Off Plan

by May Archer

  Fenn: You seemed perfectly fine when I left last night.

  I snorted. When in doubt, bring it back to sex. The Fenn Reardon philosophy of relationships. Not that I was much better.

  Me: I seemed perfectly passed out because I WAS. That tongue thing should be illegal.

  Fenn: Tongue thing? We’re gonna work on your vocabulary, Loafers. RIMMING. Say it.

  I giggled, then clapped a hand over my mouth before Taffy heard me.

  Fenn: You just did that awkward giggle, didn’t you?

  I gaped at the phone. How did he always know? Fucker.

  Me: Busy now. Patient. Can’t chat.

  Fenn: Liar. Your office doesn’t open for twenty more minutes.

  Fenn: You’re blushing, aren’t you?

  I rolled my eyes. It was annoying to have someone know me that well.

  It was also really, really hot. Hot enough to make me wish the man was on dry land and we were both back in my room. Hot enough to make me wish I hadn’t agreed with Fenn’s proposal to “take things slow,” since slow for Fenn apparently meant glacial. I was very, very interested in moving faster, and I was pretty sure he was, too, so I wasn’t sure what the hell was holding us back.

  Yeah, Fenn was definitely not the only one who defaulted to sex these days. And that was a mindfuck too… but I liked it.

  Fenn: So, the list?

  Oh, right.

  Me: It’s obvs a list of TV shows! Pick one to watch now that we’ve finished Downton.

  Fenn: Pick from this list? Hell, no. Is this revenge for me not being around to drive you to work today?

  I couldn’t say why his grumpy attitude filled me with such giddy happiness. Just one of life’s little mysteries.

  Me: Revenge? Pfft. I’m letting YOU pick.

  Fenn: This list includes Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Mason, baby, take your own temperature right now. Report back.

  Baby. I sighed deeply and clutched the phone to my chest, well aware I looked and sounded like a lovesick idiot.

  It was just a word. A joking word. Toby called me honey and sweetness all the time and it didn’t make me clench the phone harder, I reminded myself. I needed to calm the fuck down.

  Except I sorta felt like there was meaning in everything Fenn said, so it meant something, and… okay, maybe he wasn’t the only one who had a hard time processing emotions. Shit.

  “Dr. Bloom!”

  Big Rafe strode into the office, wreathed in smiles, wearing a bright red shirt with white letters that spelled out MAYOR. I tucked my phone away like a guilty secret and gave him a cheerful smile.

  “Mr. Goodman.” I stood to shake his hand and gestured toward the seat in front of the desk. “What brings you by?”

  “You, as a matter of fact!”

  “Me?” I took my seat behind the desk and gave him a knowing look. “Is this about the Labor Day Extravaganza?”

  “Oh.” Rafe’s forehead furrowed. “No.”

  “Oh.” I tilted my head to one side. “It’s not about Gloria is it?”

  “No, no.” Rafe waved his hand. “Of course not. I know why you can’t tell me.” He pressed his lips together and looked at me beneath lowered brows. “Thing is, Doc, I’ve got a lead on a doctor who’s interested in coming to work here.”

  I blinked in confusion, but my stomach swoop-dived like a seabird, apparently getting the message before my conscious brain could process it. The only thing I could think to say was “Oh.”

  Rafe shook his dark, shaggy head. “Now, thing is, Mason, there’s nothing I’d like better than for you to stay. Nothing. If it were a matter of getting you a signing bonus or a better housing situation, I’d see what I could do. But it’s not those things, is it?”

  “I—” I shook my head. “No.”

  “You’re a man after my own heart,” Rafe said with a grim smile. “Ambitious. Determined. I wish it weren’t so, but like recognizes like. You’ve got big dreams. Big plans. You don’t just wanna be a cog in the wheel, you want to be the motor that turns the cogs. You want the fancy title and the penthouse suite.” He winked. “I get it.”

  I frowned. It felt like a long time since I’d thought about it like that, and it sounded strange hearing it spoken aloud now, like a choice I dimly remembered was the right thing, though I couldn’t quite remember why anymore.

