by Nella Tyler
“Something’s been kind of bothering me,” she said.
I hoped it wasn’t anything horribly serious. We’d gotten a ways away from the mainland now, and while we had internet, there wasn’t any way to get back quickly. “Yes?”
“The woman you were with the night that I met you, the blonde. You said she was a blind date, right?”
I had expected this to come up. “Yeah. Yeah, she was. My dad wanted me to, um, meet with her, and see if we would hit it off. Business prospects and such.”
Briella scrunched her face up. “That’s awful. People should get together for love, emotional reasons, not for business.”
“I think so too. But it doesn’t always work out like that when you’re up top in a company.” I shrugged. “He was hoping to secure a lot of money with her family. I don’t really know what I’m going to tell him yet, honestly.”
Briella quieted and said, “I know what that’s like, I think. Feeling like you’re obligated to be with someone that you don’t really want to be with.”
“You do?”
She looked for a moment like she might elaborate, and then she shook her head. “Yeah, long story short, I do. But now I’m on vacation.” She smiled. “And on a yacht, for that matter. Can you believe Nina’s seasick?”
“I don’t know her well enough to think it’s strange.”
“It’s not strange, just… we’re on a yacht in Florida, and she’s sleeping below deck!” Briella laughed and tilted her head towards the sun. “It’s so beautiful out here.”
The yacht wasn’t beautiful, though. Nor was the ocean, though it had caught my eye many times before. Briella’s face, lit aglow by the morning sun, and her eyes beaming from the light that bounced off the ocean: that was beautiful. “It is,” I agreed quietly.
The boat hit a wave, and Briella was knocked a bit off kilter. She scooted to the side slightly, and her thigh was against mine. She didn’t move it, but rather stayed there closer to me. I tried to keep my thoughts on the yacht and not anywhere else. Her hand found mine, and I held it while we talked more about light subjects.
“I am sorry about the business with Nina,” I said, as the yacht began to return to the docks. “If I’d known, I wouldn’t have scheduled this.”
“Oh, don’t worry about her,” Briella said. “She’s just glad to get out of her hotel room.”
“If you say so.”
“And to be honest with you, I don’t think she had anything planned for this trip,” Briella said.
I smiled. I remembered that she’d told me something like that before, that Nina had gone to sleep the first night they’d come to Florida. “Wasn’t it her idea, though?” I echoed what I’d said that night.
“Yup. But she likes to sort of wing things. That’s where we differ. I plan probably too much.” Briella shook her head.
“Well, you’re a wedding planner. Some of those professional skills have to carry over,” I pointed out.
She smiled. “Ideally, they do. But I’m terrible at keeping a tidy space, so it all evens out.”
I thought about my own house. The maid who cleaned the parts of my house that I never visited didn’t clean my room or the kitchen, for the most part. I cleaned those spaces. For someone in my social class, that was relatively uncommon, but I knew that Briella would probably laugh at me for having a maid in the first place.
“I’m going to take Nina back to the hotel when we get back,” Briella said, “but after that, we can meet for dinner tomorrow.”
I raised my eyebrows at her request.
“If you want, I mean.”
“No! I mean, yes, I do, I do. I was saying ‘no’ because I didn’t want you to think I didn’t want to,” I hastily explained myself.
Briella shook her head. She turned me into an absolute mess, it seemed, any cool and confident version of myself swept under the rug when she talked to me. She knocked me down from my pedestal and made me feel like a fellow person instead of a caricature businessman made only for making money. “You’re such a dork.”
“Hey, I got picked on a lot in high school,” I said, smiling as I did so.
“No way!” Briella laughed. “That’s impossible!”
“I had a very pointy face and used a lot of big words. Everyone hated me,” I said, with an air of mock solemnness.
She kept laughing and shook her head. “Oh my God, I swear I’m not laughing at you.”
But she was, and it was all right; I was laughing too. I felt like I’d finally met someone that I could laugh with. An entire part of my life had been turned on and activated, and suddenly I felt like a kid again, or maybe a teenager.
