“This is amazing.” Using Dev as a chair, his arms loosely around her waist, Angie took another lick of the homemade coconut dream ice cream.
Dev leaned around her, tugging at the arm holding the cone. “You’re supposed to share.”
“I am. One lick for you,” she held it out within his reach, “and two for me.”
“Hey.” Dev laughed that deep rumble that made her heart warm.
“No fighting over the ice cream.” Julia waved a finger at them.
Geri stuck a spoon in her cup of mango mix. “Let the kids have fun. You’re only engaged once and they only have a few days left.”
So far they had spent the last two days gallivanting from island to island, seeing every tourist sight available, and then participating in every evening game show the ship provided. All along the way playing up the lovey dovey engaged couple for anyone watching.
The scary part for Angie was that playing the part had become easier with every stop. And with every new thing they’d shared, she’d almost forgotten they were acting at all.
“So, according to this,” Ben turned the walking tour map of the island he held in his hands, “next stop is the old churchyard. The tombstones date back to the 1500s.”
Geri looked less than thrilled. “That’s actually a stop? Looking at graves?”
Ben shrugged.
“Oh, come on.” Julia hopped up from her seat, tossing her napkin in the trash. “Reading old tombstones can be fun.”
Sometimes Angie wondered about her mother’s perspective on fun.
Holding hands, the three couples strolled the short distance down the two lane main drag that was more dirt than street. A little shop with a pink awning caught Angie’s eye and she pulled Dev to a stop.
“What’s this?” He peered over her shoulder into the window.
“It looks like a shell shop.” Fascinated by the display of different size and colored seashells on display, she spun around to face him, not letting go of his hand. “Can we go inside?”
“Sure.” Dev called out to the others that they would catch up in a minute and followed her into the shop.
“Oh, it’s a souvenir shop.” From the display of shells, she hadn’t expected the diversity of goods in the store.
Dev turned over a mug to look at the bottom, set it back down, then reached for a wooden statuette on a different shelf, also turned it over to look at the bottom before setting it back down. “This isn’t just a souvenir shop, it looks like it’s an artisan shop. Everything appears to be handmade, and from the looks of it, possibly one-of-a-kind.”
Still holding his hand, they slowly inched their way from case to case, closely looking at each display of goods. One souvenir plate in particular caught her eye. She’d debated where would she hang the sunrise on porcelain if she bought it when she noticed Dev admiring a shelf loaded with hand-blown glass. “Oh, my.”
“Yeah. That’s what I was thinking. This dolphin is amazing.”
The sea mammal stood about five or 6 inches tall and no matter which way you turned it, the dolphin’s eyes seemed to follow you. Not in a creepy horror movie way, but in a sweet, don’t you want to be my friend way. From some angles you could see multiple shades of blue and green and clear crystal, and from other angles just a stunning shade of Caribbean blue. “I can’t imagine how hard it would be to make something like this from scratch.”
“Agreed. I have many skills, but no talents.”
“That’s not true.” She whirled around, standing chest to chest, smiling up at him. “I happen to know you are a fantastic dancer.”
“That’s a skill.” He leaned forward and kissed her nose. “But thank you.”
“No, it’s not. I mean, yes, it is a learned skill, but to be really good, there has to be natural talent. Lot’s of people take lessons and still look like a robot on the dance floor.”
Chuckling softly, he shook his head ever so slightly and slid his arm around her waist. “Has anyone ever told you that you have a way of making people feel special, and every day worth looking forward to?”
Surprised at the sweet compliment, she smiled and shrugged. “Can’t say that I have.”
“You, my dear lady, are a gem.” Leaning closer for what she thought was going to be another quick peck on her nose, his lips landed briefly on hers, leaving them tingling and wanting more. “Let’s pay the man for the dolphin and find our parents.”
“Mom’s going to want to stop in here after she’d done reading tombstones.”
Dev laughed again. “Your mother really is something else, isn’t she?”
“Honestly, I haven’t seen this fun-loving side of her in a long time, but I think I can get used to it.”
“So could I. And I think my dad already is.”
“Hey, are you two planning on buying out the store?” His dad stuck his head inside and waved them forward. “Stop with the doe eyes. We need backup or your mom is going to stick with the tombstones the way she’s attached to those slot machines.”
