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by S. E. Rose

  “Alright, you win, it’s good,” I say, taking another bite of the unexpected delicacy.

  She laughs. “The look on your face when I said octopus was priceless,” she giggles.

  “Yeah, I guess my adventurous dieting stops at octopus.” I smirk.

  “Well, you should always be willing to try new things,” she scolds.

  “You sound like my mom,” I laugh.

  “Oh, that’s not good,” she laments.

  “No, if you knew my mom, you’d know it was good.”

  “Really? Sounds like I’d like your mom,” she says with a smile as she rests her head against her hand, her elbow bent and resting on the back of the chair so she’s facing me.

  “She’s a great lady,” I say to her.

  “Hey, everyone, let’s go down to the tidal pool,” Peter yells after one too many cocktails.

  There’s a cheering from various members of our party. I give Melissa a curious look, and she shrugs.

  “What’s the tidal pool?” I ask her.

  She leans forward and whispers in my ear, “I guess you’ll have to come along if you want to find out.” Her hot breath on my skin makes me shiver.

  She takes my hand and pulls me out of my chair. Everyone is standing now and tossing cash on the table. The sun has completely set, and the night sky is dark. We walk along the water for about a mile or two until we come to what looks like a circular swimming pool only it’s not a pool, it’s just where the ocean water gets caught inside a divot of what was lava rock at one time. I look around and everyone is stripping down to their underwear and jumping in the pool.

  “When in Rome,” Melissa says, and with a flourish, she pulls off her sundress and jumps in the water. I shake my head and unbutton my shirt and toss my shoes and pants off to the side before jumping in as well. The water is surprisingly warm.

  “It’s because of the volcano, the ground here is more heated than normal earth and so the water stays warmer than out there,” she explains pointing out to the open water.

  “It’s nice,” I say as I float around and splash her. She laughs and splashes me back and before I know it everyone is taking part in a giant splashing contest. Peter, who is probably the most intoxicated, fully moons us and then does a back flip into what I hope is the deep end of this pool.

  “Uh, Pete, careful there,” Marco scolds as he swims over to him.

  We all play around for a while and then one by one we go and put our clothes back on and begin heading back to the boat. I watch as Melissa gracefully gets out of the water and picks up her dress. She’s wearing a strapless bra and lacey black panties, and she is even more beautiful than she was in the swimsuit earlier today. I laugh to myself that I don’t think I’ve seen a woman with this few clothes on this many times before I even have kissed her.

  I put my clothes on as fast as I can, and I walk over to her. She’s shivering, and I’ve left my jacket on the boat. I wrap my arm around her.

  “Come here,” I murmur as we walk behind the others. “My sister and mom always say I’m like my own sun.”

  She leans into me. “I think they’re right. How can you be so hot?”

  “Well, thank you, genetics I guess,” I say deadpan. She looks up at me not sure if I’m being funny, and then she laughs.

  “You’re funny,” she says.

  “I have my moments.”

  I keep my arm wrapped tightly around her as we walk and when she shivers, I wrap my other arm around her front, over her arm that she has tucked along her abdomen.

  “Still cold?” I ask her.

  “A little,” she admits.

  I run my hands up and down her arms a bit trying to stir some heat into them. She looks up at me and gives me a shy smile.

  “Thanks,” she says. Her eyes seem like dark pools in the night, and I smile at her as I gaze into them.

  “Anytime, beautiful,” I say to her. Once we get back to the boat, I place my jacket over her again and help Marco ready the sails for the return trip. It only takes about thirty minutes to get back as the wind happens to be in our favor. I sit down next to Melissa, and we begin to talk about our favorite family vacations.

  “Disney World of course,” she says. “But I also always liked the beach. What about you?”

  “Oh, my family was pretty adventurous. I think the safari we took in South Africa was my favorite,” I say to her.

  “Well, I can’t top that. The most adventurous we ever got was a cruise to the Bahamas,” she says with a laugh.

