What I was doing clearly wasn’t working, so I’m not going back to it. What’s next? I have no idea.
Right now, I’m going to take a beach vacation with my best friend, and not worry about any of it.
By the time I’m done packing, Imogen is buzzing at the front door. I let her in and she’s at my door in seconds. I barely have the door open when she shoves through, already chattering, literally vibrating with excitement. She’s talking so fast I can barely keep up with her, and I don’t even try. She’s talking about drinks with umbrellas, and cabana boys, and should she have higher SPF with her, and Jesse is so jealous he’s talking to James about scheduling a boys’ trip for when we get back, and…
I let her talk, absorbing her joy. I’m still not okay, but I’m okay with not being okay. It’s a weird kind of peaceful resignation. I know I’ll figure it out, one way or another. This is a turning point in my life, I’m realizing, and I’m trying to just take it one step at a time and enjoy the process, even the not-being okay part, if that makes any sense.
She’s pawing through my suitcase, checking my packing. She goes through it twice, and then stops chattering abruptly. “Audra, there’s something missing.”
I frown. “What? I’ve got clothes for nice dinners, bikinis, sandals, makeup, bras and underwear…what am I missing?”
“You don’t have any…” and here she gestures vaguely at her hoo-ha. “You know.”
I snort and roll my eyes. “Say what you mean and use big girl words, Imogen.”
“You don’t have a vibrator or condoms.” She gives me a meaningful look. “I thought you never went anywhere without that stuff. I remember you telling me that a few years ago.”
I sigh. “Yeah, I don’t usually. But I’m…” Another sigh, and if I sigh again I’ll turn into an accordion. “I’m on hiatus. From everything.”
“Another ninety-day celibacy thing, like after Jared?”
I shrug, nod, and then shake my head. “Yes—no. I don’t know. I told you I haven’t been able to get with anyone since Franco, well…that hasn’t changed. But I’m not with him either, and I still can’t get with anyone else. Worse yet—I don’t want to. He…he broke me. He ruined me for anyone else, and now he doesn’t want me. Which is what I was worried about in the first fucking place. Worst of all, Imogen—I can’t even give myself relief. I’ve tried that too, and I’ve just got no…mojo, for lack of a better word. I’m frustrated as fuck and I can get close, right to the edge even, but I can’t get myself over it. I can’t bring myself to orgasm, Imogen! It’s utter hell! The asshole didn’t just ruin me for other men, he ruined me for myself! It’s not fair.” I groan, and wave both hands toward the door. “Which is why this beach vacation sounds fucking phenomenal, so let’s quit yammering about my bullshit and get out of here!”
A brief but significant pause, and then Imogen brightens. “Beaches and drinks with umbrellas, and cute cabana boys, here we come!” she sings, zipping my suitcase and handing it to me.
On the way out, I glance at her. “Why are you so excited about cabana boys when you have a guy like Jesse at home?”
She rolls her eyes as we head out to my parking lot. “I love Jesse with all my heart, and I’m one hundred percent devoted to him, and if he doesn’t ask me to marry him soon I’m going to end up popping the question to him. But. I still like looking at cute guys. Doesn’t mean I want them, or want to do anything with them, I just appreciate nice-looking things. Like art, and architecture, and flowers…and men.”
I laugh. “Atta girl, Imogen.”
When we get out to my parking lot, Jesse is parked in one of my guest spots, his giant truck rumbling with screeching, howling, death metal or whatever it is shrieking from his speakers. His window is open, one thick, tattooed arm hanging out, two fingers tapping to the beat. He has his phone up to his ear with his other hand, and he’s alternately listening and talking. I can’t make out what he’s saying, much less figure out who he’s talking to. But then Jesse sees me and Imogen, makes a quick end to the phone call, tossing the device into the console cubby under the dashboard as we approach. I have a niggling suspicion about who he was talking to, and about what.
I push that train of thought aside, because it doesn’t matter. What happened, happened, and what is, is.
And now it’s vacation time.
