Chapter Eleven

“So, what’s going on with you and Felix?” Brady passed her a glass of wine and joined her on the couch.

The Man Cave was pumping with sound and packed with people. A few tourists from the hotel had found the locals’ drinking spot and added to the usual batch of dart players and pool sharks. Amid the whoops and cheers from the gamers, and the music and laughter from those at the bar, Brady and Jen found a quieter spot in the corner to watch the action.

She watched with a grin as Felix and Marty entertained Peter at the bar, and then grimaced as Marty brought out the whale’s tooth and vodka. Thank God we walked down here, she thought with a smile. Driving in a straight line after a few of those shots would be impossible.

As Felix darted a quick look back at Jen, she just raised her glass, and he shot her a smile and a shrug as he accepted a slug of alcohol.

“You two seem pretty close,.” Brady prodded with a burst of amused laughter. “He plainly just asked your permission to let Marty prime him with booze.”

Jen flushed. “Oh, he did not!” She pooh-poohed the idea with a wave of her hand.

“He did so—he just glanced over and got the okay!”

Jen raised her eyebrows at her smugly smiling friend and then collapsed into laughter. “He doesn’t need my permission, I promise you.”

“Well, something’s going on. I haven’t seen hide nor hair of you for the last two and a half months, and you and he walked in here together, tonight. Looking very happy, may I say.”

“I would have thought the Pitcairn grapevine would have filled in the blanks.” Jen grinned.

Brady sat back and took a large swig of wine before answering. “Well…there have been rumors. Doesn’t help that Felix has been whistling while he works, and you’ve been floating around the hotel like you can’t touch the floor. Then, there was the time you two stormed off while we were stuck peeling arrowroot that time…”

Suddenly, Brady dissolved into a coughing fit. “Oh. My. God.” She smacked herself in the forehead with the palm of her hand. “He never came back that day.” Her eyes narrowed. “You dirty devils. You’ve been doing the horizontal mamba, and you didn’t fill me in.”

“Not at all. We’ve been getting to know each other in a totally different way.” Jen corrected, keeping a carefully straight face.

Brady raised an eyebrow. “How is that working out?”

Jen couldn’t help but laugh. “Well, he’s certainly not gay.”

Letting out a long and loud sigh, Brady took another sip of her wine. “Ah, young love.”

Swirling the yellow liquid around in her glass, Jen pursed her lips. “I don’t know about love. He makes me feel…” What does he make me feel? she wondered. Happy? For sure. She hadn’t been this relaxed or happy for a long time. Sexually satisfied? She grinned at the thought. Definitely.

Love? Jen chewed on her bottom lip as she considered the strong emotion. She still had no idea what love was or how people like Brady or Kate just knew that their partners were the one for them.

Jen shrugged. “I don’t know,” she continued. “I just feel good about how we’re going. He’s not putting pressure on me to say or do anything I don’t want to. He’s not all over me like a rash…he’s just Felix. We’re going wherever this takes us.”

“So, there’s a chance he’ll be moving back into the Quintal place, again?”

The question rocked her. Felix had spent a lot of time in the house over the last couple of months, but there had been no talk of him returning, and Jen hadn’t even thought of the possibility. She stared across the room at the man in question, blithely unaware of the sudden quandary Brady’s simple question had raised.

If he did move back, it wouldn’t be the same old arrangement, surely. There would be no…his room and her room. It would be full-time, straight into her bed—wouldn’t it? The thought both scared and titillated her. She shook her head. It was a big decision to make for the both of them. They’d lived together before, but it would be a huge leap from living in separate rooms to sharing one together.

She looked to Brady. “What’s it like living with Marty?”

Brady giggled. “Bit of a circus, sometimes. He’s loud, messy, and likes a good party. I’m more Zen—I like to sit in the corner with a good book, or a quiet chat with friends. But you know what they say—opposites attract. It’s what I signed up for, though. I knew who he was, and he knew what I was like. You go into a relationship with your eyes hazy with the good stuff and hope like hell the bad stuff isn’t unworkable.”

