by Piper Lennox
I shake my head. I honestly can’t see why he likes it, let alone loves it.
“I love the size.” He stares down the beach, where the resort is just barely visible in the glare of the sun on the sand, blindingly white. “I love watching the chain of command, you know? I implement something at the top, and by the end of the day, it’s trickled down to the bottom. And I get, like, excited about going there every day. I’m always thinking of ways to make the place better.”
“Make more money, you mean?”
“Well, there’s that,” he smirks, “but it’s more about...the potential. There’s hundreds of ways this business could go. That’s fun for me, thinking about that stuff.”
“See, I don’t get that.” I wipe some salt from my brow. “To me, the whole thing is just too much. I don’t understand the appeal at all.”
“That’s my point,” he says. We slide off our boards, plant our feet in the sand, and walk to shore. “I don’t just love it. I get it. So it makes sense that I should run it.”
“I’m not disagreeing with you, dude. But Dad—”
“He sees how much you hate it. And when he gets out of the hospital, he’ll see how much I love it. That’s when he’ll change his mind.” He pauses, hesitating as he glances my way.
“What?”
“Nothing.” Luka coughs, but I can tell it’s forced. “I mean, I was just thinking...maybe there’s another reason you feel like you have to take over.”
“Yeah? What’s that?”
“Because you don’t know what else to do.”
I look down at my feet, churning up the sand as we walk. This assertion isn’t news to me, but that doesn’t mean I’m not embarrassed to hear someone else—someone younger than me, to top it off—tell it to me.
“Do something you love, Kai. Dad will get over it.”
“I don’t know what I’d love. The family business is all I’ve ever done.”
“Then how would taking over help you figure it out?” He pauses again. “Or even, you know…staying on the island, when you obviously don’t want to?”
I stop in my tracks and stare at him. He stops, too, and gives me a smug smile. “That’s right. I’m a lot smarter than I look.”
“Kai!”
Both of us turn. There’s a girl jogging towards us, and I know I’m not the only person on the beach who notices her bathing suit...um, bouncing. Luka, in particular, can’t seem to look anywhere else.
It’s Tanya, Mollie’s friend. She stops in front of us and catches her breath. “I’ve run all over this damn beach, looking for you,” she wheezes, taking off her sunglasses.
“How did you know I’d be on the beach?”
Tanya holds her side. “Right,” she says, “like a jobless surfer wouldn’t be out here on a perfect day.”
Luka laughs hysterically at this. I kick sand at his ankles.
“What are you doing here?” I ask her. “Is Mollie.... I mean, is she okay, or—”
“She’s leaving,” she blurts, finally able to take a breath without gasping. “And I know all that stuff you said to her yesterday was bullshit, so you’d better go stop her.”
“Leaving?”
“Leaving. As in, on her way to the airport right now.”
The heat from the sand radiates straight into my face. “Because of me?”
Tanya rolls her eyes. “Yes. So? Are you going to go after her or what?”
Words tangle in my head, then in my throat. “I—I don’t know,” I stammer. “She’d be leaving soon anyway, and—”
“You’re only doing this,” Tanya interrupts, “because you feel guilty about your brother. You know you don’t want to take over the business. Hell, you don’t even like being stuck on this island.”
I widen my eyes at her.
“Yeah,” she says, putting her sunglasses back on, “girls talk.”
“Look, it’s not that simple.” I glance at Luka; if anyone will back me up on this, it’s him. “Our dad is sick. I can’t just go jetting off with some girl I met a few days ago.”
“Actually,” Luka chimes in, and both of us stare at him, “it’s not the worst idea in the world. Dad would have to give me a shot, at least, if you weren’t around. Even if you just go for a couple weeks.”
“I can’t believe this.” I close my eyes and tilt my head up to the sky. I’m surrounded by insanity.
“At least tell her goodbye.” Tanya hands me a piece of paper. It’s got Mollie’s flight number and departure time written on it. “She deserves that much.”
This, I can’t argue.
I pass Luka my surfboard. “Carry this back for me,” I tell him, already running towards the road that leads home. “It’ll just slow me down.”
“No problem, your Majesty.” The last thing I hear is Tanya taking the board from him, offering to help, their easy laughter floating out across the sand.
Twenty-Five
Mollie
“Thanks for the ride.” I tip the taxi driver and heft my bag onto the sidewalk. The airport is bustling, even on a weekday morning. I shouldn’t be shocked; it is summer, after all. The perfect time to visit paradise.
The air conditioner cools my sweat when I get inside, and I hate myself for burying my cardigan back in my suitcase.
“Mollie!”
My head snaps up. Kai runs towards me, his flip-flops thwacking on the tile, keys jingling in his hand.
“What are you— Oh.” Of course. “Tanya?”
He smiles, panting. “Tanya.”
We stand there, me shivering, him sweating, as passengers mill around us and all the things we could say fizzle out.
“You don’t have to leave early because of me.” He scratches the back of his head, looking up at me from under his brow. “I mean, I don’t want you to feel like you have to.”
I tilt my head, squinting at him. “I’m not.”
“You aren’t leaving?”
