Burning Moon

by Jo Watson

  I cut him off abruptly. I didn’t want to talk about it. “It’s okay. Let’s leave it. I insulted you and you insulted me. Now we’re even.”

  Our eyes met and I held his gaze.

  “Deal,” he said, extending a hand for me to shake. I took it and was surprised to find it was pleasantly soft, not that I was expecting him to have scales and horns and warts…or maybe I was.

  “So where’re you going?” Damian asked.

  “Nowhere right now. My hotel shuttle can’t pick me up for another three hours.”

  “Why don’t you just take a taxi?” He’d pulled out a bottle of water and started slugging it down. Some of it missed his mouth and spilled onto his shirt. He poured water into his hand and ran it over his face and hair, obviously in an attempt to cool down. His wet hair was now slicked back, and for the first time I could actually see his whole face. He was…he was…gorgeous? (Insert multiple question marks here.)

  WTF?

  I didn’t like guys like this. At all!

  I liked big, tall, muscular, blond jocks who wore polo shirts, Lacoste shoes, and pastels. Guys who played tennis and wore Calvin Klein underwear. I liked guys with tans, neat hair, perfect teeth, shoes without holes, shirts without holes, body parts without holes, and no tattoos. I hated tattoos.

  Damian was clearly none of these things. He had a small build, he was pale, his hair desperately needed a trim, and his clothes looked like they came from a thrift store.

  I forced my brain to snap back to reality.

  “I…I don’t trust taxis.”

  He smiled at this.

  “And where are you going?” I asked.

  Damian shrugged. “Don’t know. I think I’m pretty stranded.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I had to give that guy all my money to avoid the…um, intimate search he was about to perform.”

  “You could probably get some more at your hotel.”

  “I don’t have a hotel.”

  “So where’re you sleeping?”

  “I was going to go to a backpackers lodge, but now I guess I’m sleeping on the beach until I can get more cash.”

  He was making absolutely no sense.

  “Why don’t you just go to an ATM?” It seemed so obvious to me.

  “I don’t have a card.”

  “What?” I looked at this guy with the clothes and the backpack and I wondered what on earth his story was. Who the hell didn’t have a bank card? That was like not having a Facebook profile or Twitter account. It was madness.

  “I’m backpacking. I just did Europe and moved around from place to place earning bits of cash from odd jobs, and now I’m going to explore the East.”

  This guy was completely nuts.

  “Anyway,” he said, “I hope you don’t have to wait too long for your shuttle, Lilly.” He gave me one last smile and then turned.

  I watched him walk away and a thought started bashing about in my brain. I didn’t like the thought. I didn’t like it one little bit.

  No, no, no, no, no! Don’t say it, Lilly! No. Don’t you dare bloody say it!

  “You can stay with me.” The words came tumbling out of my mouth, and I regretted them immediately.

  Damian turned around with a shocked look on his face.

  “I mean, just for one night, while you figure out what you’re going to do for money. I have this big suite.” I rolled my eyes and scoffed. “Deluxe honeymoon suite. And it’s got a separate lounge area, so…”

  Damian stepped forward and his eyes met mine with such intensity that I felt unnerved.

  “You sure?”

  “No, I’m not sure, but…what the hell, I guess. When in Thailand, or whatever.” I shrugged and looked around. “Besides, you’d be doing me a favor. I really want to get to the hotel, and I don’t want to take a taxi alone, so…”

  He smiled that crooked smile at me again. He smiled a lot for someone who listened to Depeche Mode.

  “Well, if I’d be helping you…” He strode out into the street and called a taxi with brazen confidence.

  God, this was a bad idea. The worst idea. Ever. But it was too late!

  Chapter Four

  There’s awkward:

  Like your dad catching you making out with your boyfriend when you’re fifteen (and it’s not just first base).

  Or stalking your boyfriend’s ex on Facebook and accidentally “liking” her profile picture (and she’s thinner than you).

  Or enthusiastically going in for a hug when the other person was only going for a handshake (and your boob accidentally grazes their outstretched hand).