“Bad stuff?”

Brady eyed her speculatively. “Yeah, annoying, everyday stuff. Like leaving the toothpaste lid off, or leaving his dirty socks in his work boots, even when he can see you’re putting a load into the washing machine.” She grimaced. “The number of times I’ve had to throw away a good pair of tongs that I’ve had to use when removing month-old socks cemented into the bottom of his work boots…” She shuddered and then shrugged. “But if all I have to complain about is dirty socks, it can’t be half bad.”

“Felix never replaces the toilet roll when it’s empty—even when there’s a new packet sitting on the floor beside him.” Jen laughed.

“Then, if that’s all you got—he’s a keeper.” Brady giggled. “Mind you, on Pitcairn, the relationship is twenty-four-seven, too. It’s not like on the outside, where you at least have eight hours a day at work. It’s changed a bit with the hotel and the airport, but before…sheesh! We were on top of each other all the time. That takes a lot of getting used to.”

“That’s not our problem. We’ve both got pretty full-on jobs. Sometimes, the problem is that we don’t see each other. He doesn’t make a fuss if I have to work late, doesn’t push about my feelings, doesn’t do anything but be Felix. It’s like we’re friends with benefits. I don’t know. It’s a difficult situation.”

“Friends don’t just have sex, Jen. There has to be some attraction there, or you wouldn’t have lasted this long,” Brady asked. “You two look so happy, but you’re still holding back, aren’t you?”

Trust Brady to be so insightful, Jen thought.

“It’s not him. It’s me,” she admitted. “I’ve never had a long-term relationship, nor have I lived with anyone.” Taking a long swig of her wine, she considered her next words carefully. “I’ve had so many romantic disasters and made so many wrong choices…I’m just starting to wonder if the problem is me. I’m the only common denominator.”

“Or it could be just that you’ve just not found the right guy?” Brady interrupted. “Don’t put yourself down, Jen. It’s not a bad thing to be choosy. Many a woman has rushed blindly into a relationship.”

“But am I too choosy?” Jen wondered aloud.

“Look.” Brady twisted in her seat to stare seriously at Jen.

“Sounds to me that he’s being pretty careful of your feelings. How does he feel? Talk to him.”

He loves me, or he did. Jen’s heart twisted as she thought about the first night they’d kissed, his bold statement of his feelings.

“I will. Thanks for listening, Brady. I feel like I’ve been whining to you for hours.” She apologized as she looked at her watch and then grimaced. She had been talking for a while, and it had been all about her. “I kind of miss Kate—though, she’d just tell me to pull up my big girl panties and snap out of it. I wouldn’t still be here grizzling about how happy I am being miserable.”

Brady cracked up with laughter. “That sounds like something Kate would say. How is she doing, anyway?”

“I spoke to her a couple of days ago. She’d just had her final prenatal checkup and is pretty close to popping by all accounts. She sounded pretty tired. I think she’s ready to evict the kid as soon as she can.”

“Does she know what she’s having? Boy or Girl?”

Jen grimaced. “Yeah, and she’s not telling.”

The girls laughed and talked their way through the evening. Jen enjoyed the camaraderie; it seemed she’d been out of the loop for a while, and just hanging with the girls felt so good. The thought that she’d sequestered herself with Felix for the last few months made her squirm. Having a relationship couldn’t mean she’d lose all her friends, could it? The thought made her shake her head with determination. That wouldn’t happen, she told herself.

The crowd thinned out a bit, and the night turned into very early morning by the time Felix wandered over.

“Whatcha girls up to?” Felix asked. He plopped down on the chair between Brady and Jen and burped loudly, his eyes slightly unfocused. “Oops. Sorry. One too many of those shots.”

Jen giggled. She’d never seen Felix in this sort of state. He grinned at her and hiccupped. “I think we need to get some fresh air.”

“I think you need to get some fresh air,” Jen said with a chuckle. She slid her half-finished glass of wine onto the table beside her chair. She’d nursed the damn thing for over half the night, mind on nothing but her own issues. Her chat with Brady, though, had cleared her head, opened a few doors of thought that she’d not even realized had existed. Now, if she could only sober Felix up a bit, it might be a good time to have a chat.

