“That actually makes a lot of sense,” Jeff said, cocking his head to the side a little. This time, he was the one who came in for a hug. “Look, man, I'm sorry to be so suspicious about this all, but I still keep honestly suspecting that you've, I don't know, got a whole line of cameras in this hall who are about to jump out and tell me how badly you've just punked me or something.”
“Never,” I said.
Jeff laughed. “Bullshit,” he said. “Twenty-seven--year-old Christian totally would have pulled a stunt like that, just to prove that he could, to himself as much as the world.”
I grimaced. “I'd like to think I've come a little way since then,” I said.
“You probably have,” Jeff said. He ran a hand back through his hair, a gesture that was familiar enough since it was one of my own nervous, thoughtful gestures. We were more similar than we were different when it came down to it.
“Let me take you out to dinner sometime,” I told him. “How much longer are you here in Hawaii?”
“Just until tomorrow, unfortunately,” Jeff said, shrugging a little. “Have to get back to the grind. But you know, Boston isn't that far away from New York. Maybe you'll make it up to see me sometime. Give me your number, and I'll text you my address.”
“That would be great,” I said, already pulling out my phone so that I could punch in his digits as he reeled them off.
I went back to my hotel after that and flopped down across the bed with my shoes still on, feeling drained but happy at the same time. It was such a relief to have finally made up with Jeff, after so many long years of fighting with him. The first thing I wanted to do was call Gretchen, but I knew she had a slew of appointments that afternoon in the aftermath of the holiday; lots of people were going home that week so they could get back to work once the new year started.
When I picked up my phone to text her anyway, the thing started ringing. It was Paul on the other end.
“Hey man,” he said. “Gotta keep this short because I'm actually on my way to a meeting with some of our guys in Asia,” he said. “But I was just wondering if you'd booked your flight home yet. Some of our investors have been asking, and it would be great if we could put out a press release for a planned press conference in the new year featuring you.”
I tried to keep from groaning out loud. “I've looked at flights,” I told him. “But I haven't booked anything just yet. Waiting to see if the prices fluctuate at all. Or if there are any last-minute deals that I can take advantage of.”
“You know things don't work that way around holidays,” Paul said, the frown clear in his voice. I knew he knew I was just delaying, but he didn't know the reason for it. “Is everything okay over there? You haven't blown through your millions already, have you?”
I forced a laugh. “No, of course not,” I told him. “I just haven't figured out which flight I want to book yet, that's all. But I promise you. I'll be there in New York by mid-January at the latest.”
“We need you sooner than that, I think,” Paul said grimly. “If you can't be here on January 1st, I think January 4th is the latest that we could set things and still keep our investors happy. And you know what happens when we have happy investors.”
I suppressed a sigh. “Yeah,” I said. “Yeah, okay. I'll make sure and book a flight in the next couple days, and I'll send you the details once I have them.”
“Thanks, man,” Paul said.
We talked briefly about our Christmases, and then Paul had to go into his meeting. I hung up feeling as though there was a lead weight in my stomach. I couldn't believe that I would be leaving so soon. I was going to have to find some way to share the news with Gretchen. I could already see the tearful look that she would give me. I could already feel my heart ache at the pain I was about to cause her.
But it was unavoidable, and I'd known that from the start. We both had. So, there was no one really to blame here.
Chapter twenty-eight
Gretchen
I went over to Christian's hotel right after breakfast, marching up to the door and knocking firmly enough that I knew he could hear it.
When he came to the door, he looked as though he'd just tumbled out of bed. “What are you doing here so early?” he asked around a yawn.
I clapped my hands together. “Come on, get dressed,” I urged him. “We're going surfing today.”
It was worth it for the grin on his face alone. He immediately looked much more awake. “Cool,” he said. “You know, in all the time that I've been here, I still haven't set aside time to learn how to surf.”
“I know,” I said. “That's why I figured today might be a good day. I looked at the wave forecast, and apparently, there are a few spots over by Turtle Beach where things are a little calm, still with great waves, but ones that a beginner can ride. Or at least attempt to ride.” I winked at him. “Come on. Get some board shorts on, and we'll go!”
When we got to the beach, he looked dubiously out at the waves, which were cresting probably taller than I was and spilling over into frothy whitecaps. “Are you sure about this?” he asked me. “I have never surfed before.”
“I know that,” I told him, grinning. “Trust me. This is going to feel like nothing. Anyway, I'll guide you through all of it. Worst you're going to get are a few bruises; don't worry.”
“Oh, just a few bruises,” he said sarcastically, rolling his eyes.
“Well, do you want to learn or not?” I asked, folding my arms over my chest.
I watched him stare out at the waves for a moment longer, and then he finally sighed. “Okay,” he said, letting me lead him over to a board rental shop. I had a couple of boards in my quiver, but none that would suit a beginner, and especially none that were made for someone so much taller than me. Still, I knew Jessica, the owner of the shop, so we were able to get a pretty good deal on the day-long rental.
