by Ember Leigh
What a confident and sexy way to start off my trip. If Weston eats confidence for breakfast, then I must eat puffed embarrassment. I grimace, collecting myself onto the bench seat of the van. It’s not like I came down here to bang random hotties—it’s not my MO—but Weston reminds me of how not his type I am. And yes, part of me would pawn a lung to be his type.
I stare out the window while the van merges onto the highway outside the airport. Palm trees buttress the road, and cotton candy clouds dot the pristine blue sky. We make a few turns, pass an astonishing number of deep purple flowering bushes that I can only gawk at, and then we pull onto a one-way street that immediately bleeds into white sand beaches and resorts.
My heart stutters as the asphalt turns into a neat cobblestone driveway. My fingers twitch, wanting my camera, but I’ll have plenty of time for that. It’s what I came here to do, after all. Take pictures of everything as my best friend’s official wedding photographer. But for right now, I want to simply absorb these perfect early moments.
The driver pulls the van under the palm-frond-bedazzled overhang of a sandstone resort while Rhys and the rest of the group bicker about what time they should start drinking.
Sometimes, when I’m feeling itchy for a trip but don’t have the money or time off (which is often, with how much debt I have), I scour the internet for reviews of faraway resorts and destinations. I’ve noticed that some resorts aren’t truly resorts like you might expect. You could slap a cow barn onto a Motel 6, label it a wedding venue, and register the whole thing as a resort, technically, as a certain establishment in Florida attempted, according to Google Maps.
But this place?
This is a resort with a capital Ritzy. There is a swimming pool in the foyer just because, which also doubles as a glass-topped atrium. I stare at the clouds through the ceiling as Amelia leads me toward the front desk, which looks to be carved from volcanic rock. I can’t tell if I’m in a fantasy, the future, or a Salvador Dalí painting come to life. Hopefully it turns out to be all three.
“I can’t believe you’re getting married in Aruba,” I tell her as we wait for my room key. The guys disappeared as soon as we crossed into the foyer, and I’m reminding myself I don’t care where Weston is.
“It sounds ridiculous,” she admits.
“You’re going to be Rhys’s old lady,” I remind her, craning my neck to take in the ever-changing wonders of the resort once we’re checked in and she whooshes me down a wide hallway bedecked with Grecian columns. I’m on the lookout for melting clocks, Dalí-style.
“That means I’d have to join a motorcycle club,” she corrects me.
“No, he’d have to be in the club. Unless you’ve been hiding your loyalty to the Viper Sculptors MC all these years.”
“Viper Sculptors MC. Where we sculpt a bitch, and cut a bitch!” She snort laughs, which only makes me laugh harder in return.
Suddenly the hallway we’re in opens up to a sprawling patio, leading out to so many things that yank at my attention I don’t know what to absorb first. There’s a pool shaped like a skinny kidney. A gazebo draped in vining orange flowers. Signs point to a spa area, promising even more treasures I can’t quite fathom.
And then there’s the boardwalk. Amelia leads me, her flip-flops a’floppin’, along the wooden walkway that crisscrosses the resort. My wheeled luggage goes clack-clack-clack behind me. Everything is lush and fragrant and oh-so-beautiful.
We pass a fountain with teal water. A statue dripping with pearls. An honest-to-god tiki bar. And then the boardwalk gives way to white sand, the type of sand you only see in commercials, with palm trees towering above us and the most fascinating series of thatched-roof huts sprawling out along the border of the beach.
“This is where the bridal party is staying,” Amelia says in a reverent whisper. I’m considered the bridal party, even though I’m technically the photographer and not a bridesmaid. She wanted me to be both, but I wanted to give her the gift of eternal photos more. Besides, how can the photographer include herself in all the bridal party pictures? Selfie sticks aren’t exactly a beacon of professionalism in the photography world.
She gestures toward the huts, and I drift toward them at her side. Each one is a different tropical color. Bright orange. Vibrant yellow. Relaxed green, if that’s even a color. My wheels get stuck in the sand, but I don’t care. I abandon my luggage. Who needs changes of clothes anyway? Not me. Not when I’m here, in Aruba, about to behold my own personal Crayola hut.