“No, I’m leaving—but it isn’t because of you.”
He squints back. “It isn’t?”
“I got a call this morning about a job interview. It’s in three days, back in my hometown, so I have to leave now if I’m going to get my apartment packed up and make it there in time.” Slowly, I smile; it’s impossible not to. “Awfully arrogant of you. But then again, I do apparently throw myself into oceans when I can’t have a guy I like, so.”
Kai blushes, tonguing his cheek to hide his smile. “Tanya,” he says again, sighing.
We sink back into silence. My phone alarm buzzes.
“Time to go.” I let go of my luggage, not wanting to rush him. “Unless you have something else you wanted to say.”
“Right.” He exhales, squeaking his shoes on the floor while he searches for the words. “Well, first of all: I was an idiot.”
“Good so far.”
He smiles, but it flickers. “You were right. About me taking over the business because I felt guilty for Noe dying, and me pushing you away, and....” He stops, taking another breath. “Wow. This is a lot harder than I expected.”
“Keep going. You’re doing better than you think.”
He steps closer, pulls his hands out of his pockets, and takes mine. His thumb skims my knuckles. “I’m not taking over the business.”
“You’re not?”
“No. The franchise stuff, expansion…that’s Luka’s thing. Not mine.”
“So...what are you going to do?”
“I’m not sure yet. But maybe that’s okay, not knowing. I mean, if you can at least figure out what you don’t want, you’re halfway there, right?”
I laugh. “You’re asking the wrong person.”
He smiles again and leans down, kissing me, his hands sliding up to hold my face. I put mine on his back and feel his heartbeat, steady as the ocean. It sweeps me up and for a second, I forget all about the flight.
“Well,” he says, pulling back, “that’s what I needed to tell you.”
“I’m glad you did,” I whisper.
He presses his lips to my forehead and holds them there. I close my eyes. “What now?”
“Now,” he says, his breath like bathwater across my face, “you get on that plane, think about me the entire flight, and call me when you land.”
As we pull apart, I let my hands slide down his chest. His T-shirt is damp, and I can see the darkness of his rash guard through the fabric. “And…after that?”
He puts his hand over one of mine. “After that, we go on about our days. Then I call you the next day, or you call me, and we catch up and talk about how much we miss each other. Maybe get into some…adult situations.”
“Hmm. This sounds a lot like a long-distance relationship.” The scent of the ocean and our sun-kissed skin rises when he puts his arms around my waist. “Is that what you want it to be?”
“It has to be.” His hold on me tightens, pressing my body against his like it belongs there. “The only other option would be breaking up.” I lift my chin as he leans to kiss me one more time. “And I’m never doing anything that stupid again.”
It’s funny: later, when I call and tell the story to Tanya, she swoons before she even gets the details—Tanya, who rolls her eyes at love stories, who often scolds me for falling too hard and too fast, or for falling at all. But then, when I tell her all about his goodbye and our new long-distance, see-what-happens plan, she asks, “That’s it?”
“What do you mean, ‘that’s it?’ What more would there be?”
“He didn’t make plans to come see you? He didn’t, like, pick you up and tell you he loves you?”
“Tanya. We met less than a week ago. It’s not a romance movie.”
“I know, but God—he did the whole mad dash to the airport thing. Commit, Kai.”
I can’t help but laugh at this hypocrisy: nobody is further from commitment than Tanya. “The important part is that we’re both in the same place about things. We want to see where this goes and give it a fair shot.”
Truth is, I am disappointed Kai didn’t come with me, though even I’d admit that would be a pretty ridiculous decision on his part. His family does still need him, for a little while. And I’ve got plenty to figure out on my own, first.
On the plane, my body feeling numb without his, I curled up against the window and pretended I was arriving, instead of leaving. I watched the newcomers spill into the terminal. They laughed with their heads thrown back, cheesy floral-print shirts blurring into one big mess of color.
I couldn’t see Kai; he was too far back in the building, stopped at the security check. It really wasn’t like the romance movies, after all.
But that was all right, because movies don’t make any sense. People in those have their lives figured out and every loose end fixed in just two hours. Their lives follow a formula, complete with the instant happy ending: big rush to the airport, dramatic kiss, fireworks. Cue the denouement, with a flash-forward epilogue to some house in the suburbs.
Our story won’t be like that. At least, not yet. I don’t have a giant ring on my finger and some musical number gearing up about true love and destiny. All I’ve got is Kai’s cell number, programmed into my phone just before I boarded.
I don’t know where we’re headed. All I know is that this time, we’re both willing to try and find out.
And for now, that’s more than enough.
Epilogue
One Year Later
Mollie
“Can you fix the signs on the Aberdeen bedroom suite? Marius has them at $1,300 instead of $1,255.”
“Sure.” I grab the marker from Delaney, my boss, and practically sprint to the other side of the showroom, glad to escape her bad mood.
Okay, so furniture salesperson isn’t the job of my dreams. It doesn’t matter that my name tag reads “Décor Specialist,” either: most of my work involves typical retail tasks. I spend more time arranging files than decorating spaces.
