by Liz Fenton
Nick takes a drink before answering, and I watch him, wondering if he’s going through his personal files of memories of her, deciding which ones won’t hurt me to hear, which ones won’t hurt him to tell.
“Dylan was sweet. Very, very kind,” he says as the bartender sets a plate of coconut calamari in front of us.
“Compliments of the house—in case you need your strength for that fire dancing.” He winks before walking away again, and Nick rolls his eyes in my direction, clenching his jaw slightly. Just as I’m about to say something to defend the server, Nick breaks into a smile. “I think that guy has a crush on you.”
“Please! He just feels bad that he didn’t know anything about Dylan and James. Or he wants a big tip. Either way, bartenders flirt.” I finish the last of my drink. “James was like that too—flirtatious. Talkative. Outgoing. The salesman in him, you know? He could make anyone feel like they were the only person in the room. Everywhere we went, he’d strike up conversations with perfect strangers, and within five minutes you’d think they’d known each other all their lives.”
“Did it ever bother you? Make you jealous?”
“Not really. It was just who he was—like he couldn’t help himself. I had always thought it was harmless—” I don’t want to finish that thought. Like what if I hadn’t thought it was harmless? What if I’d been jealous? Would it have stopped him from crossing the line? “What about you? Did Dylan do anything that made you insecure?”
“I look back now and see certain things in a different light. But in the moment? No. Not at all. I’m a lot of things, Jacks, but jealous isn’t one of them.” He finishes his first drink and moves on to his second. “But maybe I should’ve been.”
“Me too,” I agree, thinking back to when I’d caught Beth snooping on her husband. She’d been scrolling through his iPhone and glanced up at me and said, “The men you never think would stray—they are always the ones with the most to hide.” And then we’d laughed—because he was Mark. An accountant she’d been married to for twelve years who, save for tax season, came home every night at six on the dot. Whose biggest self-proclaimed flaw was his penchant for itemization.
I watch the bartender washing out glasses on the other side of the bar, taking in his broad shoulders and coffee-colored skin, the dark rum in the mai tai starting to grab me. I take a bite of the calamari. It’s warm and crunchy, and the sweet coconut flavor swims in my mouth.
“So, you said Dylan was kind—what else?” I ask.
Nick watches the bartender blend a daiquiri. “She was a server.”
“Where did she work?”
“In Laguna, at Splashes Restaurant.”
The last time James and I were there together comes to mind. It was on a whim actually. I’d woken up and craved crab cakes Benedict. And I suggested that restaurant. Bits and pieces of the brunch come back to me. I overdosed on mimosas—the sweetness of the Piper champagne sliding down my throat helped dissolve the residual anger I was feeling from an argument I’d had with James about his mother the night before. He’d defended her yet again when I told him that she’d suggested my oven was dated and I might want to upgrade it. She’d even chip in. He couldn’t see why that would get under my skin. How she was constantly putting me down in her passive-aggressive way. He just didn’t see it. End of story. It infuriated me.
I try to remember our server from that day. I can’t picture her face, but I do recall that she was engaged. James complimented her ring, which struck me as odd because the one he’d picked for me was a simple gold eternity band, and he didn’t even wear one.
Ironically, I’d gotten over that fact pretty quickly. It was my mom and sister who’d questioned me when they noticed his ring finger was still bare after our wedding. But I’d waved it off. I’d never been conventional in that way. If it had been up to me, our wedding and reception would have been low key. Just friends and family on the beach catered by our favorite burger place. But it had been the opposite—a large crowd of people, most of whom I didn't know, noshing on caviar. Because that's what his mother had wanted.
“Did she work Sunday brunch?”
Nick nods. “Yes, almost never missed one. Hated it because of all the drunks, but said she made the most tips on that shift over any other.”
My heart begins to quicken as I recall something else. We’d just gotten home from the restaurant, and I was kicking off my shoes into our bedroom closet when he said, “I forgot to tip our waitress. I have to go back.”