  “Now! I know you said you were gonna stay until we found your replacement and you found a new job, but I know you.” He wagged a finger at me. “You’re putting it off.”

  “Me? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Mason, the lady I spoke to at the big hospital in Minneapolis was so impressed, she wanted to interview you online that same day. Didn’t she call you?”

  “Um.” I made a show of straightening the perfectly straight blotter on my desk and tidying the pens Taffy had stuck in an I Heart Cooter Key mug for me. “I believe she did, yes.”

  “And?”

  “I thought better of it. I mean, Minnesota? In the winter?” I shuddered. “Worse than Upstate, and I left there for a reason.”

  “Mmmm. And the folks in Greensboro? Got a cousin up there who says it’s real pretty country and the winters are nice and mild.”

  “I’m sure that’s true. But Greensboro’s smallish—”

  He snorted. “‘Bout a hundred times bigger than here.”

  “—and there are no beaches.”

  “Ah. So that means those folks who called me from Des Moines and Sonoma are out of luck, too?”

  I frowned. “It was Davenport, not Des Moines, and yeah, neither of them were the right fit.”

  “And what does Fenn say about all this?”

  I waved a hand airily and lied through my teeth. “I have no idea, because it has nothing to do with him.”

  Rafe was silent for a long moment. “Mason, you’re as transparent as that window.”

  I winced. “Am I?” I was afraid of that. I mean, not that I’d consciously been turning down amazing jobs, of course, but I’d definitely gotten more selective.

  Much, much more selective.

  “You’re gonna find fault with every job you apply for, aren’t you?”

  “I—” Possibly.

  “Because you’re staying here out of a misplaced sense of obligation to the town.”

  To the town. I blinked. “Oh. Um…” Sure. Let’s go with that.

  “You need to stop. We all care about you, Mason. You’ve made a lot of friends here in a short time.”

  Had I?

  “But you don’t owe us anything. And I’m sure that Aaron will do nearly as good a job as you’d do yourself.”

  “Aaron.”

  “Aaron Smith, your potential replacement! Nice guy. Real down-to-earth. Good-looking. Tall. Blond. Not nearly as well qualified as you, if I’m being honest, but he’ll do. Bit of a talker. Likes sports cars. Big Bucs fan. Gay, too! And before you yell at me, he volunteered that.” Rafe nodded firmly. “I know better than to ask.”

  I sucked in a breath. Rafe was going to replace me with a tall, blond, out-and-proud, sports car enthusiast?

  I was being replaced with the anti-me?

  With Fenn Reardon’s paper-perfect match?

  I stared at Rafe for half a minute without blinking, utterly paralyzed.

  “I mean,” Rafe said, clearly uncomfortable, “if you’re interested in staying, all you have to do is say so, Mason. As I said, you’re our first choice. You just need to decide that you’ll stay for the length of the contract.”

  Just decide.

  Easy as that.

  I felt the little hamsters in my brain, which had been quiet and docile for weeks and weeks, begin to rise, and stretch, and jump back on their wheel.

  It wasn’t like I hadn’t considered staying on Whispering Key and serving out my contract. Jeez, of course I had. I’d been here over five weeks already, and I’d enjoyed almost all of it. When I looked out the window of this office, over the low buildings across the street, I saw endless sunshine and
water, and it made me happy. The people on this island were weird but relentlessly kind, and I wouldn’t have traded the reality of this place for the five-star resort I’d imagined it to be.

  Hell, I’d even learned to tolerate the geckos.

  Mostly.

  The problem was, if I went to that window and looked out at the water view, my mind would conjure Fenn Reardon’s blue, blue eyes. My gaze would track all the way to the right every single time, so I could see whether the Mary Anna was back at the dock yet. If it was, my heart would give a crazy, joyful thump. If it wasn’t there, like now, my mind would wander to where Fenn was and what he might be doing.

  Victoria had said I wasn’t capable of loving someone fully… but clearly I could obsess with the best of them.

