I COCK MY HEAD. “YOU NEED A SAFE WORD FROM THIS CONVERSATION, really?”
He nods, smirking.
I could threaten to message Brooke again, find another way to terrorize him into telling me, but I can’t show him how badly I want to know.
“Whatever.” I lie back down. “Can we get back to my massage or are you scared of that too among the many other things on that list?”
I hear him shuffle closer. “As you wish,” he whispers into my ear as his hands make contact with my neck.
I want to tell Charlie I know what he’s doing. That he’s trying to gain some power back after losing to me, however playfully. But I won’t fall for any of it, I think—though, my body isn’t listening.
His thumbs run down the edges of my spine, fingertips brushing along my sides.
I think about his words. His desire to start a family. “If I’m being completely honest,” I say, my voice more fragile than intended, “part of me can’t imagine bringing kids into this world, with all its imperfections. All its hurt.”
“Yeah, but who’d be more prepared than your kids?” He states this so plainly, it’s as if even all the world’s problems and shortcomings have manageable solutions.
His hands edge deeper into the rub, his movements determined, methodical, and I wonder if he can feel my heartbeat quickening through my back. His hands shift down, slowly, from my shoulders to my shoulder blades, circle there for a bit, then continue to my lower back. It’s here that my insides clench. My breath is shallow but hard into the mat of the chaise, and I want to make it stop. Okay, that’s not true. I should make it stop.
“Tell me about Brooke,” I say after a moment, looking for an excuse to level the playing field. Thinking about him and Brooke should adequately douse the heat rising from my base.
“What?” he asks, an edge of surprise in his voice.
“How did you know she was The One?”
His press lightens so slightly it would have been easy to miss the change, and he goes silent for a long while. I’m about to repeat myself when he finally speaks. “I thought she was. Now I’m not so sure.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah, I mean, if you asked me a few days ago, I would have told you I wanted nothing more than to get her back. But now? I think I only wanted her back because she caught me off guard. She had all the power in our breakup. I wanted some of that power back, I think.”
“What changed?”
He’s silent again for a long, brimming moment as he runs his hand into my hair and against the back of my head. I stave off a moan. “I don’t know. Time. Being here, away from normal life, away from the places and things that remind me of her.” His grip grows tighter and he runs his fingers down around my sides again, sidling up from my hips to just below my chest. Slowly. “And being with you.”
My skin grows hot under his touch and my breath ragged. In addition to the intense pull at my base, there’s something else. An anxious buzz, almost like fear. “Aren’t you terrified you can’t trust your picker anymore? After getting it so wrong?”
His hands halt for a second before proceeding. “Yeah. I am. How do you get over that?”
“I guess . . . you meet someone who makes you even more sure than before. And you take the leap, knowing it could still all end disastrously again.”
His hands stop once more, for a split second, before continuing along my spine. He’s released most of the pressure in his fingers. Now he grazes his fingertips gently across my skin like the sweep of a feather. I immediately erupt into goosebumps. This soft version of his touch is electric, every millimeter of skin he grazes becoming my new center point of feeling, like one of those magnet fragment statues, collecting sensation from all my nerves as they follow and collect at his fingertips. The pulse between my legs grows to a throb.
There’s a powder keg between us, his hands the spark of heat that could light the whole thing up. I’ve fought a quickly growing force this whole time, one drawing me to him. Whether it’s pushing or pulling, I’m not quite sure.
“Yes, well, I’m glad I’ve been able to be a distraction for you this week. Help you see things differently,” I say in what sounds too much like a moan.
“You’re not a distraction,” he says, gripping my sides again and now moving back down toward my hips. The way his hands wrap around my hips has the earmarks of something primal, making me feel under his control. Submissive. It’s not something I care to feel often. But with Charlie, there’s a call I find myself wanting to relent to. I can’t help but imagine he may grab me by the haunches and pull me in.
He doesn’t.
“Well, this also isn’t real life,” I say.
“It’s not?”
“No, in real life you wouldn’t be my servant for the day, we wouldn’t be in this incredible suite in paradise, and you wouldn’t be touching me.”
He is quiet once more, and again my breathing goes shallow in anticipation of his reply.
He doesn’t respond. Instead, he presses into my neck more intensely, and I wonder if I’ve said something wrong.
“Where’d you find this lotion?” I ask, attempting to ground myself. Even if he might be changing his mind about wanting Brooke back, he’s still using me to get back at her, so either way, he’s using me. And the artificial cherry smell of the lotion is growing disturbing.
“Under the sink in the bathroom,” he says.
I lift my head slightly to inspect the little red bottle he has set down on the side table. I pick it up and hold it out in front of his face. “This is lube, Charlie.”
He gives me that viciously sexy, mischievous grin, and it’s clear he’s well aware of this detail. “Is it?”
“Charlie! I’m going to have to shower for an hour to get the smell of edible underwear off me.”
His face says it all. Evidently, he will continue to find small ways to entertain himself through his servitude. I can’t even say I’m mad, mostly just impressed. As I take in his proud face, all I can seem to think about are his formidable hands cleansing cherry lube off my skin in the shower.
I give Charlie a slight reprieve after the massage and my subsequent shower so I can work on the game. Just as I’m hitting my stride, building the individual components of Arsonist Betty’s tool kit into the graphics, my phone hums beside me.