I open the rear passenger door, shove my little suitcase across the bench seat beside Imogen’s and climb up and into the truck, buckling up as I close the door. “Hey, Jesse.”
He twists to smile at me. “Imogen, what’s up? Doing okay?”
I smile back; I don’t have to force it, because a smile from Jesse is pretty infectious. “Excited for Imogen’s little impromptu vacation plan.”
He nods, and something unspoken ripples between us. I gather from his tense expression that Franco is on his mind, but I don’t ask, and he doesn’t offer. Instead, he plugs a cord into his phone, hunts through Spotify for a moment, and then switches the music to a yacht rock playlist—all fabulous and fun and lighthearted, which he must somehow know is a perennial favorite of Imogen’s and mine—as long as it’s not the overly synth-laden pop stuff. It starts off with a Bon Jovi tune, and my spirits immediately lift. Imogen is in the front seat, and after she closes the door and buckles in, she leans across and kisses Jesse on the cheekbone, and then claims his right hand, twining her fingers into his.
He grins at her as he puts his truck into gear and backs out. They immediately start bickering in an adorably earnest way about whether Bon Jovi, Guns ’N Roses, or Poison is better. I can’t help a rush of hate/love at the way they are together. It’s so sweet it’s almost saccharine, but it’s totally real and deep and true, and the hate just may be jealousy in disguise.
The drive isn’t too long—we’re headed to O’Hare. I settle in, listening to the music and watching the familiar scenery out the window, and half listening to Jesse and Imogen’s quiet, easy, ever-shifting conversation.
We reach the airport departure line, where Jesse pulls to a stop, parks, hops out, grabs both of our suitcases and props them upright on the sidewalk. Then, without warning, he grabs Imogen around the waist, yanks her up against his body, and kisses the shit out of her. By the time he lets her go, she’s clearly breathless, horny, and a little shaken.
“Ohhh—okay,” she mumbles, touching her lips with two fingers. “Um. Hi? Wow.”
Jesse just grins at her. “Had to make sure you remember me while you’re gone. Don’t want you leaving me for any of those cute cabana boys.”
“You heard that, huh?”
He grabs her by the ass and clutches her up against him again. “I eat cabana boys for breakfast, and don’t you forget it.”
She giggles breathily. “You eat me for breakfast, or have you forgotten already?”
He growls. “Forget? Why do you think I didn’t brush my teeth this morning? I can still taste you.”
“OKAY!” I shout, and walk away, grabbing both rolling suitcase handles. “AWAY WE GO!”
“You’re not jealous, are you?” Imogen says, her voice full of teasing humor.
“You bet your fine ass I’m jealous.”
“Jesse, you know I’m just being silly. Don’t be insecure.”
He rumbles again. “Ain’t insecure. You’re mine, and I know it, and I’m fine with you going and having the time of your life. But I’m jealous as fuck, and I’m not apologizing for it.”
“I don’t expect you to apologize.” She reaches between them and rubs against him. “Remember how I woke you up? That was me reminding you who you belong to—me.”
I would be sick if it wasn’t hot and sweet at the same time. “Hey, lovebirds. Remember me?”
“I’ll be thinking of how you woke me up the entire time you’re gone,” Jesse says, and I know I’m being ignored.
Imogen lifts up on her toes and touches her lips to Jesse’s, quickly, tenderly. “I have to go.” She glances at me, grins, and then turns back to Jesse. “
I think we’re going to make poor Audra vomit in a second.”
I sigh, waving a hand. “It’s sweet. Just don’t get carried away. I’d tell you to get a room, but that’d take too long, and I need like four sugar-free mojitos, stat.”
“Plus, our flight leaves in an hour.” She pecks him one last time. “Bye. I’ll call you.”
“How about you FaceTime me naked from the hotel room instead?” Jesse mutters.
Imogen rolls her eyes as she pulls away. “I’ll see what I can do.”
Imogen gets two steps away when his voice stops her. “Hey, Im—guess what?”
She pauses, turns around. “What?”
“I love you.”
She sighs, visibly and audibly melting. “I love you, too.”