A little while later, he had already mastered the ability to ride out to the waves, and we were able to sit out there looking for the best waves to approach.
“What about that one?” he asked, pointing toward one off to our left.
“Too far over,” I said, shrugging a little. “With your muscles, you could probably reach that before it crested. But for me, I may be in pretty good shape, but that wave would be gone by the time I reached it.”
Christian laughed. “Fair enough. So, what, we just wait here until something good comes along?”
I shrugged. “Yeah, pretty much.” I flashed a grin in his direction. “What, do you have some objection to my presence?”
“No,” he said, shaking his head, looking altogether too serious.
“Good,” I said, nodding a little. “In that case, there's going to be another luau tonight for New Year's Eve. If you think that the last luau was a party, you can think again. It's got nothing on the New Year's Eve party.”
“Sounds potentially dangerous,” he said with a snort.
“Oh, it totally is,” I said, laughing. “We get super drunk and then start lighting off fireworks left and right, without even knowing what they're meant to do, for the most part. They could go off right in front of a group of us, for all we know. And we light them up anyway.”
He chuckled. “Sounds like a lot of fun.”
“It is,” I told him. “You're going to come with me, right?”
I could see his face churn through a complicated set of emotions. Then, he shrugged and nodded. “Yeah, that would be fun,” he said, his very voice sounding guarded.
I frowned, but I didn't want to ruin a good day of surfing with serious conversation. Instead, I pointed to the next big wave. “That's the one,” I told him. “Let's go!”
By the end of the day, Christian was pretty bruised up, but we were both still laughing, so I counted that as a success. Still, he groaned as he sat down on the sand. “You are a punishing teacher, and surfing is a punishing sport!” he told me.
I laughed. “You were nearly getting the hang of it by the end, though,” I told him
. “That was great!”
“'Nearly' is the operative word, though,” he said with a grimace.
“That's better than me,” I told him. “I bet in one or two more times of surfing, you'd start to have it down. It took me ages to be able to stand up on a board.”
“Thanks,” Christian said, lifting his beer toward me in a 'cheers' gesture. “And seriously, thanks for taking me out here. That was a lot of fun, for all that that was a lot of hard work.”
We both fell silent for a moment, and I could tell from Christian's expression that there was something he wanted to say to me, that same serious thing from before, come back to haunt us.
Before he could give voice to whatever it was, though, Lino came up to us, shaking the water out of his hair. “Hey Gretchen, hey Christian,” he greeted, a bit smile on his face. “Man, the surf was great today, huh? Normally I'm over at the Cove working on some more difficult things, but every once in a while, it's so nice to come back to our roots and just coast some of the baby waves, don't you think?”
“I was just teaching Christian how to surf,” I told him, trying to keep my voice neutral. I couldn't help shifting subtly closer to Christian, though, and I was relieved when he draped an arm around my shoulders.
“Cool, cool,” Lino said, nodding. “Yeah, I saw you out there, man. You're leaning a little too far back, away from the waves, but that's only natural if it's your first time. It's only natural to be afraid of the waves and whatever.”
“I'm not afraid of the waves,” Christian said, bristling a little.
“Nah, man, we all have to be afraid of the waves a little,” Lino said, as though he were a surf guru. “If we didn't respect the waves and Mother Nature, well, that's how people get killed out there.”
“Actually, undertows and-” Christian began.
“Enough,” I interrupted, holding up both hands. I turned to Lino. “Look, I'm glad you had a good day surfing; we did as well. And I hope you had a good Christmas with your mom as well. But if you don't mind…”
Lino looked taken aback at my abruptness, and when I glanced over, Christian did as well. But fortunately, Lino took the hint and finally walked off, back to his surf buddies.
“Well, that was interesting,” Christian commented as the other man walked away. “You want to explain that one to me?”
I sighed and buried my face in my hands, trying to press away the migraine that I could already feel coming on after that whole meeting. “Like I said, Lino is my ex,” I told Christian, trying to shrug it off.
“There was clearly something more to it than that, or you're more of a bitch than I realized,” Christian said. “I guess it's not the latter, so I'm wondering about the former.”
“He got me pregnant,” I finally cried. “We'd been together for a while at that point, and when I found out that I was pregnant, I was so happy, Christian. I was sure that we were going to get married and be one happy family, I guess. Him and me, and our unborn daughter.”
“I take it Lino didn't see things that way?” Christian asked, his expression already darkening.
I shook my head miserably. “Not at all,” I told him. “He wanted me to have an abortion. I refused. I told him he could leave us if that's what he wanted, but I wasn't going to get an abortion. He told me that I was being selfish, but it was my child as much as his. I had every right to decide if I wanted to keep her. Especially since it was my body that she was going to be popping out of.”
Christian sighed and began to rub my back, the touch soothing. It gave me the strength to continue.
“I refused to have an abortion, but still, I had a miscarriage. I know that those things happen, I know that now, anyway. I didn't know that before, I guess. It was surprising to me, afterward, to learn just how many women miscarry.” I took a deep breath. “And Lino was happy about it. He was glad that I had miscarried the baby because it meant that he never had to worry about taking responsibility for it. For us.”