I thought he already had—I’d glanced at the bill, then saw him put down a fair amount of cash, but my mind had been fuzzy from falling asleep in the car on the way home. I told him that and laughed, pushing him down on the bed and nuzzling his neck, my champagne buzz making me horny for makeup sex. But he pulled back. “I have to go. Her shift might be over soon. We’ll pick up where we left off as soon as I get home. Promise.”
Was that the day he met her? Had my crab-cakes craving been responsible for introducing my husband to his mistress?
I shake my head slightly at the irony. They’d met right under my nose, and I was too drunk to notice it, or maybe too confident. So confident I’d let him travel all over the country dangling his ring-free wedding finger. I don’t say this to Nick, not wanting to rehash the memory. Instead, I order a third drink, this time a piña colada, deciding getting drunk right now sounds pretty damn good.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
JACKS—AFTER
It’s possible I might be the only person living in Orange County who doesn’t like the ocean.
Let me rephrase that. I like looking at it—there’s something beautiful about the way the sun reflects off the whitecaps, making them sparkle. And I’ve been known to go down to the shoreline and splash my feet, letting the waves brush up against my thighs as they rock me back and forth, licking the salt when the occasional droplet finds my lips. But something always stops me from diving in, from cutting my arms through it like a knife. I like the idea of it—of floating on my back and imagining my hair air-drying into loose beach waves that are never actually achievable. But each time, I get only as far as waist deep, eventually inching back onto the dry and safe sand.
Beth thinks it’s because our mother taught us how to swim by throwing us into the water. “Sink or swim,” Mom had said with a laugh. I realize now that we were in the shallow end of a pool—only three feet deep, and we were never more than an arm’s distance away. But still, it was terrifying. Beth paddled her arms and kicked her legs with gusto, propelling her head above the surface the very first time. I froze, sinking quickly, my mother yanking me up before I ever reached the pool floor. The second time, my survival instinct kicked in, and I used my body to fight my way to the surface until I touched the uneven orange tile on the side of the pool. Yes, I learned how to swim quickly. But that didn’t mean I had to like it.
From the dock, I eye our boat floating in the ocean and glance at Nick. “Do you think that’s safe?”
“I do, but I also run into burning buildings for a living. So I may have a different definition of the word?” he says, sliding his T-shirt off.
When we’d walked up to the check-in point for Blue Water Rafting Adventures, I noticed a woman appraise Nick, and then me, clearly trying to figure out how we made sense. We don’t, I wanted to call out. He’s younger. And hotter. And PS: We aren’t even together. We’re trying to figure out why our partners didn’t want us anymore.
I tug at my board shorts and reach my hand behind my back to make sure my bikini top is secure before grabbing a life jacket from the shelf, wishing I’d said yes to the coffee that Nick offered me when I’d met him in the lobby at five this morning. But my head had been throbbing from one too many drinks last night as he pressed a brochure into my hand that promised an exhilarating ride as we toured grand sea caves and spectacular lava arches. “Lava whats?” I asked, my voice cracking slightly.
“Not a morning person?” He smiled, crunching his empty coffee cup in his ha
nd and shooting it into a nearby trash can like a basketball.
My hangover combined with my unease about our boating adventure had left me feeling off. It didn’t help that James had asked me—no, begged me—to do this exact trip when we were on our honeymoon, but I’d refused, blaming my fear of the water. He’d said that I was using it as a crutch. I’d called him insensitive. It was our first big fight, and it had happened during a time we were supposed to be experiencing wedded bliss. I’d called Beth crying, asking her if it was a sign. Had I married a jerk? She’d laughed and said I needed to take a step back and look at what we were fighting about—a silly sightseeing tour, not something important. I’d hung up feeling better, and hoped our disagreement was just random. And back then, it was. But our problems began to bulge at the seams years later, his insensitivity so frequent that I almost forgot that he hadn’t always been wound so tightly. That he used to have more soft spots for me to fall upon.