  I could come up with a thousand and one really compelling reasons to stay on Whispering Key for three years—I hated leaving before I fulfilled a commitment. I worried that Aaron, who sounded very poorly qualified in my professional opinion, wouldn’t be as concerned as I was about Lety’s shoulder as he should be, or about Gloria’s strange symptoms that really needed to be monitored, or about Dale’s mole, which needed to be biopsied again since the lab had fucked up the first sample, but which I’d had a devil of a time pinning him down to get done—but if I stayed, it wouldn’t be for any of that. It would be because I’d gotten addicted to the hot almost-mechanic down the hall.

  A man who’d changed the entire trajectory of my life just by existing and being so wholly himself that I couldn’t help but want him.

  A man who lit me up just by looking at me.

  A man who was so allergic to planning for the future, he didn’t even have an if-I-found-the-treasure bucket list kicking around.

  A man who wouldn’t just throw me off course when he ran off to Belize (or whatever the Fenn-appropriate equivalent was) but might capsize my ship entirely and drown me forever.

  I knew what my heart wanted.

  I knew what logic and good sense demanded.

  And I had no idea how to triage those conflicting needs.

  “Well!” Rafe slapped his thighs, then got to his feet. “Gotta go help Fenn run the afternoon tour. Lots of folks rescheduling for earlier this week since the weather’s gonna get rough just before the weekend. How about you take a couple days to think about it? I promised Aaron I’d get him a contract by Monday morning.”

  “And you told him the truth, right?” I demanded. “You didn’t lie or anticipate, did you?”

  Rafe clasped a hand to his heart and shook his head ruefully. “Mason, you wound me, you really do.”

  It wasn’t until much later that I realized he hadn’t entirely answered the question.

  “Doc Mason?”

  I looked up from my deep contemplation of my pen drumming against my blotter to find Taffy standing by my desk, looking uncertain.

  “Hey! Sorry. How was your lunch?” I put my pen away. “Everything okay?”

  “Yeah. Fine. Lety asked for you.”

  My heart gave a little lurch. “I’ll go by tomorrow and see her.”

  “Listen, it’s none of my business, but um…” She sank into the seat in front of my desk, worrying her lip. “Juju said Isobel said Gloria said Rafe said he was coming to talk to you today about whether you were gonna stay here. Is that why he came this morning?”

  I rubbed my eyebrow. “Yeah. He’s, um, found a replacement for me.” I pasted on a smile. “So, I guess I need to stop messing around and find a job, huh?”

  “Well, I—that is to say, we—really hope you’ll stay.” Taffy’s whole face scrunched up. “It’s prob’ly not my place to say. I know we’re not really friends, and you’ve got your plans—”

  I chuckled once without humor. I hadn’t had a clear plan in weeks. I’d gotten used to not having one. I’d started to like not having one.

  “—but you fit here,” Taffy said quietly. “I mean, you could probably fit anywhere, but why not here, you know? Stay where you’re appreciated.”

  “That’s very kind of you—”

  “Not being kind. And I’m not just saying it just because this is the best job I’ve ever had either.” She smiled brightly. “I really mean it. Everyone at the Concha meant it.”

  I snorted. I stood and came around to the front of the desk, leaned a hip back against it, and folded my arms. “You’re amazing at your job, Taffy. Whoever runs this office next will be lucky to have you. And I’m sure you’ll appreciate them, too.” My chest felt hollow just saying the words.

  “Yeah, but would whoever comes next be able to convince Barbara Patenaude to let Emmaline Young drive her around town, and somehow make Barbara think she was doing a favor for a poor widow while also convincing Emmaline she was keeping the streets of Whispering Key safer? Would they be able to finally get Gloria Frye to stop wearing those dang high heels?”

  I laughed. “Noticed that, did you?”

  “Turns out she’s not much taller than I am!” Taffy giggled. “Think that’ll help her?”

  I shook my head. “Wish I knew for sure.” I bit the inside of my lip and admitted, “I’m worried it might not be her shoes at all, but something with her heart. I want her to get some tests done. Things I can’t do here.” I spread my hands wide. “I told her I’d set it up. Even offered to go with her.”

  “And no dice?”

  “Nope. Big Rafe can’t function without her for a morning, or so she claims.”

