“What are you doing for dinner?” he asked.
“I’m not hungry,” she said.
“I meant later.” His lopsided smile tilted another few degrees. “I was thinking about cooking something up at the condo. Easier to cook for two.” He jerked his head at the tower behind them.
“Thanks, but no. No thank you.” She couldn’t think of any excuse, so she just stared at him from her spot in the middle of the pool.
He didn’t look offended. “Sure, no problem.” He got to his feet. “I promised you privacy, and I meant it. I’ll leave you alone now.”
She bit back an apology. “Thank you.”
“Don’t worry about it.” He waved and slipped his feet into his sandals. “I’ll see you later. Or not. Whichever you prefer.” He flashed the grin at her again as he walked away and disappeared behind the fake boulders of the landscaping.
He was flirting with her. She’d noticed him checking out her body. Free-range professional models flocked to Maui, yet he wanted to look at her?
The worst thing was, she’d been laughing and smiling in return as if he were just any other guy.
She marched through the water and sat on the edge of the pool with decade-old, horribly good memories washing over her.
It had been late, and they’d been sitting around in her room with six or seven other people in the semi-darkness, drinking and eating, sharing stories about sexual fantasies or experiences that were true, false, in-between, inhibitions melting away the way they did sometimes those first years in college; most of them were still too young to be jaded or careful.
Ansel was just visiting his sister. He’d brought a fondue set. It had been a big joke; they were all going to eat fondue in Rachel’s room, even though it barely held four people standing up, let alone the two dozen hungry college students excited to dunk random stuff into melted cheese instead of studying.
But Rachel’s roommate had kicked them out. Nicki, though she had a human biology midterm at nine the next morning and was already in her pajamas, immediately flung open her own door. The crowd filed in, and the sound of laughter and the smell of melting cheese attracted the entire floor and the one above them. Two hours later, everyone was full and half-asleep, drunk, happy, sad, and naturally thinking about sex. Some paired up and disappeared into their own rooms. One couple started right there and were encouraged for a few minutes before disgust prevailed and they were evicted. The rest of them began talking. A trio of aromatherapy candles was the only light in the room, inviting confidences. A few people, two men and a woman, said they were gay. One guy said he wanted to be a psychiatrist, then got drunk and told everyone to shut up.
And then they were all gone, and it was just Nicki and Ansel.
She remembered it all like a movie she’d seen in the theater, owned on video, shared copies with her friends, watched too many times, and now despised.
They hadn’t actually had sex. Sometimes she wondered if that made it all that much worse. Not only had Ansel forgotten her, he hadn’t even mustered the enthusiasm to finish the job. Right when she’d worked up the courage to unzip the fly of his jeans to feel him—to feel any man was new, but him, oh my God—he jumped back, fell out of her bed, and half-ran, half-crawled into the hallway, never to be seen again.
Next she heard, he’d gone back to UC Davis, his school at the time, though he dropped out soon after for a while.
Nicki, who never saw him in person again, kept that damn fondue pot for six years. To this day, the smell of melting cheese made her want to vomit.
And he didn’t even remember her.
It’s a test, she told herself. If he were a different guy, I might be tempted to go for it.
Thank goodness she wasn’t tempted.
She sank into the water, arms spread out along the edge, and lifted her face to the sun.
He liked her. She could see the like all over his face.
Remember the cheese, she told herself. Just remember the damn cheese.
Chapter 6
ANSEL WALKED AWAY FROM NICKI at the pool, intending to return after he finished his errand about the solar panels. Grinning, he savored the memory of her standing in the water like a goddess, all that shining feminine skin on display.
He’d been too obvious, too fast, so she’d put up her walls, but he’d felt something spark between them. He’d just been so charmed by the look on her face that he’d forgotten how to be subtle.
As he paused to read the resort map near the foyer, looking for the business offices, his phone rang.