“That's horrible,” Christian said, his shock clear in his voice. He didn't even sound particularly angry like I might have expected from him. Instead, he just sounded upset. On my behalf.
“Yeah, it was pretty rough,” I said, dashing away a few tears that had fallen. “Lino and I fought over it. Finally, he told me that he just couldn't stand to be around me anymore. Said that I was too emotional and that he should never have slept with me to begin with. Said that it was my fault that I had gotten pregnant, that I must not have taken my birth control pills properly or something like that. He said a lot of horrible things. That's neither here nor there now, though.”
I looked up at him, needing him to see the truth of things in my eyes. “I was devastated for a long time,” I told him. “And that's part of why Mina was so uncertain about letting me get into things with you; she's just worried about me, as a good friend should be. And I love her for that.” I glanced down. I didn't want to admit to him that what I felt for him was ten times what I had ever felt for Lino. He would be leaving soon enough, and it wasn't fair to either of us to start professing our love or anything like that.
“Come here, you,” Christian said, pulling me even closer and resting his cheek on top of my head. “I can't even imagine what you've gone through,” he told me. “That must have been so difficult, and you're so brave to have gotten through that and stuck to your beliefs the whole time. That's amazing.”
“Thanks,” I said softly.
“So, this luau,” he said, thankfully changing the subject. “You want me to come with you?”
“Absolutely,” I told him. “The way you start off the New Year is key in determining your fortune for the rest of the year, right?” I wished I could take back the words as soon as I'd said them. I wasn't insinuating that he should stay there with me in Hawaii for the rest of the year, just that…
But he kissed me on the top of the head, fingers still stroking down my arm. “Sounds like a plan,” he told me easily.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Christian
I stared at the computer screen as I received confirmation of my flight.
I took a deep breath and let it out slowly, wondering how I was going to break the news to Gretchen. I didn't want to leave so soon, but George had scheduled the annual New Year's press conference so that we could beat out some of our competitors who would be holding theirs a few days later. The idea was, if we could get into people's heads first in the new year, then we could drum up some additional business.
I understood all of that, from a business perspective. But it meant that if I was to be part of the press conference, and part of the future of the business, I supposed, then I needed to be back in New York beginning on January 2nd at the latest.
There was a knock on the door, and I grimaced, knowing that it was Gretchen, come to take me down to the luau. I wished that we could just have one last, special night together without this hanging over our heads, but I knew that that wasn't possible. I owed it to her to let her know that I was leaving the next morning.
“Come on, come on,” Gretchen said, grabbing my arm and dragging me immediately out the door. “I'm sorry, I'm running late, and we're about to miss the big town fireworks show. Trust me, that's going to be great, and we don't want to miss it!”
I laughed a little and let her drag me along, glad that I had a bit of a reprieve, no matter how short it might be. We made it down to the beach just in time to watch the town's fireworks show, which was mirrored on a few of the beaches by locals and tourists alike, who were already getting the merriment going.
Gretchen leaned close to me, her presence a warm weight at my side, and I couldn't help feeling better than I had in a while.
But in the back of my head, I was still trying to figure out how to tell her that I was leaving early the next morning.
When the fireworks ended, we got into Gretchen's car and drove over to the beach for the luau. The place was even busier than it had been the previous time, and there were a few different fires lit,
with people clustering around each of them. Gretchen laughed a little, shaking her head. “Every year, it seems like there are more of us down here,” she said, “but it's still just always locals! I don't know where they all come from.”
I laughed and followed her down onto the beach, wishing I'd had a moment to tell her about my departure when we'd been in the car. I couldn't tell her about it here when we were surrounded by so many people, and the later it got, the drunker everyone was probably going to get.
I'd need to find some way to pull her aside, at some point.
“Hey guys,” Mina said, detaching herself from the group and coming up to us, giving Gretchen a big hug.
Gretchen giggled and nearly fell as Mina went into it with a bit too much force. “Hey, girl,” she said. “How's the luau?”
“Always a good time,” Mina said, beaming at her. “I'm glad you could come too, Christian.”
“Me too,” I said, forcing myself to smile, to stop thinking about what I needed to tell Gretchen. I would just have to wait for the right opportunity.
Of course, setting aside those thoughts was easier said than done.
“You seem a little bit off,” Gretchen whispered to me a little while later.
I frowned over at her. “What do you mean?” I asked, even though I knew she was right. “I've been talking to people and everything else, same as you.”
“Yeah, I know,” she said, sounding hurt at my tone. She shook her head. “Just, if you want to go, we can go.”
“Why would I want to go?” I asked, rolling my eyes so that she would think I wasn't even considering it. The truth was, leaving was probably the best idea. I wanted to enjoy the luau, but at the same time, I couldn't seem to put aside my thoughts. If I could just get a quiet moment alone with her, it would be great.
“I'm going to get another drink,” Gretchen told me, still looking doubtful and concerned. “Do you want anything?”
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