finally arrives.
I think I’ve been in the dark for a very, very long time. Since the day Rob’s mother called to tell me he was gone.
And here, with Miller, I’m finally coming back into the light.
17
MILLER
Kit used to be addicted to cherry popsicles. That summer in the Hamptons she wrote a note on the box with a Sharpie—Eat cherry at your own peril.In turn, I made a point of pretending to pull a cherry popsicle out of the freezer every time she was in the room.
I texted the island’s concierge to get us some last night. If that’s not a sign that I’m fucking whipped, I don’t know what is.
Leaving Tanzania was the easiest decision I’ve ever made in my life because I want to step in and protect her from all the shit that gets thrown her way. I want to be the one who tells Ulrikanowhen she calls asking Kit to intercede on her behalf, the way I know shestillfucking is because if she used Kit as a crutch ten years ago, there’s not a chance she stopped.
I want to be the one who shields her from a photographer when she doesn’t want to be seen.
I want to be the one who gets to kick Blake’s ass for that text he sent last night, and I’mgoingto be the one who does it, whether she approves or not.