“You’re going to be apart less than a week,” I huff. “Get a grip.”
Imogen shoves me playfully. “Don’t be hating on our honeymoon phase.”
“I’m not hating,” I say as we head to check-in. “You’re just being ridiculous.”
“Yeah, well…” She shrugs, and her smile back at me is…weird. “Love is ridiculous, sometimes.”
Both our suitcases are carry-on size, so all we have to do is check-in and go through security. Imogen gives the clerk both our boarding passes, which she printed out at home it seems, and I give her my ID. The clerk is bored and listless, checking our IDs, scrawling something on both boarding passes, and then repeating our gate assignment in a monotone voice as she hands the passes back to Imogen.
At no point is there a hint of where we’re going. Once we’re in the security line, I fix Imogen with a hard stare. “Where are we going? You have to tell me!”
“Do not!” she singsongs. “It’s a surprise.”
“How much were the tickets? I can reimburse you.”
She blows a raspberry at me as we move forward, approaching the front of the line. “Nope! I’m so proud of you for taking this time off, and taking care of yourself, and this my way of showing it. Plus, I got promoted at work, so I’m celebrating that for myself.”
“You’re proud of me?”
She nods. “Yes, Audra, I’m proud of you. That’s not condescension, either. You take care of your body in terms of nutrition and fitness better than anyone I know, but psychologically and emotionally, you’re a disaster. You’re like a diabetic person about to go blind, emotionally. You need this time off, and if you spent it all just languishing alone at home, you’d go even crazier, because I know you’re also not working out or drinking—both of which are good. But you need a distraction, and it is my absolute pleasure to provide it.”
“Oh,” I say. I do have to take time to think. “Guess that makes sense.” I give her a quick side hug. “Thank you, in that case.”
Just then, we’re called up to the next open security guy, who glances at us, looks us up at down appreciatively, and then turns his eyes on me as I hand him my ID. “Where are you two lovely ladies going?”
Imogen answers. “I’m surprising her with a vacation because she’s never taken one, so she doesn’t know where we’re going.”
The security guy, who clearly is wishing he was going with us, eyes me in surprise. “You’ve never taken a vacation?”
“Nope. Lots of working trips, but never a real vacation with zero work and all play.”
“What kinda play you planning on, huh?” he asks with a broad, playful grin.
I wink at him. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”
He just laughs good-naturedly. “I sure would. You’re all set. Have a good flight.” He makes a big show of handing the boarding passes back to Imogen without letting me see them, and then we get our bags and shoes and purses on the conveyer belt, go through the scanner, collect our stuff, and head for the gate. It didn’t take us long to go through security, and Imogen checks our boarding passes for flight time, and announces that we have plenty of time for a preflight drink. So we find seats at a bar not too far from our gate, order a glass of wine, and settle in, our bags at our feet.
“So. You got promoted?” I ask.
“I sure did! I’m a shift supervisor, now.”
“Congratulations. It seems like you’re really thriving at that hospital, huh?”
“I really am,” Imogen says with a happy sigh. “I love it so much, and it’s all thanks to Jesse. I can’t even begin to explain all the ways he’s made my life better.”
“I know I’m kind of a joy-kill about it sometimes, but I really am super amazing, sparkly-hearts, happy for you.”
Imogen bumps me with her shoulder. “You’re not a joy-kill, Audra. And I don’t want this vacation to turn into an endless discussion of your…stuff. It’s a distraction. It’s about fun and relaxation and that’s it.”
I sigh in relief. “God, thank you. I just want to have fun and relax and not think about anything.”
“What did you do for your first couple days off?” she asks.
“Not much, and it was everything I thought it could be.” I laugh. “Honestly, it was great. I slept in later than I’ve ever slept in, in my whole life, ate a bunch of garbage—well, garbage for me, at least. I also watched two whole seasons of a show on Netflix, and that’s about all I did, and it was awesome.”
“Good for you,” Imogen says. “And about damn time.”