She waved good-bye to Brady and gave a quick, two-fingered salute to Marty at the bar, and they walked out onto the porch.

“I don’t want to go home, yet…do you?”

“I think I really do need the fresh air,” Felix slurred. “What do you have in mind?”

“A walk?”

“Mmm, a slow one would be good.” He laughed.

He slipped an arm around her waist. “Let’s walk down the Eco-trail. It’s pretty down there.” He leered down at her with a wonky, alcohol-fueled smile. “Romantic, too.”

She smiled up at him. “Okay then, Mister Romance. Let’s go.”

* * * *

They walked hand-in-hand in the cool of the night. Moonlight streamed through the overhanging branches of the trees, patterning the road and them with moonlit, dappled blotches. Ten o’clock had come and gone a long time before, so the constant purr of the locals main power generator had been deadened. Nature ruled the night, now. The rumble of the sea hitting the rocks along the coastline, the quick chirp of crickets, and the whoosh of the breeze through the trees. Ghost birds called their haunting good evenings, and Felix hummed a happy tune under his breath.

Turning into the well-tended track that led a winding path up to Christian’s Cave, Felix stopped short. The path was lined with trees—banana, coconut, Pulau, and Queen of the Night. Tipping his head back and breathing in deeply, he sighed out a long, slow breath.

“You know what? If I could diffuse the smell of the Queen of the Night flower, I’d make millions.” He sighed. “The scent is so heady, so sweet. It’d make a beautiful coulis for ice cream or a cut of lean beef.”

The scent surrounded them, and the almost overpowering floral aroma seemed to fill her pores, dull her senses. The night blooming plant was her own favorite, and she felt a spectral hand clench at her heart while watching his face enjoying the moment, twisting into a blissful smile.

“You’re making me hungry,” she said, giggling.

He tapped her on the nose. “You’re always hungry.”

They kept walking until they reached the base of the climb to the cave, then took refuge on a handy wooden bench seat. Jen snuggled in under his arm as they stared out over the water. The sea undulated before them—a streak of silver from the bright moon above the only thing upon its surface. No sails, no ship lights marred its surface. The kiss of the dark sky with its millions of twinkling stars the only shroud.

“This is perfect,” Felix said. “I feel a little better than I did back at Marty’s. Boy, that man has a stomach of steel. He could drink a sailor under the table.”

“You gave it a pretty good try yourself, Felix. You don’t usually drink that much.”

“I’m happy, Jen. I just felt like letting loose a bit.” He hugged her tightly. “You didn’t mind, did you?”

“Of course not.” She grinned. There had been a few times when he’d had to help her home after one too many. She had no problems with him having a few drinks, especially when it seemed he was a happy drunk, too.

“Remember that time we were coming home from Marty’s, and I fell in the ditch?” She giggled.

He snorted with laughter. “The night it was raining like a son of a gun? Or the time you rolled down the bank? Or that time—”

She slapped him playfully. “Hey, stop!” she interrupted. “You make me sound like an alcoholic!”

“You were drunk both times…on a sniff of wine.” He leered at her through the gloom. “The things I could have gotten away with too, if I wasn’t such a gentleman.”

“But you are a gentleman, Felix,” she said with a laugh.

“Wasn’t thinking that way, though.”

“Unlucky me.”

“Blind you.”

Jen grinned. She had been blind. To everything. Now, her eyes were wide open.

“So, you’re happy, then? Anything to do with me?” she asked cheekily.

He chuckled, the vibration traveling through his chest to hers as she snuggled in closer. “A hell of a lot. Things just seem to be falling into place. With you. With work.”

Jen knew he’d been working hard to upskill Mason, and obviously, that hard work was paying off. “Mason’s doing well, then?”

“Yeah, he’s terrific. I’ve been putting him in charge at least once a week, and he’s got both the respect of the staff and a good handle on what he’s doing. He’ll be fine.”