“Yes, sir.” Dev saluted his dad, paid for the dolphin, and not through the entire process of wrapping and giving change did he ever let go of her hand.
Yep, maybe they both had embraced their roles a little more than they should have.
This whole remembering that loving Angie was just an act was becoming harder and harder for Dev. With every passing day, doing things together, laughing together, seemed so natural that everything he’d said to their parents had come true. He’d truly had fun discovering new things about her. Angie made it easy to see how life with the right person could make living one ordinary day at a time an adventure. He couldn’t imagine going back to his sedentary life without her in it.
“Yoo hoo.” Renee waved at them from the top of the gangway. “Did you have a good day?”
“A blast,” Angie called back.
“Did you try that little ice cream shop?” Renee sidled up beside her new friend once Angie reached the ship’s deck.
Angie nodded. “To die for.”
“Which flavor did you have?”
“Coconut dream.”
“I had the Guava. Who knew guava could taste so good.” She turned to Dev. “And you?”
“We shared.” He waved a thumb at Angie and then raised his brows at her. “Sort of.”
“Hey, two for one. Known balance for sharing.” She grinned up at him. The way she played along with his teasing was another example of making an ordinary ice cream cone an adventure to have fun with over and over.
“Absolutely,” Renee concurred. “Handsome and I are having dinner at the steakhouse tonight. We tried to snag a reservation for four but couldn’t pull it off.”
“No problem. We’re stuffed anyhow. We were just discussing skipping the main dining room and grabbing a bite in the buffet after we shower and change. Oh, I need to show you the coolest glass dolphin we bought!”
“From the shell shop?” Renee practically bounced out of her shoes.
“Yes!” Angie squealed.
“We bought a turtle, but it took forever to decide. I really wanted to just buy it all.”
“We felt the same way.”
The casual way she used the word we about them made the corners of his lips tip up.
“Sorry to break this fan fest up.” Renee’s husband tugged at his wife’s hand. “But we have a dinner reservation.”
“Catch up with you later,” Renee said. “After the show.”
“All right.” Angie waved and faced Dev. “All that talking about steak dinners and I might be more hungry than I thought.”
“I was just thinking the same thing. What do you say we cut across the promenade and grab a snack from the café?”
“I think that will just hit the spot.”
Along the way to the café they’d paused long enough to watch a cake making demo in the center atrium. Some poor woman from the surrounding passengers had been roped into joining the captain and the chef for the demonstration. By the time they’d added whipped cream and cherries and chocolate layers to the German Chocolate cake, Angie’s stomach was rumbling loudly. “I know how this is going to end. Now I’m really starved.”
Dev reached for her hand and they walked a bit more quickly than usual to the café.
Seated in the only free table at the front of the open air area, Angie bit into the Italian hero sandwich. “Okay, what does it say about me if my favorite two foods on this ship are the hot dogs and the heroes?”
“That you’re a woman after my own heart?” he teased. “What about the lobster?”
She wiped a drop of mayo from the corner of her mouth and swayed slightly side to side in exaggerated vacillation. “All right. The lobster was my favorite, but the hot dogs and heroes are close runners up.”
Dev let out a loud chuckle and before they could finish their impromptu dinner, her mom appeared out of nowhere, his dad at her mother’s side.
Julia held up a huge bottle of champagne. “Look what we just won! Did one of those silly raffles by the wine shop and we won!”
“Oh, how nice.” Angie shot her mom a thumbs up. The woman had always been lucky with raffles and lotteries. Never the really big ones that made you a millionaire overnight, but Angie didn’t think her mother had ever purchased a dud of a scratch off.
Dev’s dad pointed to the bottle. “We thought we’d save this bottle for the wedding toast. It will bring all of us luck the rest of our lives.”
Her mom took a step back. “I’m going to drop it off in my room and then we’re off to dinner. Meet you at music trivia.”
“See you then,” Dev answered as they walked away.
“The rest of our lives,” she repeated.
At her side, Dev nodded.
Angie set the remainder of her sandwich on the plate. “This plan is not working, is it?”
“It’s a safe bet that our parents have no intention of delaying their wedding.”
“We’re running out of time,” he stated the obvious.
“So, what do we do now?”
“I honestly don’t know.” And wasn’t that the truth. Right about now, he didn’t have a clue about an awful lot.