To his surprise, it was Rachel, not Brand. He hesitated. He wasn’t supposed to be in Maui, but he didn’t usually lie to his twin and didn’t relish starting now.
But Nicki might’ve talked to her. He should answer, reassure her he wasn’t staying long and that he hadn’t made any unsavory moves on her friend yet. Well, he’d leave off the ‘yet’ part.
He lifted the phone to his ear. “Hi, Rachel.”
“I have huge news, but you have to promise not to give me a hard time.”
He stifled a groan. She’d been in London since Christmas. After her gallery opening in Seattle had been a hit, she’d followed friends to London, hoping for more success there.
“Don’t start,” Rachel said. “You’re already being difficult.”
“What did I say?”
“You made a noise,” she said.
“I tried not to.”
“Try harder.” Rachel cleared her throat. “Ready? Here it comes.”
He sat on a low wall surrounding the koi pond. Three little girls in ascending height order and matching black hair were on the opposite side, peering down into the water. “Okay. Hit me.”
“I’m getting married.”
He laughed. “Right.”
“I am.”
To his dismay, she sounded like she believed it. “You’re not old enough.”
“I’m two minutes older than you, bro,” she said. “Two minutes closer to thirty.”
“Thirty is the new eighteen.”
“Maybe for you. Your sperm has decades of babies ahead. I’m the one with ovaries.”
Turning away from the pond, Ansel propped his elbows on his knees and dropped his head into his hands. “I hate it when you talk about your reproductive organs.”
“Aren’t you even going to ask me what his name is?”
“It doesn’t matter,” he muttered. “You’re not getting married.”
“I knew you’d be annoying. You always thought you’d be the one to get married first.”
“I did?”
“Maybe you will. Seeing anyone lately? My wedding is in January. Can you beat that?”
“Very funny.”
“It would fix things with Dad. He’d have to admit you’re not the little kid he thinks you are.” Her tone changed, became warmer. “Seriously, that’s the solution to all of your problems. You should settle down. It’ll make you happy, it’ll make Mom and Dad happy, and it’ll make me happy.”
“Even my imaginary wife?”
“She exists somewhere. You just haven’t met her yet. Or you have, just don’t realize it yet.”
“You’re not really engaged,” he said, sighing in relief. “You only said that because you wanted to talk about me. Well, sorry. I’m not going to marry some poor woman to make Dad—or even you—happy.”
Rachel let out a frustrated breath into the phone. “You dork, I’m really, really engaged. You know how this stuff works with us,” she added. “Where I go, you go.”
He smiled to himself, knowing how far from London he was at the moment. “Not always,” he said. “So, how long have you known this guy?”
“Long enough.”
He chewed on a thumbnail, hearing the defensiveness in her voice. “Does Romeo have a name?”
“Of course.” She paused. “Oliver Alcock.”
His head flew up. “You’re shitting me.” He glanced guiltily at the children watching the fish, then stood and walked
out of earshot.
“He’s English,” she said.
“Sure he is.”
She frowned. “What do you mean? I met him in London. He was born here.”
“He can’t be all English, though.”
“I suppose he might be Welsh or Scottish or something.”
“It’s obvious what he is, Rache.” He paused for a full two seconds. “All cock.”
She let out an exasperated exhalation. “I give up.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t notice, though,” he went on, unable to hold his laughter any longer. “Or are you waiting until after the wedding before you go that far?”
“I’m sending the invitation to your place in San Francisco. And if you don’t send back the RSVP envelope, I won’t let you in the church.” Then she hung up.
Feeling a little guilty, but still chuckling, he walked into the springy lawn of the courtyard. He waited a minute before calling her back.
“Sorry I was a dick,” he said. “So to speak. Not one-hundred-percent dick, of course—”
“I’ve got you all figured out.”
“I’m so glad,” he said.
“You’re jealous.”
He snorted. “Of Oliver Allpenis?”
“You’re making fun of his name just because your life is empty.”