“Tomorrow night?” I asked, to clarify that she did want to hang out with me and wasn’t playing some cruel joke. It seemed that she was every bit as fond of prolonging this doomed relationship as I was.
“Yeah. Let’s do something fun,” she offered.
I’d already set the bar pretty high with the yacht business, so I thought of something fun but not as flashy. I didn’t want to come off as a total dick with constant shows of wealth. Briella didn’t seem like the sort of girl who would be impressed by that, anyway. She appreciated conversation over anything I’d shown her so far, and instead of making me scared, it intrigued me.
I could finally be valued as a person.
“I could make you dinner,” I offered.
“Where?”
“My place.” Granted, my house was probably inherently a show of wealth, but it wasn’t as bad as it could be. I could offer to overnight her to Paris, or take her to the nicest restaurant in town. I wanted to do both of those things. I wanted to rush this, and I couldn’t put my finger on why.
“Ooh, we’re moving things along, are we?” Briella cocked a brow and bit her lip. It nearly made my knees weak. “Yeah, I can do that. Making me dinner at your place? Sounds like a dream.”
I couldn’t help but smile and hope that I didn’t fall off the sunroof for how unbearably excited I felt at that moment. She had agreed to spend more time with me.
Chapter Ten
Briella
The moment I closed the door, Nina honed in on me.
“Sounds like a dream,” she mocked, in a nasally voice that didn’t sound like my own.
I rolled my eyes. “Shut up. It was… shut up.” I shook my head again and rubbed my temples. Everything with Dexter was happening so quickly, I barely had the time to stop and calculate my next move. “The boat was a dream. I can’t believe we did that.”
“More like a nightmare,” Nina groaned. She sprawled out on the bed and stretched out her arms. “I hate boats. I thought I was gonna puke. I think I might have puked.”
I raised an eyebrow and folded my arms. She’d been doing nothing but badger me about Dexter and hanging out with him, and now here she was, complaining about the interaction we’d had.
“The boat was a nightmare,” Nina elaborated. She sat up a little. “Dexter is great. He makes you laugh, at least, and I still think he’s unbelievably sexy.”
She wasn’t wrong, but I didn’t want to lead her on. Nina had accidentally stolen several of my potential love interests in high school, and I hadn’t forgotten about it. “Uh-huh.”
“I really do like him,” she insisted. “I mean, he’s not perfect. He’s kind of nervous. I like my men confident, you know? Like the strong, confident, bossy type.” She bit her lower lip and clutched a pillow to her chest.
I found myself rolling my eyes. Nina did tend to fall for assholes. Dexter was a bit nervous with me at times, but not… not where it counted. I thought of our kiss, and how sure of himself he’d been then. He wasn’t so much nervous as he was considerate. “I think it’s sweet that he’s nervous,” I said. “He’s not…well, he’s not always nervous.”
Nina threw the pillow at me and I winced, not expecting the assault. “You didn’t!”
“No!” I threw the pillow back at her. “No, we just sort of made out a little.”
Nina g
roaned again and flopped back onto her back. “You’re killing me, Bri! He’s the vacation you’ve been waiting for!”
“Oh my God.” I pinched the bridge of my nose.
“You have to surrender yourself, body and soul, during this one week of bliss!”
“Oh my God,” I reiterated. “Where’d you read that, the back of a romance novel?”
“That’s not important,” Nina said defensively. She clearly had read it from a romance novel, and probably from a terribly bad one. She had a penchant for reading those nonstop, and it showed in the way she talked about love. “But look, why not sleep with him?”
I stared at her for a second. Nina wasn’t particularly promiscuous. She had some one-night stands, but she didn’t go boyfriend hopping, and she certainly didn’t come off as sex-obsessed. It wasn’t unusual for her to read the occasional trashy romance, but I did the same thing, to be fair. I wondered why she was so insistent on this, and presumed it had something to do with her romantic idea of my personal liberation from a terrible former relationship.