  Or buying a box of condoms at the drugstore and bumping into your mother’s friend (and they are ribbed and chocolate-flavored).

  I could keep going, but I think you get the message.

  And then, there’s Awkward (with a capital A).

  Like sitting in the back of a taxi with a total—and slightly weird—stranger, who you inadvertently bashed in the head while wearing your pj’s and then threw up in front of. Who heard you pour your guts out and then cry like a baby. Who you suspect might have seen you bending over in your G-string, and who you’ve accidentally invited on your so-called honeymoon.

  If I’d thought the plane ride was painful, well, this was definitely worse. We were squashed together in Thailand’s answer to a taxi, called a tuk-tuk: a tiny little creature that looked more like an enlarged tricycle with a box attached to it. We were so squashed, in fact, that whenever the tuk-tuk went over a bump (which was pretty often) our bodies would press together in ways I’d really rather they didn’t. There was a lot of…

  “Oops, sorry!” (That was my boob.)

  “Sorry!” (Elbow dangerously close to crotch.)

  “Excuse me!” (Boob again.)

  To say I was relieved when the ride came to a stop was an understatement. The tuk-tuk pulled up (chugged up) to a somewhat palatial-looking hotel, and I was momentarily caught up in the romance of it all—the luxurious five-star-ness of it; the turquoise sea in the postcard background; the fragrance-filled, colorful flowers floating in bowls of water; and the warm glow of atmospheric lighting. But my bubble was rudely burst when I remembered I was missing the most important ingredient for a successful honeymoon—the groom!

  “Impressive.” I’d almost forgotten Damian was there when he came up behind me and spoke.

  “Yes my fiancé…” I corrected myself. “My ex-fiancé always said the more expensive something is, the better.”

  “Yeah, my parents are like that,” Damian said casually. “They always fly business class and refuse to stay in anything less than a five-star-plus hotel.”

  This revelation shocked me.

  I’d built up a mental image of Damian, and this little tidbit of information about wealthy parents certainly wasn’t part of it. I’d imagined something a little more—how shall I say this?—dirty! In my mind his dad was a Hell’s Angel or some such leather-clad thing. He probably had his own motorcycle repair shop and his mother was a tattoo artist, with body piercings and blue stripes in her hair. And they lived in a house with cigarette burns on the carpets and cat hair on the couch, because his mother was also a cat hoarder. Terribly judgmental of me, I know.

  My curiosity had definitely been piqued, and I decided to pry, as subtly as possible.

  “Um…” I was trying to sound casual, so I threw in another one. “Um, so where do your parents live…um?” (Okay, maybe that hadn’t worked as well as I’d imagined, but he didn’t seem to notice.)

  “They live in Clifton, Cape Town.” He said this phrase as casually as someone might when they say “pass the salt.” But there was nothing casual about this statement at all.

  And now I was downright floored.

  Let me try to explain Clifton, although I doubt I could do it the slightest bit of justice. For starters, it’s the most expensive place to live in the whole of South Africa—perhaps even in the whole of Africa. Not to mention that it has to be one of the
most beautiful places in the world. All the massive houses are perched on cliffs overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. They’re the kind of homes that have their own helipads and butlers named Giles or Hamilton, and where women have walk-in closets the size of small African countries. Now, my parents are what I would call wealthy, but this was on a whole other level.

  I eyed him up and down as he walked in front of me carrying my suitcase, which was very gentlemanly of him, I must say. Damian was definitely a curiosity. Son of possibly billionaire parents dressed in a crappy T-shirt, walking around without a bank card, and in possession of a dirty backpack and terrible split ends.

  How could such a curious creature actually exist?

  I followed him into a rather spectacular entrance hall, up to the reception desk where an exotic beauty greeted us.

  “Welcome to the White Sands Hotel and Spa.” She flashed us a perfect smile. I was struck by how absolutely stunning and graceful Thai women were. She was ever so petit, with perfect, delicate features and the tiniest waist in the world. (I hated her!)