“It isn’t…”
“You’re worried about turning thirty. You’re ready to find your own soul mate.”
“Maybe your dude has a cousin.” He put his hands on his hips. “Vanessa Vagina, perhaps.”
“You always make jokes when you’re hiding your feelings.”
“Okay, last year I might have said something about wanting to settle down, but I’m over it. I’ve got more on my plate now. Serious stuff. Mom and Dad were already retired by the time they turned thirty. I’m just getting started.”
“You’re lonely.”
“That’s irrelevant. I’m not going to date anyone seriously until I’ve got my first mother lode in the bank.”
“You’re being stupid,” Rachel said. “And so’s Dad. There’s no reason for you to try to get rich when the family has more than we know what to do with. Mom would never agree with what Dad’s doing. All you have to do is talk to her—”
“Never. This is between me and Dad.” He shook his head. “No, scratch that. It’s between me and myself. It has nothing to do with him. I need to do this for myself.”
“Then get a regular job. You know people. You don’t have expensive taste—you don’t need a fortune. Become a dog-walker, or work in Jordan’s restaurant—you don’t need to be rich to be in love.”
He ran his hand through his hair. “We had it so good,” he said. “I want my own kids to have the same great childhood.”
“Oh, Ansel, you’re just as ready to settle down as I am,” she said. “Let me help. I have tons of friends all over the world. There has to be somebody who we could both tolerate.”
“That’s so romantic of you.”
“A woman.” She smiled. “I’ll find you a woman. Then you can bring her to my wedding and enjoy yourself.”
“No. Congratulations on your impending nuptials with Lord Phallis-on-Trent. Leave my love life alone, and I promise I won’t say another word about it.”
“But I know so many great women…”
“You want me to show up at your wedding, you stop talking about setting me up. Got it?”
“But…”
“I’m serious, Rachel. No.”
“Not even a teacher? She’s totally cool. Funny, smart, cute—”
“No.”
“Fine, fine,” she said. “Whatever you want. I’d never do anything you didn’t want me to.”
“Except get married,” he said before hanging up.
* * *
Nicki managed to avoid him for three days. As promised, he didn’t intrude. They ate their meals separately, nodded at each other from a distance, kept to themselves.
She thought she was doing pretty well until she talked to Betty on Thursday afternoon. Apparently, her achievement in the wading pool wasn’t as impressive as she thought.
“I’m sure it meant a lot to you,” Betty said, “but it doesn’t really translate to the blog. People could relate to you lusting after the unattainable Thor, but I’m afraid this just makes you look kind of insane.”
Nicki was sitting on the balcony eating a peanut butter and pineapple sandwich, her main source of nutrients. Maui was painfully expensive. “Thanks.”
“Just looking out for you,” Betty said.
“Since when?”
“Fine. I’m looking out for the blog. People like to laugh when they read Phoebe, not get uncomfortable.”
Nicki peeled the crust off her sandwich and ate it separately. “It’s hard not to share the joy.”
“Look, it’s just the wading pool. When are you going to the beach? People actually drown there all the time. I looked it up. People don’t realize how dangerous it is. They put their back to the waves and whoops, bye-bye,” Betty said. “You should go there.”
“I’d rather have sex on the registration desk with a bellhop.”
Betty whistled. “That would work. I bet that’s your subconscious talking. Have someone in mind?”
“I’ll write about whatever I want,” Nicki said. “If you don’t like it because you think it’s too much of a bummer, you can delete it.”
“Just go to the beach. Even if you don’t go in because you’re freaking out, write about that. Most people never get to go to Hawaii.”
Nicki shoved the last of her sandwich in her mouth. “You know, Betty, you’d have a lot more influence over my writing if you paid me.”
“That’s so mercenary,” Betty said. “You should be ashamed of yourself.”
“I’ll work my way up to the beach, but it’s not going to happen today.”