“Ah, there’s a hurricane near you,” my mom says when I’ve picked up. She doesn’t waste time on formal hellos or goodbyes. More often than not she just hangs up when she has determined the conversation is complete and I have to say hello a few times to verify she is no longer there.
I shake my head, confused. “What?”
“Hurricane. The Big One. Her name is Sheila. Why do they always name catastrophes after women?”
I put my mom on speaker and navigate to Google on my computer, refraining from informing her that they stopped giving tropical storms historically female names in the 1970s, because there is no point in going down that road. “Mom, it’s a tropical storm off the coast of Trinidad and Tobago,” I tell her, skimming the article on my screen. “That’s like, a thousand miles away. Literally. And this article says it likely won’t even make landfall.”
“Oh, okay. Be careful then. Are you spending this time away to look for jobs? Anything good?”
Did my mom research Caribbean-adjacent natural disasters to have an excuse to call me and ask about my job search? I tell myself no, because it’s the more digestible answer. When I don’t immediately reply, she adds, “I look forward to hearing about a new engineering job when you get back. Maybe you’ll meet someone there you can bring to the vow renewal.”
I hear the faint sound of Charlie’s phone buzzer from the other side of the slightly ajar bedroom door. Before I can stop him, he knocks once, then pushes the door open fully. “It’s noon. I owe you a compliment,” he says.
“Who is that?” My mom’s voice fills the room.
Sorry, Charlie mouths.
“Nobody, Mom. Just the . . . a waiter. Tess and I are at the resort restaurant so I’d better—”
“What about the job updates?”
“Yes, yes, it’s going great. I have another interview.” I shut my eyes, but not before I see Charlie’s eyebrows rise.
“Oh, great. Is it—”
“I’ll tell you all about it when I get back, okay? Talk soon!” This time, I’m the one to hang up without saying goodbye, feeling awful about it.
“You really shouldn’t lie to your mother,” Charlie says, arms folded in front of him, wicked smirk back across his mouth.
“That’s not a compliment,” I tell him.
The afternoon is spent at the beach with Charlie carrying my things and fetching me cocktails while I continue my work on the game. It’s particularly satisfying when other guests do a double take at the goat statue around his neck. It’s even more satisfying when Andres can’t stop laughing and takes a selfie with him, pointing with pride at the repurposed trophy.
We return to the suite in the late afternoon, both collapsing into our loungers on the terrace. I look over at Charlie, who seems downright exhausted. Now I do feel bad. He has taken his punishment like a champ.
“I have one more request,” I say, just as his eyes shut.
He opens them, looks over at me with a painful wince.
“It’s not something you have to do today. It would be later.”
“Later?”
“Yes. A few weeks after we get back.” My pulse quickens and I immediately regret bringing it up. Why does what I’m about to ask feel intimate? But the call from my mom today—it was an invasive reminder that there’s yet another problem in my life I need to solve for. “I have this thing in a few weeks. My parents’ vow renewal. It’s local, Van Nuys. It’d be just for that day . . .”
“Are you asking me to be your date?”
“Not a date. A fake date. Like you suggested when I agreed to come on this trip. I need to get my parents off my back after . . .”
He sits up. “After what?”
“I just need them off my back about finding a man.”
“So you want to introduce me to your parents.” Now he’s grinning fully.
“Not like that. It. Would. Be. A. Fake. Date.”
“Yeah, but what you’re saying is, you think I’m the kind of guy that would impress your parents.”
“I’m saying you’re my only option,” I say, attempting to avoid my own grin.
“I find that hard to believe. That I would be your only option.”
I run a hand through my humidity-ravaged hair and focus in on the paddleboarder on the water ahead, trying not to read into his words.
Before I can come up with a response, he says casually, “Sure, I’ll go.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, why not. It’s part of our deal, right?”
I’m happy that I can tell my mom I’m bringing someone besides Tess to the vow renewal, but something nags at me nonetheless. Charlie referencing our deal takes me back to the notion that everything between us is fake.
As I thank Charlie, a thought that’s been poking at me since yesterday afternoon leaps to the front of my mind.
“You knew I had flint in my bag.”
He opens one eye and turns his head toward me, but he doesn’t speak.
“You knew I had flint. I pulled it out on the plane when I offered you comfort items when you were scared.”
“Nervous, not scared,” he says, one eye still closed.
I open my mouth to speak, but nothing comes out. There’s no way Charlie would’ve let me win. Why would he choose to endure the level of torment I’ve smothered him with today? And he knew I’d never let him live it down. Why would he possibly?
Ninety-nine percent of me is bothered by the notion that my team might not have won fair and square. But the other one percent, that nagging eyelash, causes a rumble of heat between my legs.
“I’m gonna take a nap,” I tell him. “Sleep off the daytime cocktails.”
He perks up. “Really?”
“Yes. You’re off the hook for a while.”
“Thank god,” he says, crossing his feet on the chaise with his hands behind his head.
“I’m sorry the day’s been so awful for you.”
“Yeah, well, it’s not real life, right?” he says without looking at me, and a flash of his hands pressing into my back sends a wave of longing through me.
Perhaps if it’s not real life, I can allow myself to make decisions I otherwise wouldn’t. And probably shouldn’t.