  “Hi, I’m checking in. The reservation is under the name…” I hesitated again. “The name Edwards.” Some buttons were pressed at lightning speed and then she nodded.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Edwards. Congratulations on your wedding.”

  I jumped in to correct her. “No, no we’re not—”

  But before I could finish, Damian cut me off, putting his arm around my shoulders and pulling me closer. “Not able to keep our hands off each other.” And then he turned to me with a goofy smile. “Isn’t that right, honey-bunny-sweet-cheeks?” He was really milking it.

  The woman smiled at us.

  “What the hell are you doing?” I hissed at him.

  “Shhh, go with it. In places like this they bring you all sorts of free stuff like champagne, especially when you’re on honeymoon.”

  Now this guy could probably buy the whole province of Champagne in France and he was getting excited over a free bottle of bubbly. Like I said, a curiosity.

  “Come with me, please, I’ll show you to your room,” the friendly petite woman said, stepping out from behind the desk in an exquisite traditional Thai dress. It was made of brilliant purple silk and covered in the most intricate gold embroidery I’d ever seen. Annie would love it. Perhaps I should buy her one to apologize for ripping all her hard work to shreds?

  When we walked all the way through the hotel and out the other end into a beautiful lush garden, I realized that the honeymoon suite must be separate from the rest of the hotel. The evening air smelled sweet and sticky, and I looked around. The moon was almost full and hung so low, it felt like I could reach out and touch it. The sea was only a short distance away now, and it had been turned into a silver liquid under the moon’s glow. The sand, too, had been transformed into something that shimmered. It was all very magical and this should have pleased me, but it didn’t. Because a movie started playing in my head.

  Roll romantic music and in three, two, one. Action!

  Michael, big, beefy, beautiful, and strapping strides onto the beach in his swimwear. He turns, his oiled chest glistens in the moonlight, and he smiles. He holds out his hand and Lilly runs. Lilly runs and jumps into his arms. He swings her around, and they go tumbling onto the soft, cool sand. His big body rolls over her. He strokes her face.

  MICHAEL: (Looking intently into Lilly’s eyes) I love you, Lilly.

  LILLY: I love you, too.

  MICHAEL: I’m so happy you’re my wife.

  He kisses her forehead. He kisses her cheek. He kisses her on the lips, and she kisses him back. It’s slow and passionate and then everything goes soft-focus and the director pans to a palm tree swaying in the breeze. The romantic music swells.

  Cut! Cut, cut, cut!

  Suddenly there was a searing pain in my chest, as though someone had plunged a knife into my solar plexus. My heart was beating fast, but it was fighting against the strong grip of an invisible fist tightening around it, trying to squeeze the life and blood out of it.

  This was the pain of my heart breaking.

  “Are you okay, Lilly?” Damian was right next to me. “You look pale.”

  “I’m fine. I’m fine.” But I wasn’t.

  We finally arrived at the suite. It was situated behind a neat perimeter of palm trees for maximum privacy, I guess, giving honeymooners the opportunity to do what honeymooners do best. It was also close to the beach. We walked up four small stairs and onto a wooden deck, where an inviting plunge pool greeted us—again, probably there for the purpose of “aqua aerobics.” The receptionist stopped and handed Damian the keys, which made me very uncomfortable.

  “I hope you’ll be happy here. I’ll get someone to bring your bags and some complimentary champagne and snacks.” The elegant woman turned and glided away, and I felt Damian elbow me in the ribs.

  “Told you. Free stuff.” Despite myself, I smiled. A real one. “I hope you don’t mind if I don’t carry you over the threshold?” he said in a joking tone.

  “Not at all. I’m probably too heavy anyway, considering the amount of food I’ve sucked down in the past twenty-four hours.”

  Damian flicked his eyes at me quickly before putting the key in the lock and opening the door.

  “Nonsense. You look great.”

  Did I hear that correctly? Were my ears deceiving me? Okay…rewind!