We chat more about the kind of random crap two lifelong best friends gab about over a glass of wine, and then I pay for the wine and we head for our gate. And just in time: I see the gate number we’ve been assigned, and the attendant at the desk is on the loudspeaker:
“Now boarding zone two, now boarding zone two. Once again, flight D-L one-two-three-four, departing at one-twenty for St. Barth’s is now boarding zone two.”
I stop, gaping. “Are you for fucking real?” I grab her by the shoulders. “St. Barth’s?”
She grins at me, leaning in to kiss me on the cheek. “St. Barth’s, for fucking real!”
“How?”
“Let’s get our seats and I’ll tell you on the plane.”
We board, get our bags in the overhead compartment, find our seats and buckle in. By some mutual but unspoken agreement we decline a drink as the attendant comes around, and I turn to Imogen, who has the aisle seat, leaving me the window.
“So. How did you swing St. Barth’s? And where are we staying? I know things are pretty good for you with the new job and the promotion, but…”
She just laughs. “Oh god, no. I couldn’t afford an outhouse on St. Barth’s. It’s Dr. Waverley—both of them. I was in Dr. Waverly’s office, my boss, not her husband. She was discussing the responsibilities of my new position, you know, the usual rundown. And then Dr. Waverley, her husband, comes in. Apparently they’d been planning a vacation for a while, but a big thing came up for him, and then something came up for her, and I guess they’d been discussing via email their options for postponing, and he got sick of emails and decided to drop by and let her know that he thought it’d be best to put it off a few more months.”
I lift an eyebrow at her. “Sounds like a fascinating conversation.”
She snickers. “It was, actually. They’ve been married so long they have their own, like, shorthand in conversations.” She shrugs. “Anyway, after Mr. Dr. Waverley left, my boss Mrs. Dr. Waverley gave me a funny look and asked me if I’d ever taken a vacation, and I said not really, not for a long time. And she told me she and her husband have a place down in St. Barth’s that sits empty most of the year, and if I ever want to take some vacation days, I could hike myself down there and stay, free of charge.”
I blink at her. “Oh my god. That’s…absurdly generous.”
Imogen laughs. “Oh yes, it sure is. But I’ve gotten to be pretty good friends with Dr. Waverley since I started working for her, and she and her husband are basically just those kinds of people—they’ll do pretty much anything for anyone without even blinking. So, when you called me and told me you’d taken some time off, I called her, asked if I could bring you down for a BFF getaway, an
d could I also have some time off. She arranged for me to have the days off, and I got Michelle to cover my next two shifts, and here we are.”
“Well, I’ll have to thank Dr. Waverley and Dr. Waverley, then.”
“They like red wine,” she suggests. “Particularly a nice, dry 2012 Napa Valley cabernet sauvignon.”
“Who doesn’t?” I say, laughing, but make a mental note to bring them a bottle when we get back. “How do you even know that?”
She laughed with me. “Oh, well, when I told her I’d have to find a meaningful way of saying thank you, she suggested that.”
The flight was long, but we spent it watching comedies on the in-flight entertainment, laughing together and acting like teenagers, even though we didn’t have anything else to drink. We transferred in Atlanta, had a short stopover in Saint Maarten, where we finally indulged in a couple more drinks, and then we transferred to our final, and smallest, flight to Saint Barthélemy.
We arrive at the Waverley’s condo at almost two in the morning after something like eleven hours of travel, including the stopover in Saint Maarten—and we’re both absolutely exhausted. The entire time we were en route, I’d been entertaining this notion of getting to the condo, changing into a bikini, and going right out to the beach for a starlight swim. But…no. We trudge through the doorway, set our bags down just inside, spend a few minutes marveling, and oohing and aahhing about the condo…and then pass out, together, side by side on the bed.
I’m stiff, foggy, bleary-eyed, and disoriented when I wake up. For the first few minutes of being awake, I think I’m back home in my bed. I don’t want to wake up—I’m comfy, sleepy, and the sun is bright on my face and there’s a warm body next to me. Some instinct has me curling around the body, wrapping my arm around it. A soft murmur rises at my touch.
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