  “Do you have siblings?” I ask her.

  She freezes and frowns. I wonder if I’ve asked the wrong questions, but then she smiles at me, only her smile doesn’t reach her eyes.

  “I have an older brother,” she states. “You?”

  “A twin sister, Lily,” I say.

  “Oh, you’re a twin?”

  “Yep,” I answer.

  “That’s interesting.”

  “I suppose.”

  “Are you two close?”

  “Very.”

  “I always thought it’d be fun to have a twin,” she muses as she looks out at the water.

  I look around the boat, and Peter is passed out with his head on Ava’s lap and everyone else is sitting in a circle in the front of the boat whispering and laughing.

  “What about your parents?” she asks me.

  “My dad died when I was a kid and my mom lives in Maryland still. She’s an author,” I say.

  “Sorry about your dad,” she says softly.

  “Oh, it was a very long time ago, but thank you. What about your parents?” I ask.

  “My parents are divorced. My mom is an accountant and lives with my stepdad in New Jersey and my father lives in Virginia. He’s ex-military and works for a contractor.”

  “And your brother?”

  “Nate is also a CPA like my mom. In fact, they work for the same accounting firm.”

  I nod. “Is your sister an engineer too?” she asks after a beat.

  I laugh. “Oh no. Lily and I are very different. She’s a photographer actually and a full-time mom to three kids.”

  “Wow, three kids, she’s young,” Melissa says, and I can tell by her face that she is generally surprised.

  “Well, she and my brother-in-law, Lance, adopted a little girl right after they got married, and then she found out she was pregnant with twins, so they had all their kids right away,” I explain.

  “That’s cool,” she says. “That’s nice they adopted.”

  “Well, Lily and I were adopted, so it isn’t such a big deal in our family,” I say, hesitating. I never know how people will react to this tidbit of information.

  “That’s cool,” she says. “Do you know your biological family?”

  Oh dear, tricky question to answer. “We were born in Colombia, and we just recently got in contact with some biological family members.”

  “That’s nice,” she says, and she yawns.

  “Tired?” I ask her.

  She nods. “I was up early calibrating equipment this morning.”

  “Do you have far to go when we get back?” I ask her.

  She shakes her head. “No, I live in town,” she says.

  We pull up to the dock and everyone disembarks, shaking each other’s hands and thanking our captain for the evening, Marco, who takes a bow and laughs.

  “Hopefully, we’ll see you guys at the bar tomorrow night,” he says to us, and we all nod. Mitch and Steve grab a cab back to their apartments and the rest of the group breaks up into several smaller groups going in various directions. I notice Melissa is starting to go off in a direction by herself.

  “I’ll walk you home,” I tell her.

  “It’s alright, I’m only four blocks that way.” She points.

  “Nope, don’t even try it, beautiful. I’m not letting you walk home by yourself,” I say.

  She shrugs and begins to walk, and I follow her.

  “That was fun,” I say as we walk down a dark cobbl
estone street.

  “Yeah, they’re a good group,” she says.

  We walk in silence for two more blocks. “This is me,” she announces as I look up at an old, two-story house.

  “Well, I hope I’ll see you tomorrow night,” I say.

  “Me too. I mean I hope to see you too,” she says as she takes off my jacket. “Here you go. Thanks.”

  “Anytime,” I say and lean forward and kiss her cheek.

  “Goodnight, Nick,” she says softly as she pulls away.

  “Goodnight, Melissa,” I say, and I stand there until I see her go inside.

  Chapter 4

  Nick’s Playlist: “Inevitable” by Anberlin

  “Well, how was your evening?” Cody asks with a smirk the next morning at breakfast.

  “Fine, yours?” I respond with a poker face.

  “How fine was it?” Garrett laughs.

  I give them the finger, even though I know it’s totally unprofessional, but I feel like we’re more than just colleagues. I mean, yeah, Cody’s family, but Garrett’s really cool too, and that makes me realize that I’m beginning to loosen up around these two. I ponder whether this is professional or not.

