Pulling off my T-shirt, I quickly go for my shorts next. “That’s what skinny-dipping is for, honey. Come on!”
There’s only a brief hesitation before she’s stepping out of her dress to join me. Though I have the feeling she’s not normally this impulsive, I’m not complaining. Definitely not when I get to see her naked under the moonlight like this. Definitely not as she runs with me into the water. We both dunk our heads and come up smiling even though the water is cooler than one might expect. Still, it feels good against my bare skin. And it does amazing things to Ava’s bare skin, as her body glistens under the moonlight and her nipples harden.
We don’t go too far out, swimming just deep enough so that I can stand with the water coming to mid-chest level, but it’s a bit much for my petite Hula Girl and she needs to hold on to me. Again, not complaining about that as I wrap my arms around her and pull her close.
“This is amazing,” she says.
“Look at you. Jesus, you’re beautiful,” I tell her.
“Ford.” She looks away from me but she’s smiling.
“Ava,” I reply with mock seriousness and she laughs the way I had intended and looks at me again. “You sure as hell aren’t wound tight anymore, are you?”
“You make that impossible.” She kisses me quickly. “In the very best way.”
Cupping her cheek in my hand, I lean in and take her mouth with mine, kissing her with slow deliberation. Lingering in the softness and saltiness of her lips as the water moves gently all around us, finding its way between our bodies even as we’re pressed together. In return, she slides her hand into the hair at the back of my head, wraps her other arm around my neck, and tightens her legs around my waist. As we kiss, small waves lift us up and then lower us in a smooth, hypnotic rhythm.
This.
I’m transfixed by this moment. By this woman. It’s unreal and yet absolute perfection. I don’t want it to end.
When she pulls away from our kiss and buries her face into my neck, I wonder if she’s having the same thoughts. Then she looks up at the sky and takes in a deep breath.
“It really is paradise,” she murmurs.
I follow her gaze and see the blanket of stars shining against the dark sky. “It is,” I agree. “I’m so glad that you opened yourself up to the spirit of this place. It has a way of making you reevaluate your priorities.”
Cocking her head, she looks at me. “Yeah?”
“There’s something called mana—your life energy. Where you focus your mana is so important to what you get in return. If you focus it on moments like this, on enjoying and respecting nature, on living a life of meaningfulness in work, then it all comes back to you in the form of a kind of balance that’s hard to find elsewhere.”
She’s quiet as she takes that in. I can see in her expression that she’s considering what that means for someone who lives in a big city like LA, and perhaps wondering if I’m telling her she’s not directing her mana in a positive way. I don’t want that. I don’t want her to feel like I’m judging her. I was just trying to point out how quickly she was able to benefit from the way of life here because she opened herself up to it.
Rather than lecture her on that, though, I try to make light of it. “And that’s why they have yoga and meditation classes everywhere on the mainland, right?”
“Sadly, I prefer sprints on the treadmill.”
“Hell, yeah,” I say. “That’s why you have such fantastic legs.” I run my hands from her incredibly squeezable ass along her thighs.
“Maybe we should …”
She tilts her head toward the shore.
“Yeah, let’s.”
We body surf the mild waves in and Ava quickly pulls on her dress. The thin material sticks to her wet skin, outlining her sexy figure and making my mouth water with need. I hurry to get my shorts on, to contain my dick, which has been hard and ready for more since she stripped down earlier to get into the water.
“Come on, Surfer Boy,” she says in a teasing sing-song as she walks backward.
I rush toward her, sweeping her up in one smooth movement so that she’s got her arms and legs wrapped around me again. I keep walking, not missing a beat as I carry her toward my place, kissing her as we go.
She lets out a yelp of delight when I swing her around in a circle. “Oh my god,” she says. “You make me feel like I’m light as air.” She grabs my forearms, leaning back slightly at the waist, her wet air whipping around and her smile big as she laughs. It’s a pure, uninhibited laugh that matches the moment of perfection I’d felt with her in the water.
That’s when I know I’m going to miss her.
That’s when I know that after I figure things out with my father, I’m going to see her again.
* * *
We end up staying the night at my place which means she has to leave me earlier than I’d like since she had to get back to the hotel to pack her things. We do a repeat of me walking her to the inlet that gets her back to where her car is at Makai’s. The walk is quiet, but we hold hands as we go. It’s incredible how quickly we’ve gotten not just familiar, but intimate with each other. I may not know her whole story, but there’s a part of me that connects with her in such a basic, primal way that it’s astonishing we’re about to say goodbye.
“Damn,” I murmur.
“What?”
“There so much more I want to show you. So much more of the island you haven’t seen.”
“You showed me a whole lot,” she says, and leans in for a kiss.
“I’d have loved to take you to Nakalele Point. It would give you some of that romance I know you crave.”
“Oh yeah? What’s it like?”
“It’s just north from here, maybe less than ten miles. You look for mile marker thirty-eight-point-five.”
“That’s very specific,” she says with a laugh.