“Just jump in and get it over with,” Betty said. “You freak out, you recover, you’re done.”
“And then I can never do it again, because the trauma has been reinforced. I’m going to do this my way. You don’t like it, fire me.”
“Take it easy, Nemo. I’m your biggest fan. Just trying to help.”
After they hung up, Nicki decided to go for another swim. She wasn’t going to flood herself with her fears, but she could accelerate the desensitization a bit. Two swims a day in the baby pool instead of one wouldn’t hurt. Not fatally.
She gathered her towel, hat, sunglasses, lotion, book, magnesium supplements, bottle of iced “Calming Caress” herbal tea, and phone loaded with relaxing hypnosis sessions she’d downloaded from a psychotherapist in Scotland. Just his accent was enough to take the edge off. You aaah the kind of pair-sin who is caaahhhm and confident…
Earbuds in place, mellow Scotsman chanting in her ears, she returned to the pool.
* * *
Head high, legs bare, sunglasses disguising her worried eyes, Nicki strutted past umbrellas and palm trees, fragrant gardens, bubbling spas, and bodies, bodies, bodies. She wasn’t the only one with rocky nips under her bikini.
She snapped a hot-pink blossom off a planter in the courtyard and stuck it in her hair, humming a recent hit single with the immortal words Get me some repeated for five minutes to a techno beat. When she reached the first of the hot tubs, she dropped her cover-up to her feet like a woman in a moisturizer commercial.
She’d waded across the baby pool every day since Monday, and now the blasting panic was more of a dull, distant buzz. She was ready to tackle the hot tub. It wasn’t really a pool. More like a very wet sofa.
Telling herself it was all for fun, great material for the blog, no big deal, she stepped into the bubbles, still wearing her glasses so she could check out the other people.
Men were everywhere at the resort. Young men, youngish men, not-so-youngish men. All of them were new, and none of them was Ansel. She scanned the area twice to be sure.
Or Miles. Since when was this all about Ansel? He was an old problem. S
he was here to deal with the current, real problem, which was how a wonderful guy, who was Miles, a man who devoted his life to children just as she had, a man with charm and maturity, the one she knew would’ve made her happier than anyone else, never considered her as anything other than a coworker or friend.
Ansel was ancient history. She didn’t need to forget him. That other guy was the problem.
Ah, the water felt good. No surge of panic, though her nerves did jump at the shock of scalding water. Instead of hunching her shoulders, slipping under the surface, waiting for them to relax into their usual flaccid, placid selves, she arched her back and tilted her face up to the sun.
The guy across from her noticed. He was almost as big as Miles, built like an action figure. Rivulets of water ran down his pecs—and his own erect nipples—and she decided he either came from a sunny location back home or had been in Hawaii for a while, because although his hair was lighter than hers, his skin was perfectly bronzed.
Under the tufts of hair. He was kind of like a blond gorilla.
From her peripheral vision, she watched him stare at her breasts. It took every hot, steaming drop of her willpower not to cross her arms over her chest and dive under the water. If she weren’t terrified of drowning, she might have.
“Hey, baby, come here,” he said.
All the breath—which apparently she’d been holding for the last six minutes, because it came out in a tight, stale whoosh—burst out of her. Under her erect nipples, her heart pounded against her ribs. “What?” she whispered.
“I saw a turtle, Daddy!” A little girl jumped fearlessly into the spa and splashed over to the big man. “In the ocean! Come see!”
Smiling broadly, the man lifted the little girl up in the air. A snorkeling mask hung around her neck, and a single flipper clung to her tiny left foot. She was very young, maybe four, but she wore a spongy rubber wet suit from neck to knee that fit her perfectly.
“It probably swam away by now, honey, don’t you think?” he asked her.
“No, I told him to wait. He likes me. Come on, come on!”
The man turned away from the little girl to gaze above Nicki’s head. “She told him to wait,” he said, grinning.
Diving In Page 6
