Page 63 of My Favorite Bad Decision
I’m in so far over my head, and I always have been…for a woman who was my girlfriend’s sister. For a woman who is just getting out of one relationship and still carries another man’s ashes with her because she can’t let him go.
A woman convinced her sister would never forgive her if anything happened with me.
She smiles at me over her shoulder, in a bikini that covers none of her. The wind is blowing that mess of gold hair across her face, and her nose has three tiny new freckles I haven’t seen before. There’s something in her eyes, something very, very adult.
I promised her nothing would happen and therefore nothing will, but Jesus Christ, she’s not making it easy on me.
18
KIT
You’ll never be this happy again.
It’s a thought I’ve had several times this morning. And maybe it’s not true—Ihopeit’s not true—but I’m a realist. I’m between jobs, in the most beautiful place in the world, and I get to share it with the only guy I’ve ever adored, aside from Rob.
What are the odds that this is ever going to repeat itself? I’m pretty sure it can’t. I know Maren and Mom are blowing up my phone and guilt would gnaw at me if I allowed it to. I’m trying to ignore that. I really want to enjoy this while it lasts.
After a morning in the water, we head back to the house and make avocado toast and smoothies, which we carry out to the patio, him on the wide lounger and me in the big, comfy chair a few feet away. The smoothies are okay…the avocado toast is appalling.
“It troubles me that we managed to fuck up avocado toast,” I say. “Your mom should have taught you how to cook.”
“Yourmom should have taughtyouhow to cook.”
“I believe you’ve met my mom, have you not?” I ask.
He laughs. “Fair enough. She should have had one of her husbands teach you to cook.”
When we’re done eating, I persuade him to take the paddle boards out. There’s a long inlet off to the right of the bay, the water so clear you can see to the bottom, running between miles of white sand beach, dotted with nothing but small, squat palms.
“This place is magic,” I tell him, as we paddle side by side. We’ve yet to see another person here. There’s no noise—no music, no cars, no construction. Aside from the occasional plane passing overhead, it’s as if we’ve dropped back three hundred years.
“It was my first big purchase after my company took off,” he says. “I came here as a teenager and it stayed in my head from then on.”
“Maybe if I ever hit it big,” I reply, “I’ll buy here too. And by hitting it big, I refer to coming into my trust fund, obviously.”
He shakes his head. “You’re probably out of luck. Only a handful of us own the island, the land can’t be subdivided, and no one’s selling. You may just have to keep staying with me.”
I smile and look away, suddenly bashful and swept with a longing for that precise thing: to keep coming back here with him, year after year. Of course, in this fantasy, he doesn’t have a wife or children. It’s still just the two of us, platonic besties, with lives that never move forward.
“I’ll have to figure out a way to earn my keep,” I reply.
His gaze sweeps over me, head to toe, and I shiver in response. “This conversation suddenly turned interesting.”
I laugh. “I meant, you know, cooking or something domestic.”
“From what I’ve seen of your domestic skills,” he says, “we might need to consider other options.”
We exchange another glance, and my throat is suddenly dry. There’s something about having a devastatingly attractive man say those words that sends my brain to all the worst places. Or maybe it’s just when that man happens to be Miller.
Back at the house, I strip out of my suit and step into the huge shower off of my bedroom. Under the spray, with the massive skylights overhead and the breeze from the open door, it’s as if I’m still outside…and I’m perfectly at peace. I guess I’ve felt like this all day because I’m moremyselfhere than I’ve felt anywhere in a long time. Kilimanjaro came close, but there I was exhausted, uncomfortable, struggling with the altitude and the food and Gerald’s bullshit, secretly worried that I was going to fuck it up for everyone else.
Here, I’m just me, and when was the last time I felt this way? When was the last time that I just feltgood, and relaxed? That I wasn’t fatigued by my life or dreading the next thing? It’s been years…probably on some trip with Rob, and that’s a very long time to not feel good, isn’t it?
I walk to the deck in cut-off shorts and a tank, with wet hair. Miller’s stretched out on the wide lounge chair, shower-clean and shirtless, reading a book he lowers as I approach.
“Your father texted me,” he says. “He’s asking that you please check your messages.”
I sigh. “I’d really rather not.”