I tried to talk my way out of this outing as well, but Nick used my desire for information against me, telling me he’d booked us with Adam, the same guide Dylan and James had used. And not only that, but he’d managed to get the concierge to give him a rundown of every activity James and Dylan had done together. “Answers,” he said. “Just remember that. We’ll get them if we go.”
Adam turns out to be a sun-kissed twentysomething with a boy-band haircut and shorts that are dangling dangerously low on his hips. He looks like he’s going to use the word bro and pump his fist for emphasis. I whisper to Nick, “That’s the same guy they had?”
Nick nods, and I try to imagine James taking instruction from a man who looks like a Calvin Klein model. It couldn’t have gone well. James had been a natural athlete his entire life, playing soccer and football in high school, even making the lacrosse team his junior year with hardly any experience. He was always in some kind of sports league, and shortly after we got married he took up running—competing in several half marathons. And even though he was still in good shape before he died, he’d definitely been starting to feel older, making several comments about his back feeling tight, his knee giving him trouble. So to take instruction from a younger, very fit guy about anything? That could definitely rock him.
Adam introduces our group to the two other guides, both older versions of him, then gathers us on a corner of the dock and gives us a quick overview of what our boating adventure will entail. He promises it will include secret coves filled with exotic marine life and majestic sea turtles! I suppress an eye roll and half listen as he goes through a few safety instructions, including my personal favorite: not to get out of the boat unless he says so. I size up the other tourists as he yammers on. They include the woman in the yellow bikini and sarong (sarong, really?) and an older gay couple wearing matching Bermuda shorts and zinc strips across their noses. Finally Adam gives us permission to get into the boat, where we are instructed to squat and hold on to a rope.
“Squat?” I glare at Nick, who is clearly amused as he watches me try and fail several times to twist the thick yellow rope around my right hand.
He leans over and wraps his arm around my back, causing me to stiffen even more. “I promise I won’t let anything happen to you.”
I wriggle out of his grip. “You have no business making promises like that,” I say, harsher than I intend.
“Jacks . . .”
“I’m sorry,” I say, holding up my rope-free hand. “I thought being here was going to help. But now I’m sitting on a boat I don’t want to be on, with, no offense, a guy I barely know, and it just feels wrong. Like this was the stupidest decision I’ve ever made. Maybe Beth was right.” The rope slips from my grip just as the boat jolts from the dock. I slide backward with the motion, my hands searching for traction and finding none.
Nick’s reaction is instantaneous. His arm shoots to the left and pulls me upright so swiftly that the members of our group don’t even notice. He guides my hand back to the rope, holding it until my grasp is steady.
“Remember, safety rule number one was don’t let go.”
“Maybe I should’ve paid more attention,” I say loudly over the sound of the engine, hating that I’ve been so vulnerable in front of him. Hating that I’m showing him the reasons I fear James had wanted Dylan over me: I can be cranky, irrational, and clumsy as hell.
We speed out to the ocean, finally stopping near a cove. I pull my hand from the rope; I’ve been gripping it so tightly that there is a bright-red burn mark on my palm. I begrudgingly admit to myself that the ride to the caverns was almost pleasant. It wasn’t quite exhilarating, but when two silver dolphins sprang from the water, I felt a pinprick of happiness—the first I’d experienced since James’s death—but it was so quick I could almost tell myself I’d imagined it.
Adam drives the boat into a cave and ties it up to two steel posts he’s clearly used many times before. I swallow my urge to make a sarcastic remark about his use of the word secret to describe the things we’ll see today as he and the two other guides start handing out snorkel gear. I shake my head when Adam comes to me.
“What? Don’t want to get your hair wet?” Nick says so only I can hear as he takes two sets of gear.
I start to tell him I’m scared of the water, but James’s cutting words about using my fear as a crutch comes to mind.