“That’s the best spot, anyway,” I tell her, “to see the geyser. In the morning, the water sprays up and the sun shines through perfectly to make a rainbow.”
“Ooh, that does sound romantic.”
“The best part is that there’s also a volcanic rock formation with a natural cutout in the shape of a heart.”
She squeezes my hand and I see a smile of delight on her face at the prospect. Yep, that would have been a great place to take her. Anything to get that kind of sweet, carefree expression out of her.
Leaning her head on my shoulder for a second, she then looks up at me and says, “You’re a romantic, too, Surfer Boy.”
I shrug that off. I’m not about to admit that I can’t recall the last time I felt the urge to do such things with a woman. That it’s only with her that I’ve considered being that way.
Soon enough we’ve arrived at her car. We both hesitate.
“Well,” she says, being the brave one to speak first, “thanks for making my vacation so wonderful.”
“It was my honor,” I tell her. “Really, I’m just happy that chicken ran you off the road. Worked out in my favor.”
She laughs. “I’d say to text me some time, but I know it’s virtually impossible with your relic of a phone.”
“It’s not impossible.” I think we both know I’m referring to more than texting. I’d love for us to walk away from this believing that somehow, this isn’t really the end.
“Would you mind—would it be okay if I took a selfie of us?” she asks.
“Here,” I say, holding out my hand for her phone, “I’ll do it.”
When she gives me her phone, I deftly find my way to the camera option. She turns sideways, holding me with both arms around the waist and looking up at the phone. Adjusting it so that the blue water and willowy palm trees can be seen behind us, I take several photos.
“Can you even receive photos on that old-fashioned thing you call a phone?” she asks with a laugh.
“No. And I’ve never been so tempted to buy a smartphone.”
“I’ll mail you a copy. Send it to the music school?”
<
br /> “That would be great.” Again, silence falls between us. “Ava, safe travels. And hey, maybe I’ll get over to the mainland and—”
“I appreciate it, but you don’t have to say that.”
“No, I mean it. I would like—”
“I’d like it, too. But we can be honest that the odds probably aren’t in our favor, right?”
“Well, I guess that’s a pretty pragmatic attitude.”
She smirks. “Pragmatism is usually my default. Just … not so much these past few days.”
“Lucky for me,” I tell her and she laughs with a small shrug.
“And me.”
Smiling, I beckon for her to come in for a hug. She’s petite, but I like the way she fits against me. I hold her longer than a simple hug should last, but finally give her a kiss and let her go. I should tell her that the odds are definitely in our favor because I’ll be in LA soon, but with not knowing exactly how my time there will go, I don’t want to make promises. I’d rather reach out to her once I’m there and know exactly when I have the time to see her. Besides that, if I pushed the idea of seeing her over there, she’d probably pull those walls of hers up and retreat, worrying that her vacation fling is obsessive.
“Take care,” she says, pulling away and getting into her rental car.
“You too.”
And that’s it. She drives off with just a little wave of her hand out the window as she goes.
I’ll be damned if I ever meet someone like her again.
14
Ava
“This is not like you, mija,” my mother says. “I thought you couldn’t wait to get home from vacation and back to work?”
I’ve come here to her house straight from the airport, having spent the five-hour plane ride doing nothing but thinking of Ford while staring at our photo together, like some lovesick teenager. This ache in my chest is so unfamiliar. I thought I could have a little fun with a gorgeous surfer and leave it all behind. I was wrong. He turned out to be more than a vacation fling. God, he was so much more. Why did he have to be so smart and charming and intuitively supportive of me? Why did he have to be, not just a bit of fun, but perfect would-be relationship material?
“Well?”
Mama has been waiting for a reply while I’ve been lost in lamenting what will never be. I sit up straight in my kitchen table chair. “I am excited to get back to work,” I say, but my attempt at normalcy falls flat even to my ears.
Mama looks at me with her famous all-knowing expression.
“Okay,” I say, quickly dropping all pretense. I can never keep from telling Mama everything. It’s how we both survived after my dad passed away. We’d talk about everything we were feeling, fearing, and hoping. “I met a guy over there and he was just so … perfect.”
“Perfect, but …?”
I sigh, continuing to channel my teenage self. “He’s perfect in the context of where he is, you know what I mean?”
She laughs. “No, not exactly.”
“It was a vacation fling. It was fun and romantic and … not real. He’s a surfer and a music teacher. He lives in this little shack right on the beach with hardly any possessions. He doesn’t even have a proper phone.”
“But he makes you happy?”
“He did. But it’s hopeless. Maybe that’s why it was so easy to give in to the moment,” I muse.
“What do you mean?”
“You remember how Bryce told me I’m basically incapable of letting people in? That I’m to blame for him not knowing me.”
“Oh, I remember,” Mama says with a look of annoyance she doesn’t try to hide. She had never cared for him and that final Christmas night was proof to her that her instincts were right.
“I think there was some truth in that,” I admit. “No, really. I’ve been in self-protection mode ever since Papa passed. I don’t stop for anyone. I don’t let anyone in.”