  “More like she doesn’t want him to have to,” Taffy said indulgently. “She’s got a bit of a crush on him.”

  “Right?” I said, widening my eyes. “I completely agree. Which is probably why she’s not telling him anything about her symptoms. She wants to be superwoman in high heels, helping him preside over Whispering Key.”

  “Yep.” Taffy grinned. “See? You get it. You fit.”

  I hesitated. “I love it here, Taffy. I really do. Way, way more than I thought I could even a few weeks ago. But—” I broke off and shook my head. “I don’t know.”

  “But you want an important job in a big city.”

  I slid my tongue over my teeth. “There’s a lot more stability in a job like that,” I said, quoting Mason-from-months-ago. “Financial security.”

  “Right. Well, if you’re on the fence at all, try asking yourself if it’s better to be a little important to a lot of people or to be really, really important to a few people. Like, basically everyone on Whispering Key.” She smiled broadly and stood to leave. “And specifically to Fenn, of course.”

  I forced an answering smile. Yeah, there was no of course about it. Fenn liked me a lot. I was as confident of that as I was of my own name. But what would Fenn-the-unplanner say if he heard I was thinking about staying on Whispering Key? Would he be excited? Or would he be annoyed that the terms had changed for this short-term thing we’d started? Would the idea of us being together long-term seem a little too much like planning for the future?

  Besides which, I’d promised myself I wasn’t going to let someone else dictate my future ever again. Would I choose Whispering Key if it didn’t come with Fenn Reardon?

  My phone buzzed in my pocket like the man had heard me.

  Fenn: Hey, I’m taking Beale on a grocery run off island after Big Rafe and I finish our afternoon tour. Anything you need?

  I chewed on my bottom lip. Whether I was ready or not, Rafe’s visit meant something was about to change. The crazy, beautiful thing Fenn and I had would either morph into something better and more secure, or… or it might cease to be at all.

  I knew in my heart that I’d never feel as much for anyone else as I felt for him. I didn’t want to miss a single second of the time we had together. I didn’t want to regret anything. So in the end, I took a page from Fenn’s book.

  When in doubt…

  Me: Yeah. Get condoms and lube.

  The three dots appeared and disappeared on the screen for so long I nearly called him.

  Me: Ordinarily I’d have some here at the officer />
  Me: But I gave them all to Mrs. McKetcham

  Me: And I’ll be damned if I go and ask her for some just so I can have sex with my boyfriend

  The dots disappeared altogether for a long moment.

  Me: Unless you’d rather not. We haven’t talked about this recently. That’s fine!

  Me: I know you wanted to take things slow.

  Me: You could reply anytime now!

  Me: Yes, no? Maybe?

  Those fucking dots circled and spun for another ten seconds, then finally…

  Fenn: Yeah, baby. Got it.

  I held the phone against my chest like that might stop my heart from pounding out of my rib cage.

  Then I closed the door, locked it, and called my best friend.

  “Tobias,” I said the second the call engaged. “I need you to tell me everything you know about anal sex.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Fenn

  There were times when I almost liked my job.

  “I just have to tell you, that was so fun!” A brunette teenager with braided hair grinned up at me as I waved goodbye to her family after our afternoon tour. “Thank you for making this incredibly boring day a little more exciting.”

  I met the eyes of the girl’s mom over her head, and the corners of her lips quirked up.

  “Jessica’s been researching this island and the treasure since she heard we were coming here,” she said, hands bracketing her daughter’s shoulders. “She was not excited about spending spring break here when she could’ve been home with her friends, but her dad and I overruled her.”

  “Families,” Jessica said crisply, “are annoying.”

  Wasn’t that the damn truth?

  I smiled back. “Thank you for asking some good questions about Jacob and Resolute’s history. You’re very insightful.”

  “Did you know, there’re, like, hardly any books on the Whispering Key treasure at all? It’s odd. But there was a website with all kinds of theories and scanned images of documents and stuff. And when I read about Resolute and Jacob saving each other’s lives, and surviving together for so long I, like, totally shipped them.” She flushed pink. “So, you know, I choose not to believe Resolute did Jacob wrong in the end.”