  I implied I was fat, and he told me I “looked great.” Not good, not nice, not okay. But great! I was speechless, for several reasons really. First, it’s a bit of a weird thing to say to a stranger. Second, it’s a really weird thing to say to a stranger. Third, it’s even weirder to say to a stranger whose nonhoneymoon you’re on. And last, I clearly wasn’t his type.

  I didn’t have any tattoos or piercings in strange places. Nor did I listen to depressing music and write angst-filled poetry about my inner child and pharmaceuticals. And I’d never worn a pair of skinny black jeans in my life! (My thighs were too big.)

  I mean, I had a “Caribbean Caramel” spray tan; long, shiny (and may I add protein-enriched) blond hair with no split ends; and a French manicure. I listened to Taylor Swift and didn’t take antidepressants.

  Perhaps he felt obliged to be polite since I was putting him up for the night?

  The honeymoon suite was, quite frankly, the most beautiful hotel room I’d ever been in. I briefly wondered if Damian had seen better on the numerous expensive holidays he’d no doubt enjoyed with his rich family.

  It was spacious, equipped with sleek, modern finishes—and beyond comfortable. It was, however, far more open plan than I’d initially imagined. It did have a living room, but one that wasn’t very separate from the bedroom…something that would surely prove to be Awkward (again, with a capital A), since I’d offered Damian the couch.

  More awkward, though, was the totally open-plan bathroom, complete with outdoor shower and sunken Jacuzzi bath. Someone had already filled the bath and sprinkled it with rose petals. A feeling crawled up from my gut again as I watched the delicate petals glide on the surface of the water. My bouquet had been made of roses, as were the centerpieces on the beautifully appointed tables. I thought about Michael again, and this time we weren’t rolling in beach sand.

  No, this time I had taken a photograph of us, cut his face out of it, and stuck it on a voodoo doll, and I was stabbing him in the crotch with a pin! (Maybe I did need antidepressants.)

  I was angry. Very fucking angry! Where the hell was he? What was he doing right now? He probably didn’t even know that I was on our honeymoon, and he certainly didn’t know that a strange man was with me. Suddenly I hoped he would find out and die from the excruciating pain of jealousy. Or didn’t he care enough? Did he still love me?

  My face must have betrayed my feelings, because Damian slid up beside me and looked at the bath.

  “I hate those bloody things, they always get stuck in the drain,” he said, bending down and scooping the petals out.

  Although I would never have g
uessed it, or even predicted it, this was one of the kindest things anyone had ever done for me.

  “I’ll just chuck them outside,” he said, exiting with an armful of wet petals. He stopped at the door and turned. “I’ll go and have a dip in the sea while you bathe. I know you said you wanted one.” He paused. “You’re going to be fine, Lilly.” And then he was gone.

  This guy didn’t know me from a bar of soap, and yet he had this uncanny ability to say, and do, the right things at exactly the right time.

  Michael had known me for years, but I guarantee you he would never have worked out that staring at floating red petals was making me feel homicidal. But Damian had.

  Chapter Five

  I met my fiancé, Michael, ex-fiancé I mean, when I was still in college. I was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, full of youthful optimism and my half-full glass runneth over.

  Michael and I met at a very pretentious play, which might as well have been written in Greek, because I wasn’t able to extrapolate a single syllable of sense out of it. The play had been written, directed, and acted in by my stepsister—my mother briefly married a theater director when I was five.

  The marriage had lasted only eight months, but I still remain best of friends with my stepsister, Stormy-Rain. (The story goes that Stormy was literally born in the rain. I’m not sure how true this is, but I always loved to tell everyone that.)

  People are surprised that Stormy and I are so close, because she is the complete antithesis of me; for starters, she wears a lot of knitted scarves and crushed velvet (even in summer). She lives hand to mouth as a theater actress, director, astrologer, and tarot card reader. She has also been known to fire juggle on occasion.

  Personally, I think we were forced to bond during those terrible eight months, when our parents were either violently fighting or drunk, high, and partying.

  But as much as I love Stormy—and I really do—I’d been dreading her play all week. I’d never enjoyed or understood any of them, and the evening always ended with the inevitable “So what did you think?”