  They both laugh at me. “Chillax,” Cody says. “We’re glad you’re loosening up a bit. I don’t know how your last firm was, but when we aren’t with clients or in a professional meeting and it’s just us, feel free to let loose, Nick. I like to keep the atmosphere collegial, but fun.”

  I nod.

  “So, you didn’t bring her back here, huh?” Garrett points out the obvious.

  I look at him and gauge my response. “Nope,” I finally answer.

  “Classy,” he says, and I think he means it.

  “You must really like her,” Cody surmises as he sips a coffee.

  “I might,” I answer nonchalantly.

  “Alright, enough with the bullshitting, let’s get down to business,” Garrett says as he pulls out a binder with numbers that Mitch and Steve’s staff have gathered for us over the past twenty-four hours.

  We spend the morning going over the data, and I run some models through a software system that Cody had Jesse’s company make for him. We end up making a few alterations to the project, some minor tweaks.

  After lunch, we head over to the site again and spend the entire afternoon finalizing plans. Mitch and Steve call an all-staff meeting, and we debrief them. By dinnertime, we have a game plan for construction and an agenda for a pre-construction meeting the next day. The goal of the trip was to double and triple check numbers, make any needed tweaks and finalize a game plan for construction. The time frame of a week to do this is tight, but it’s Garrett’s third trip out here in person, so I’m feeling a little better about the finalized plan. This wind farm is smaller in the number of megawatts of power and it’s the third one our firm has done this year, so Garrett and Cody’s process is a well-oiled machine.

  We leave the construction site around six and head back to town for dinner. We decide to eat at the bar along the water. We grab an empty table and order drinks that are quickly brought out to us.

  “Cheers,” Cody says as we clink glasses. “Welcome aboard, Nick. Seriously, I’m glad you accepted the position. You’ve really brought a fresh set of eyes to the project. It would’ve probably taken us another day or two before we figured out the numbers you already had sorted out in your head by three this afternoon.”

  I shrug, and I know my face reddens a bit. I hate praise like this. “I’m just doing my job, Cody. But I am glad that I can be a valued member of the team.”

  “More than valued,” Garrett says. “You got something, kid, and I think we are going to make a great team.” He holds up his glass again. “To the three amigos of this engineering firm. May all our projects end in gold.”

  We laugh and take long sips of our beers. I’m setting down my glass when I hear Melissa’s giggle. I look up and see Melissa and Michelle walking into the bar. I wave them over to our table. I’d purposefully gotten a table much larger than we needed. Thankfully, Cody and Garrett had kept their mouths shut about it.

  “We have room, come join us,” I say to them as I scoot my chair over, so they can get by me. As gentlemen do, the three of us rise from our seats and give them kisses on their cheeks before sitting, once they are settled. I put my finger up and beckon a server over to our table. He apparently knows them because they are quite cordial, and he requires no orders from them and merely disappears back into the bar.

  “Come here often,” I smirk at them.

  They both giggle, and Michelle nods. “Almost every night,” she says. It isn’t long before a few others from our boat trip join us and once everyone has a few drinks in their system the table suddenly becomes a lively place to be. I smile as I look around at my new friends. It reminds me of being at the bar at home.

  “How was your day?” Melissa says to me as the conversation splinters into several around the table.

  “Good, really good actually,” I say to her. “We are a day ahead of schedule now for our planned trip here and the project might actually get started a few weeks early.”

  “Wow, that’s great,” she says, and then I notice her face loses the big smile that had been on it. “So, you’ll be heading back sooner rather than later then?”

  I nod. “We’ll probably go home the day after tomorrow,” I tell her and now I realize why she suddenly isn’t so excited. And now, I too am a bit bummed.

  “I’ll be back here soon though,” I add, and she musters a small smile at me.

  “How long are you here studying the dolphins?” I ask her.

  “I’m not sure,” she says. “I’m trying to get more funding, but it really depends on whether my next grant comes through or not.”