Laughter and low voices register with me, but I’m too laser focused on the prize to notice who else is out here in this dreamy transition between resort and full-fledged ocean beach. The waves create a mesmerizing soundtrack as I pass Amelia in our sandy trek to the huts. I’m pretty sure she told me which one was mine, but I don’t need to confirm. I can hear it calling to me in the salt-tinged breeze. My fated teal vacation home.
More laughter, and then the vinyl thud of a ball.
“Nova—” Amelia begins, just as I swing around to look at her.
A ball whizzes past my face. Something white and high velocity. My breath evaporates, and I freeze.
And that’s when I find out where Rhys and the guys went. They headed straight for sand volleyball. Except now they’re all shirtless, and I feel like I just stumbled onto the set of an Abercrombie & Fitch shoot.
And then I spot him. Again.
Weston Daly.
Except this time, he’s shirtless and his body might as well be sent from God himself as a little care package he wanted to bestow upon humanity.
“Did you have to get in the way of our game?” He saunters toward me, the lines of his abs practically yanking me by the earlobes to make sure I notice them. Dark swim trunks cling to sculpted thighs in the same way a koala hugs a bamboo tree. His chestnut hair pairs too well with the dimple in his left cheek, and the outrageous glint of his ice-blue eyes.
My breath disappears. I can’t stand this man. Yet I have never not wanted to jump his bones.
“Oh, Jesus,” I spit, annoyance flooding me.
“First you barely acknowledge me, then you get in the way of my game?” Every step closer feels like a threat, and I can’t explain why. He’s too beautiful. He’s too virile. He’s too much of everything I’ve ever wanted.
And I hate him for it. Because he’s never wanted me.
“Your ball got in the way of my path,” I explain to him.
“Excuse me, Princess Nova.” Weston bows exaggeratedly. “Continue on your way. I’d hate to have to cross your path while I get my volleyball.”
“You don’t need to be ridiculous.” To Amelia, I say, “He’s gotten more ridiculous since last time, hasn’t he?” And he has. Our tense stand-off in the van should have been my warning. He was only gearing up to unleash the full brunt of his attack: shirtless, using all his muscles, looking like this.
Weston has an intolerable smirk on his face, hands propped on his hips. And it only makes his biceps pop even more. And when he speaks again, I can feel the scrape of his bass voice inside me.
“Even though you’re the more ridiculous one, I’ll overlook it this once,” he says. “Because we’re about to spend the next week together, neighbor.”
There’s something about the word together that excites me. Ignites me, even. But I squash it. Tamp it down, because I learned everything I need to know about this man the first day I met him. He might be hot enough to send my ovaries into shock, but luckily I can see right through his sexy, sandy smirk.
Weston Daly isn’t just out of my league—he’s in a league I don’t want any part of.
One populated by beautiful drifters and callous playboys.
And I learned long ago just how far away I need to keep men like him.
Chapter 2
WESTON
If you’ve seen one beach, you’ve seen them all. Personally, I’ve seen a fuck ton. And the one I’m on now, though great, is about what you’d expect for a blissed-out-paradise bea
ch.
This saying applies to almost anything in life, depending on how jaded you want to be. After eight years of on-again, off-again travel, I can attest that this outlook firmly applies to the following: beaches, big cities, slums, greenhouse tomatoes, international airports, and, though I know it invites criticism, butthurt redheads.
Guess where the ever-so-lovely Nova Henderson falls on my Scale of Predictability.
“Weston! Come on, mate,” Rhys implores from near the volleyball net. All our friends, plus a few new friends we just met on the beach, are waiting for me to rejoin them. The volleyball is safely tucked under my arm as I watch Nova resume her angry stomp toward the huts.
I don’t know what the fuck I did to get her to hate me so much, but here we are. We’ve been nipping at each other’s heels like a couple of rival wolves for the past four years. It doesn’t matter how much time goes by between our unfortunate reunions—she always shows up with just as much distaste as before.