“I guess I don’t get why we have to snorkel with Adam to get info from him. Can’t we just talk to him on the boat while everyone else goes to look at the”—I stop to make air quotes—“exotic fish?”
“Because we have to blend in. We can’t just come right out and say what we’re really doing here.”
“Why not?”
Nick gives me a hard look. “Come on, Jacks. No one is going to tell us anything if we come at them like that. We need to caress the information out of them. Just like last night with the bartender; we need to pretend we’re nothing more than James and Dylan’s friends who are taking the same sightseeing trip they did. So that means we need to snorkel.”
“Is that what you did with the concierge and the front desk girl? Caress upgrades and details out of them?”
Nick smiles. “Something like that.”
“You sure we can’t caress him in the boat? With our life jackets on?” I try.
“No. Today we are tourists, and we came on this tour because we are really interested in the secret sea life in these caves.”
“You caught that too, huh?” I smile, my nerves starting to calm. Well, until I look down at the face masks he’s holding; then my heart starts pounding. I have to tell him the truth. “I don’t know if I can do this.”
“Why not?”
“Never mind,” I say, playing with the strap on my life jacket.
“Tell me,” Nick says kindly, keeping his eyes focused on me.
“Okay,” I say, his gaze settling me. “I have a slight fear of that.” I motion toward the dark water.
Nick doesn’t skip a beat. “I think I can help. Close your eyes.”
“What? Why? So you can throw me in there?” I picture my mom standing over me in the pool.
“Why the hell would I do that?” He shakes his head, then places his hands on my shoulders. “Just trust me.”
I don’t want to shut my eyes, be in total darkness. I want to keep them open—look around, get the answers I need. But trust him? No thanks. Been there, done that. Didn’t work out so well.
But.
His eyes.
They are steely gray with a few flecks of gold, and when they fixate on you, they are so comforting. When I look into them, I almost feel like I can see right into his soul.
“Will you just close them?”
“Fine,” I finally say, leaning in slightly to let the Bermuda-shorts couple move past, both of them jumping into the water with abandon.
Show-offs.
Nick starts to speak, and his voice is calm and steady. He asks me to imagine white light encapsulating me and reminds me to breathe deeply. It feels awkward standing here w
ith my eyes squeezed closed, but my shoulders give way to the tone of his voice, relaxing as he whispers. His breath tickles my ear, telling me a story—one in which I am brave, living in a world where I conquer my fear of the water and finally learn to enjoy what has terrified me for so long. My initial instinct is to laugh—imagining myself in a Hunger Games–like competition, clad in a scuba suit with fire painted across it, as I thrash through the water like it’s an enemy I’m overtaking—but I don’t, because his words are working. I am listening. Until I hear only the sounds of the waves lapping against the rocks and distant voices.
“How do you feel?” he asks when I look at him.
“Much better—how did you do that?”
“In my job I come across a lot of people who are experiencing trauma. Meditation and visualization calms them. A lot of guys on the force who are more old school, they don’t do it. But I’ve noticed a huge difference in how it helps victims—and me.”
He says the last part so quietly I almost don’t hear him. I think about the terrible things he must see when he’s working—nothing compared to my silly fear of water. I say as much to him.
“We all have our demons,” he says as he places the mask over my nose, straightening the snorkel until it’s just right. I notice Adam watching us.
“You can go ahead and get in, guys,” he says, offering me a thumbs-up.
I give him a halfhearted thumbs-up in return and look over the side of the boat into the water, hating that the bottom of the ocean is so far down, the hugeness of it making my heartbeat quicken. But I push the thought away.
“I’m really going to do this? Go in there?”
“Yep.” Nick jumps in, making a large splash, then holds his arms outstretched to welcome me.
I lower myself down the ladder slowly, the cold water calling every nerve in my legs to attention as I sit on the side of the boat and awkwardly put on my fins. I widen my eyes at Nick.