  “What will you do if it doesn’t?” I ask, honestly curious.

  She shrugs. “I…I’m not sure,” she stutters. “I sort of put all my eggs in one basket. I know,” she continues, holding up her hand. “It’s not smart of me. I just really love it here, and I love the research I’m doing. I guess I don’t feel like it’s finished just yet.”

  “Would you ever study anywhere else?” I ask her.

  “I guess I would. There are some dolphin populations in the Caribbean and actually some dolphin movements along the east coast of the U.S. that I’d love to study. I also wouldn’t mind studying the pink dolphins.”

  “Wait, pink dolphins? Are you serious or are you fucking with me?” I ask her with a raised eyebrow.

  She laughs. “I swear. I’m not fucking with you. I’m totally serious. Here, I’ll show you,” she says pulling up a website on her phone and showing me that there are in fact pink dolphins in South America.

  “Wow…I mean…yeah…wow,” I manage to say, completely speechless.

  “Yeah, I know. It’s really cool.”

  “Well, I learned something new today,” I say as I drink some more of my beer.

  “Happy to educate, anytime.” She smirks. She looks out at the water and smiles. “Do you want to see something really cool?” she asks.

  “Sure.”

  “We’ll have to leave here and go to a secret place I know,” she says. And now I’m intrigued and also fucking aroused.

  “Hey, guys, I’m going to show Nick around the island,” she says as she stands.

  “Oh, take him to the cove,” Michelle says. “It’s a great night for it.”

  Melissa winks at her. “You know me well.”

  “I’ll see you two in the morning,” I say to Cody and Garrett. They both give me a look, and I want to slap them and laugh at the same time.

  “You kids stay out of trouble,” Garrett says coyly.

  Melissa puts on a pouty face. “But trouble’s my middle name,” she says, and everyone breaks into laughter.

  I follow her out to the street, and we walk a ways out of town. She takes my hand, and I follow her down cobblestoned streets and small alleyways. We don’t speak as we walk. It’s very dark as the moon isn’t
out at all.

  Finally, we reach a clearing, and she turns to me. “We have to be a little stealthy now,” she explains as she climbs an old stone wall and hops over the other side, which I have to say she does quite gracefully considering she’s wearing a sundress. “Come on,” she says, waving her hand.

  I look around as though we might be caught by the police at any moment and then shrug. “Fuck it, OK, here I come,” I say as I bound over the wall. Melissa giggles and takes my hand, leading me down a rocky pathway toward the water. As we climb around a rocky wall, I see the waves, and then I know what she’s excited about showing me.

  “Dinoflagellates,” I murmur.

  She nods excitedly. “You’ve seen them before?” she asks.

  “Oh yes, years ago, but yes,” I say, remembering fondly times I had seen them in Puerto Rico and the Florida Keys.

  “I bet you’ve never seen this though,” she laughs and drags me down to a rocky outcropping. I can tell the water is deep in the cove. It’s not the type of cove with a shallow beach area.

  As we stare out at the water, all of a sudden dolphins streak through the cove. And I mean literally streak around it like a lightning bolt in the water. I can only tell they are there because the water lights up around them as they move. It’s spectacular.

  “Wow,” I manage to whisper.

  “I know, right? I love it when this happens! Come on, follow me. The rest of the pod’s out in the channel,” she says as she hurries amongst the giant black boulders. I follow her out to a point, and we sit and watch as hundreds of spinner dolphins streak like glow-in-the-dark projectiles through the water.

  “They’re playing,” she explains. “See that, it’s like Simon says, dolphin style.” She points to where some dolphins are jumping out of the water doing crazy spins and others are then following suit.

  We watch in silence for a good half hour before the dolphins move further off the coast.

  “It’s really spectacular,” I say softly as we watch the last of the dolphins move away into the darkness.

  She turns and gives me a giant smile. “I love watching it. It doesn’t happen often, but when it does…” She trails off and grins.