But still: it’s something. Like so much else in my life, at least I can say it’s good enough for now. My two weeks’ notice is almost up, anyway.
That night, surrounded by boxes in my parents’ shed-turned-guesthouse, curtains drawn and door locked, I open my laptop and wait for Kai to start the video call.
“Hey,” he says, before his face shows up. “You look beautiful.”
I lie down on my stomach and smile. “Oh, yeah. Marking down furniture all day really brings out the glow in a girl.”
He chuckles. “Just tough it out one more day.”
“Easy for you to say. You love your job.”
“No, I don’t. I like it better than the resort, but that’s hardly love.” He sighs and, as if only now remembering he still had it on, starts to take off his Curl Surf Shop polo. They only come in one color, a nauseatingly bright green. The flash of it against the lamplight behind him hurts my eyes.
“Mind if I catch up?” I ask, and sit up on my bed to peel off my blouse. Summer in the guesthouse is not exactly comfortable, and I’m worried he’ll notice the sheen of sweat on my body and get turned off. If anything, though, it has him that much more riveted.
“You know,” he says, standing and undoing his pants, “we should probably hold off on this until we’re together in-person.” His voice dips to the husky, sexy octave I’ve grown to crave. We haven’t seen each other in real life for months, when he visited for a weekend in January. These webcam sessions, though, aren’t too bad a replacement.
“I don’t think either of us could wait that long.”
“Maybe you can’t,” he teases, “but I could.”
“Sure.”
“Saturday, right?”
“Yep,” I say, glancing at the calendar on my wall, where the date is circled in bright red marker, as I unhook my bra. Even digitally, his smile makes me weak. “Saturday.”
Kai
When I got back from the airport on the day Mollie left, feeling a weird mixture of depression and happiness, Luka found me sitting on the edge of the unfinished lazy river. I dangled my legs over the side and stared into the dirt. The tracks from our cardboard sled were long gone, washed away in that storm.
“Hey.” He sat beside me. “You catch her?”
“Yep.”
“And?”
“And,” I said, inhaling, “we’re going to do long-distance. See what happens.”
Part of me thought he’d scoff at this, simply because Luka was even more cynical about tourist girls and the fate of long-distance relationships than I’d been, just a few hours ago. Instead, he kicked a loose root in the wall of dirt underneath us and nodded. “Might as well try, I guess.”
We watched the palm trees at the edge of the property bend and sway with the breeze. His phone buzzed more than once, but he didn’t reach for it.
“Still worried that Dad won’t come around?” he asked.
Right then, I honestly had no idea if our dad would ever respect my choice, the way Mom and Mollie seemed so sure he would. But eventually, he would accept it. Because I was going to follow through on it, no matter what.
“He has to,” I answered, “sooner or later.”
Luka nodded again and got to his feet, slapping my shoulder as he went. “Back to the grind.”
“Have fun,” I muttered. “I guess I should head home. Maybe break out the Classifieds, or something.”
“You can have your bartending job back.” When I looked up at him, squinting at the sun behind his head, he was fixing his tie. I could see a sunburn starting near his collar from this morning on the water. “If you want it.”
I turned the idea over. While it would be reassuring to have some kind of income while I figured things out and got to know Mollie better, I also had a feeling the resort would suck me in again. I’d started the changes; now I needed the motivation, the fear, to see them through.
Besides that, it would have been all too easy for Dad to guilt and persuade me, if I was still working there. I needed to show him I didn’t just hate the idea of being in charge: it was the entire business that
bothered me. And the only way he’d give Luka the chance he needed to impress him, would be if I wasn’t an option at all.
“Thanks,” I told him, as a chunk of soil broke underneath my leg and tumbled into the ditch, “but I think it’s time I find something else.”
“Yeah. I get that.” Now he fixed his shirt cuffs. “The offer stands, though. If you change your mind.”
I nodded and thanked him again, but I knew I wouldn’t. Not this time.
“You know, you still owe me that favor.”
I looked at him again. He was already several yards away, his feet pointed at the resort, but his eyes on me. “What favor?”
“For that shift you never took.”
My brain was still at the airport, but I nodded, anyway; I probably did owe him a favor. We had running tabs on this kind of thing, and lately it was me who was firmly in the red. “Name it.”
“Get me Tanya’s number from Mollie.”
“Since when are you into summer girls?”
“I’m not. But no harm looking into something casual.”
My laugh sat in my throat. Just a few days ago, I thought the same thing.
“Yeah,” I told him, turning back to stare into the ditch again. As much as I tried to resist it, my eyes drifted up to the cabana in the distance. Just the sight of it made me miss her already. I thought of the day Dad had his stroke—the boiling heat of the cabana making it even easier to fall into things, to not worry about where they went, and just get wrapped up in her until, in the end, I didn’t want to get out.
“Don’t be an idiot about it, though,” I warned him.
“No worries there,” he laughed. Only after he left did it occur to me he probably thought I meant, “Don’t get caught up, like I did,” when it reality, I meant the complete opposite.
Don’t be afraid to get caught up. When the tide changes, you can try your hardest to fight it—or you can take a breath, dive under, and follow it wherever it leads.