Which is a shame, really, because there are a few things I appreciate about Nova that have nothing to do with the way she treats me.
One of those things is shifting underneath her flowy skirt as she sprays sand behind her, heading straight for my hut.
“Hey,” I bark, just as her hand lands on the doorknob. But she doesn’t hear me. Or maybe she doesn’t care. But this is unacceptable. We’ve been around each other for thirty minutes and she’s already barging into my fucking hut?
Amelia is jogging in the sand behind her, calling Nova’s name. But the redheaded bull doesn’t stop. She storms into my hut like she owns the place, and I race that way, beating Amelia to the front door.
“What are you doing?” I demand.
Nova is in the center of my hut. She turns to me with narrowed eyes, hands propped on her hips. She’s the type of woman that has historically both attracted and repulsed me, for very different reasons. But right now, it’s an unnerving mixture of the two.
You see, Nova and I bump into each other around the world. I figured I’d be seeing her here, but there were two other trips around our tiny globe when I ran into her and absolutely did not expect it. Each time—one during the trip to Amsterdam that brought Rhys and Amelia together, the other a completely unexpected shared itinerary in Portugal—is its own brand of complex. Because being around her is equal parts irritating and awe-inspiring.
She attracts me because of her brain and because she’s got the badonk-a-donk.
But she repulses me because she acts like she’d rather be anywhere else in the world than near me.
“Can you just let me enjoy my precious first moments in my new home?” she asks, with a look that suggests she’s had to explain herself various times to no avail.
I snort. Nova’s refined her game plan, because this seems like an entirely new approach to annoying me. “Your new home?”
“Yeah. Amelia said that the teal hut was mine—”
“I never said that,” Amelia pipes up from behind me, where she’s sticking her head through the doorway. Watching us like she might have the cops on speed dial.
“This is my hut, Nova.” I say it slowly, hoping that spelling it out for her will let it sink in faster. Confusion clouds her pretty, green eyes. Yes, I’m enjoying this. Every last second of it. Because it’s like Nova walked right into a trap that I didn’t even realize I’d laid.
“You said I had the teal hut,” Nova tells Amelia over my shoulder.
“No, I didn’t! I didn’t even tell you which one!” Amelia squeaks.
A defeated burst of air passes her lips, and she clutches her forehead in her hands. I can’t even hide my victorious smile. I win.
Try as I might, competition is in my bloodline, and this type of victory isn’t just nice, it’s being handed to me on a fucking silver platter.
“Yours is the next one over,” Amelia goes on.
“Oh, God,” Nova groans, avoiding my gaze as she storms past me. “That means I’ll have to hear the entire female population of Aruba file through this front door.”
My smile melts away, a frown replacing it. Well I guess it’s more than clear what she thinks about me. She’s only partially right, though. A week isn’t enough time to bang the entire female population of Aruba. Additionally, I’m not interested in banging the entire female population.
Just a slim fraction of it.
“Sorry, what was that?” I deadpan, following her and Amelia back out onto the beach as Nova heads for the neighboring hut. “I wasn’t really clear on what you thought of me.”
“Rotating teal door of night visitors,” Nova clarifies, pushing open the door to the fuchsia hut next to mine. “Violating noise ordinances with your sex groans.”
I grimace. “Got it.” The door slams shut a moment later, her and Amelia swallowed inside. The entire sand volleyball game has stalled, since I still have the ball tucked under my arm.
“Christ, mate, you ready yet?” Rhys asks.
I grit my teeth as I head back to the game. Goodbye relaxed sand volleyball match. Now all I’ll be thinking about is what else I could have told Nova. And some other things, like how fucking sexy she’s gotten over the past year and a half that we haven’t laid eyes—or insults—on each other.
“Good thing she’s not your girlfriend.” One of Rhys’s best friends—sorry, best mates—from Bedfordshire, Elliot, is watching me with a smirk. “You wouldn’t be getting any tonight.”