Mama considers this brutal truth for a moment before nodding. “Yes, I’ve seen that. But I’ve also never seen you with someone who deserves all you have to offer. Maybe there’s a part of you who knows that, too, and that’s why you’ve kept your distance.”
“Could be.”
“But, this surfer? Did you feel differently with him?”
“I did. But that’s probably only because I knew all along that it was never going to last. So, that made it easier to let down my guard.”
“I suppose that’s possible.”
I nod, trying to convince myself that’s all it was.
“How exactly did you let down your guard?” Mama prods, obviously sensing I have more to say.
“I talked to him about Papa,” I say. “You know I never talk about him.”
“Only with people you feel safe with.”
“Wait, what does that mean?”
“Haven’t you spoken of him with your boss?”
I suck in a breath at that, remembering how I had confided in Randall about my father being a big baseball fan and that he had passed away. But that was years ago.
“Oh, Mama. How do you remember things like that?” I ask softly.
She strokes my hair back behind my ear in the same soothing way she’s done for as long as I can remember. “It’s just what a mother does, mija.”
I reach out and put my arms around her, giving her a big hug. She squeezes me in return and I feel a measure of relief, the ache in my chest lessening just a bit.
“Now,” she says as she pulls away, “una quesadilla?”
There’s a sparkle of amusement in her eyes. She’s always trying to feed me and the offer of a quesadilla comes so often that it’s become a joke.
But this time I’m actually hungry. “Si, por favor, Mama,” I tell her.
My acceptance of food makes her ridiculously happy. She claps her hands together and grins, going to the fridge to grab the queso Oaxaca.
“I have fresh chile, too,” she adds, gesturing to the molcajete on the counter where she had just ground up roasted tomatillos and peppers among other goodies for spicy salsa in anticipation of me dropping in. She knows me so well.
“You’re the best, Mama.”
She waves away the compliment. “Just remember that you deserve the best.”
That’s a point she’s made to me throughout my life. It’s such a shame that someone you know and love can tell you this truth for years before you finally come to understand it. It was only on that balcony with Bryce at Christmas I realized that I do deserve the best in this world. But no one will hand it to me. I have to make it happen in love, just as I have with work.
15
Ford
The murmurs slowly fade to complete silence as I walk through the McAvoy & Partners law firm situated high in a tower building of downtown Los Angeles.
I know the reaction isn’t just because I’m conspicuously underdressed in jeans and a weathered gray T-shirt, but rather because none of these people have seen me in almost a year.
I won’t be staying long. The plan is to give my father a heads up that I’m in town and will be wrapping up some loose ends in conjunction with resigning.
“Mr. McAvoy,” Doris, my father’s long-time secretary, says as I approach his office.
She’s a true gatekeeper, having earned a reputation for being able to make access decisions on his behalf. With the way she’s assessing me over her bifocals, I have the feeling she’s ready to say I can wait to be seen. But I’m not here to play games.
“Doris,” I reply and keep moving past her to the office door.
I knock twice and open it.
“You can’t―” she starts.
I move into the office and close the door behind me before she can finish her attempt to stop me.
My father is at his desk, suit coat off and sleeves rolled up. He’s examining papers while on a conference call and shows no surprise when he glances my way. He only holds up his hand to me, a silent gesture to wait.
There goes my momentum. Forcing a deep breath, I turn
away and tune out the back and forth coming from his speakerphone and instead look out the window at the creep and crawl of bumper to bumper cars forty-six floors below us on the street.
My thoughts drift, as they have so often in the last few days, to Ava. I’ve picked up my antiquated flip phone a dozen times with the intention of calling her. But each time, I put it down, telling myself that it’s not the right time. Still, that doesn’t stop me from reliving every sexy moment of what we had in Maui. And it doesn’t stop me thinking what our reunion will look like once I’m done with this part of my trip. Thinking of her has tempered the mood I’d started with when I came here.
I’d come in hot, ready to rip the Band-Aid off and tell my father that I was going to officially resign. That I knew this meant I’d have to sell off my shares. And that I’d be severing all ties with the man I had once worked so hard to impress. What I also knew would come from this was his disdain. There’s no doubt in my mind that he’d judge me as weak. He’d declare I wasn’t up to fulfilling the responsibilities he so magnanimously bestowed upon me. That, or he’d say he had waited too long to bring me over. That my mother had softened me up too much to ever recover.
And I’ll tell him he never knew the first thing about me and he still doesn’t. Not even after all this time of me jumping through hoops just so that he might be interested in actually getting to know me. I’ll tell him that I have regained the kind of peace and happiness he’ll never know because he’s too afraid to even examine who he is, let alone who his son is. I’ll tell him he can take his job and his shares and shove it up his ass. That if he wants his legacy to be that he drove away his only son and screwed over his own father all for some power trip, he can have at it. Because I am done.
I’m having this imaginary fight in my head while he keeps blathering on. I realize I’m wasting time.
“How about you wrap that up?” I say and then turn to look at him.
His steely stare finds my eyes.
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