“And us?” She smiled, glad he couldn’t see the blush rise in her cheeks. “Are we fine?”

He slipped his other arm around her. “Us, too.”

“So, what are we doing?”

“What do you mean?” He stiffened a little in his seat.

Jen pulled away and stared at him, surprised at his reaction. “Uh, I’m not so good at this relationship thing, Felix. There is definitely something between us, and we seem to be getting closer, but what do we do, now?”

He turned in his seat, his face half-shadowed in light and dark, and a frown creasing his forehead. “This isn’t a good time to talk about this, Jen,” he warned. “I’m not drunk, but I’m still pretty shattered. I don’t want to say something that can be misconstrued.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Jen said angrily.

“You know how I feel about you, Jen, but you pushed me away once. I just want to take things easy. That’s all.”

“I never pushed you away. You blind-sided me, and I didn’t know what to say.”

Felix tossed his hands in the air. “See, this is why I don’t think now is a good time to talk relationships. You’re not ready. It doesn’t matter what I want. I can’t make you love me any more than I can catch the moon.” He gestured angrily to the sky. “We were fine five minutes ago, just how we were, and now, I want to turn around and go home.”

“Which home, Felix? That’s what I mean. You’ve been living half at my place, and half at the staff quarters back at the hotel.”

Felix pushed himself out of his chair and began to pace. “What do you want from me, Jen?” He stopped and stared down at her. “You can’t even admit to loving me, and you want me to make a decision on where I’m living? It’s not going to happen. Not tonight, anyway.” He sighed, slapping a firm thigh with his hand. “You’re so frustrating.”

Jen gritted her teeth. “No,” she said, her voice low and shaking with anger. “I admit, I don’t know myself what I feel for you—although, until tonight, I thought it couldn’t get any better. I’m scared, Felix—not emotionally dead inside. I care for you, and that’s why I’m wondering where this ‘thing’ is going.”

“I’m sorry, but this is the very reason it’s a good idea to take things slow. There’s a lot going on in both of our lives—decisions that need to be made—and I don’t want you to make them lightly,” he said, his voice softening.

She stood, legs shaky beneath her. “All I know is I came here with you tonight, intending to ask you to move in with me.”

Her heart sank in her chest as he shook his head. She felt the rejection sting like ice, and a lump formed in her throat.

He didn’t want the pressure. He didn’t want to move in…that was obvious. I knew that, already. He just told me he wasn’t ready…so why did I say it out loud? Idiot, she chastised herself.

I didn’t even know that’s what I really wanted myself, until it came out of my damn mouth, she admitted ruefully. Well, you know now, her conscience added.

“I don’t know what to say. I don’t want to ruin this, Jen. It’s just not the time to—”

Jen put up a hand. “Don’t worry. I get it. For a change, I jumped the gun. I did the pushing. I’ll back off.” She looked down at her feet, suddenly glad for the darkness as tears prickled in her eyes. “I just want to go home.”

He stepped forward, his hand outstretched. “I’ll walk you.”

She shook her head. “Don’t bother. I need the time to think.” She backed away. “I’ll see you at work tomorrow, Felix.”

Jen followed the path, heart breaking, tears beginning to course freely down her face. Another great choice in men, Jen. Another great failure.

* * * *

Felix watched her go, his heart sinking into his shoes. Kicking himself mentally, he sank down onto the bench seat and put his hands to his now-aching head.

Why the hell did I drink so much?

Why the hell didn’t I just accept her offer to move in?

He groaned as the world tipped drunkenly. Even this hammered, he knew he’d done the right thing. She wasn’t ready, and he wasn’t going to be the one to force her into a quick decision. He was going to hit her with a big question soon enough, and moving in together was a question that would appear like chicken feed next to that one.

He twisted and turned the issue every which way in his head for weeks, and there had always been one solution to the problem. One simple solution, and he knew it was one that Jen was going to struggle with.

I’ve just made it worse by putting my foot in my mouth, dumb arse. How am I going to ask her, now?