“See? You can’t think of a reason.”
“I was thinking,” I retorted. “Anyway, I don’t want to. That’s enough of a reason for me. It should be for you, too.” I stuck my tongue out at her and started off to the bathroom. Before I could go, my phone started going off.
I walked to the counter to check who was calling. I’d long since deleted the contact, but I knew the number by heart, and my stomach turned. Jason was calling me.
“Who is it? Is it Dexter?” Nina sat up again.
“Jason,” I said. The name carried an aftertaste of distress, and I instantly felt like I was trapped in my apartment again, unable to leave, subject to shouting and smacks. I felt responsible to pick up the phone. It would be wrong if I didn’t; I was supposed to answer when he called. “I have to take it.”
“No way in hell,” Nina said firmly. As if she didn’t trust me, she grabbed my phone from the counter and hit ‘Deny.’
I didn’t get angry. It was the right thing to do. I sucked my cheeks in and took a deep breath. Over the last few days, I’d gotten so carried away with Dexter that I’d almost forgotten my troubles. Vacation was working, it seemed, but at the expense of repression instead of dealing with my problems. I wondered if it was irresponsible of me to expect to go and party for a week and return to everything being fine the way I’d left it.
“He’s nothing but bad news,” Nina reminded me. “Nothing but bad news and shitty behavior.”
I nodded. Some part of me believed her, and another part of me wanted to answer the phone or call him back. I’d been with him for three years. That wasn’t something that I could just throw away without a second thought, right? Except, I had given it a second thought. And a third, and a fourth, for years and years.
“Repeat it back to me.”
“He’s bad news and shitty behavior.” The mantra didn’t make much sense, but the meaning carried over. I sighed and folded my arms. I felt like I wanted a drink. If I could have six drinks, maybe then I wouldn’t feel the way that I felt. I just wanted to unwind; that’s why I’d come to Florida in the first place, right?
My phone started to go off again in Nina’s hand. She looked down and smiled. “Oh, it’s your dad.” She handed my phone back to me.
“Thank you, secretary,” I quipped, and she wrinkled her nose at me. Nina had spent about three months working as a secretary at a law firm before getting fired for refusing to show up to work on time.
“Hello? Briella, are you there?” My dad’s voice interrupted me making a face back at Nina, and I stepped outside onto the patio to have a bit more privacy than I did sitting in the room with Nina. She would probably still hear, but it would make me feel better.
“Yeah, hi. Nina had my phone. How are you?”
“I’m doing just fine. I wanted to check in on you.” I could hear the laundry machine tumbling in the background. “Are you doing all right?”
“Of course,” I reassured him. “Everything’s great. I’m already feeling less stressed, and there’s still time left here.” I wondered whether I should tell him about Dexter, and decided against it. My dad would be suspicious at best and overprotective at worst, and besides, this thing with Dexter probably wasn’t anything more than what it was now.
Besides, considering I’d just broken up with Jason, it would look like a rebound—extremely unhealthy and likely to fail. It would only upset him. And it would worry him, and I really didn’t want him to be worried about me. I didn’t want to think that he had a reason to worry about me.
“I’m glad to hear it. You still think you’ll be coming back when you said you would?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I’ll let you know if anything changes.”
“Okay. And you let me know if you need anything.”
I smiled. As if there was anything I could need from him in Florida. “All right. Thanks, Dad. I love you.”
“I love you too, sweetheart. Bye.” He hung up, and I sat outside for a second, savoring the crisp ocean air.
After a bit, I went back into the room. Nina and I spent the evening watching movies on TV and ordering room service, talking about just about anything we had in our brains. When she finally passed out, I was left awake, staring at the ceiling, thinking about where I was now in my life. I was in an unbelievably strange place, both literally and in my life, and things were happening in a strange and exciting way.