“Real funny.” I toss the ball to Rhys so he can serve. Every inch of me wants to turn around and see if Nova might come back out of her fuchsia hut, but I refuse to engage with her any more than necessary. So yes, even eye contact is off-limits for the rest of the week.
I don’t beg for sex, much less for someone to like me. If Nova wants to hold a grudge that spans half a decade, so be it. I’ll just have to remember to send her a postcard, addressed to I Hate Westonville, population 1.
Aruba isn’t huge, but I won’t have any problem staying out of her way.
The volleyball goes thunk as Rhys launches it to the other side of the net. After a few volleys and one graceless tumble into the sand by a guy who says his name is Wino, we snag another point, which means we win the game.
“Fuck yes!” Rhys bounds toward me, his fists in the air. We jump and touch chests mid-air, like the frat brothers we never were. Elliot joins our bro huddle, followed by another friend that Rhys and I met during the trip that brought us together, Keko. We’re an international brotherhood. I represent the USA, Rhys and Elliot rep the UK, and Keko is the representative for South America, since he was born in Chile.
This is how most of my social circle looks. I’ve got more friends in Europe alone than some people will meet in their entire lifetime. I could couch surf from California to Croatia if needed—which I almost did by accident once. This destination wedding in Aruba marks the tenth country I’ve visited since last year, when I officially started the vagabond-or-bust lifestyle. And there are so many other places left to see. But the next stop on my itinerary, after a quick rest in Bayshore post-Aruba, is Thailand.
The one, the only: Chiang Mai. Not only that, it’s going to be the fucking spark that will ignite my sagging social media influencer career. Because it has to be.
I told myself I’d use this week in Aruba to stop thinking about my downward spiral into obscurity. What started out as an explosive following two years ago during a vacation featuring amazing, adventure-focused photos has petered out into a stagnant following of 300,000 followers and declining. I haven’t gotten bids from any awe-inspiring companies that want to continue putting money into my bank account.
They were supposed to be chasing me, but now I am chasing them. I submitted an influencer pitch to a big name in adventure travel—Cliffhangers Gear—weeks ago to see if they would pick Weston Wanders to represent their brand across Thailand, Morocco, and more. Now I just have to wait and not go crazy predicting the demise of my location-independent lifestyle.
“Hey, you guys bus
y?”
A soft, feminine voice causes us all to turn toward the water. A tanned blonde with a wide-brimmed hat is peering at us, gnawing on her bottom lip.
“Uh, no, not at all,” Elliot says, his chest inflating.
“Can you help me with something?”
This is the quintessential in for any macho bachelor to score. But despite what Nova thinks about me—not that I care—I’m not looking to score. The scores find me.
Elliot is practically tripping over himself as he hurries toward the blonde waif, Keko following in his tracks. I miss what she tells them, but Keko is waving for us to follow. Rhys follows reluctantly behind me, as though he can tell that following a single blonde onto the beach is inherently risky.
“What could she need help with?” Rhys asks, just as there is a very poignant oink and some sort of wild hog emerges from the cluster of palm trees and bushes nearby. The blonde shrieks, and then suddenly Elliot stumbles backward, flat on his back. He might be paralyzed with fear, but I can’t quite tell. Rhys and I rush toward them, the sand spraying behind our footsteps.
“What the fuck?” Rhys demands once we reach Keko and Elliot, who is now vertical again. The blonde is gripping her wide-brimmed hat and laughing into the sun like this is a swimsuit ad, or maybe secret auditions for a candid camera show.
There are gruff shouts and the occasional girlish squeal as the wild hog runs in circles, stops, huffs at something in the sand, and then wanders back toward the crop of bushes. Amelia’s voice pierces the air next.
“I’m pretty sure that was a fucking pig!”
“Wild hog, honey,” Rhys calls out. Nova pokes her head through the doorway, and immediately our gazes lock. As Rhys would say, bollocks. I wander toward Keko and Elliot through the warm sand, where the blonde is showing them something on the inside of her hat. Her hair flows behind her like white glittery ribbons in the sea breeze. I should definitely focus more on what’s happening over here, as opposed to the joy-sucking redhead fifty feet behind me.