I was excited. For the first time in a long time, I was genuinely excited about a love interest. I thought about the day I’d spent with Dexter on the boat. He was kind, he was considerate, we’d talked for ages. I had a hard time thinking now about the conversation. My mind drifted to the collarbone that his button-down exposed, the way his arms looked when he rolled up his sleeves.
The set in his jaw when he smiled at me.
His mouth on mine. Jesus, that kiss. I closed my eyes and wished that I could relieve that feeling of complete and total vulnerability, overwhelming helplessness in strong, capable arms. I pulled my lower lip between my teeth and wondered what would have happened if I hadn’t stopped him. Would he kiss my neck with that much confidence? Would he hold me tightly or would he grip my shoulder, offering an anchor so he could better—
Nina snored next to me, and I sighed. I turned my phone off and rolled over, yanking the blanket over my head. I wanted to block her out and continue where I’d left off in my fantasy, but now I couldn’t; the moment was over.
Maybe having Dexter’s body on mine wouldn’t be such a bad idea.
Chapter Eleven
Dexter
When my father had given me time off, it was supposed to be for the full week. When I woke up to an email from him instructing that I come in for few moments, I knew that I was in at least a little bit of trouble. Judging by the events of the last few days, it didn’t take much guessing to know what he was upset about. It was Thursday now; the news about Monday evening had probably gotten around to him, and now I was probably in for it.
As I got dressed, I considered not turning up. I could pretend I didn’t receive the email. Sure, I’d see him at work the next week, but that almost didn’t matter in my mind. I didn’t want to explain to him that I couldn’t marry Tiffany DuBois. I’d been perfectly polite to her—I doubted she even knew that I was disinterested in the first place.
I didn’t want to sit through a lecture, especially not one concerning my own failure to comply with his standards, but despite what I wanted, I got in the car and drove.
At work, people looked at me a bit resentfully. I didn’t blame them. I’d been given a week off to wine and dine the daughter of one of America’s most successful enterprises. They probably all had to pick up the work I’d left behind. I would hate them, too, if they were me. I walked past the offices of glowering coworkers and made it to that grand, glass-walled office of my father.
He was at his desk already, sitting up and at attention. With his alert gaze and his suit hangin
g off his skinny shoulders, he wasn’t unlike a scarecrow. “Dexter, good, come in.”
That wasn’t what I’d expected. Leonard Mason wasn’t one to beat around the bush. I walked into the office and took a seat in front of his desk, bracing myself for the nearly eternal sink that the cushion gave. “You called me in?”
“Yes, I emailed you.” He sat back in his chair and looked down at me from over the tops of his wide-rimmed glasses. “How did Monday go? With the DuBois girl?”
He couldn’t even remember her name. I swallowed and took a breath. “Well, um, it wasn’t horrible.” There hadn’t been any crimes committed or feelings wounded. “Have you heard something about it?” It would do me well to at least know what I was getting into if I was going to try to lie.
“I called Harold DuBois to ask about the affair before I got in touch with you. He said that you hadn’t scheduled a second date.” He looked at me with a poker face, and I couldn’t tell whether he was furious that I’d not scheduled or whether he was checking on something he already knew.
This was true, and perhaps the only glaring indication I’d given that I wasn’t interested in Tiffany. I’d behaved myself, I’d been courteous, and I hadn’t voiced a single complaint despite my objection to the situation. Still, I hadn’t set up a second date, and it was that setup that was probably the most important indicator. I couldn’t lie to my father. I could, rather, but he would see through it.
So I sighed, shoulders slumped. “That is true,” I admitted. “I didn’t, um, I didn’t set up a second date.”
He raised his eyebrows and let the next question hang unspoken in the air.
“I couldn’t sit through another conversation with her,” I said. I leaned forward, hoping to connect with him on some empathetic, human level. “I couldn’t bear it. She didn’t have anything to say of substance, she was awful to the waiter, and she hated everything I liked. I’m certain that plenty of men out there are great suits for her, Dad, but I’m not one of those men.”
