Stealing Phin

by Avery Hale

  Even worse, though, would be hearing her say what I already knew—that I should’ve seen Douglas’s infidelity coming.

  That saying about love being blind is right. But whoever made up that quote should’ve also added a part about love making you blind. And while they’re at it, they should do you a favor and drop a clue about the painful process of regaining your sight after being blindsided by love. After it happened to me, I was sure the world would never look the same to me again.

  I used to be a believer in love—real love. That white knight, fairy-tale, til-the-end-of-time kind of love. But that was before yesterday, when I got sucker punched by the only thing I’d ever really believed in.

  Now, I didn’t know what to believe in.

  Not wanting Dez to notice I was breaking Rule Number One and on the verge of breaking Rule Number Two, I stared out the window of the shuttle and pretended to soak up the scenery that zoomed by.

  “Besides,” I added, “I thought you said he was gay.”

  Dez laughed. “Hey, whether it be a sexy Costa Rican or a flower-loving gay man, we’re not leaving this jungle until some Tarzan has you swinging from the vines, my friend.”

  Chapter 2

  THE VOLCANO VILLAS

  “Bienvenida, mis amigas!” A young man greeted us as we checked in at the first resort on our itinerary. “Welcome to Volcano Villas. My name is Roberto.”

  “Please tell me there’s central air here.” Dez’s face was red from the ninety-five-degree heat. The hundred-percent humidity wasn’t exactly doing much in the way of keeping my naturally curly hair in check either.

  Roberto smiled widely. “Yes, of course. Each villa has its own air conditioning.” His English was good and his accent pleasant to the ear. “Where are you from?”

  “Chicago,” I said. “It was about fifty degrees when we left there early this morning.”

  “Ah, yes.” Roberto nodded as he activated our key cards. “I know about Chicago. Very windy, si?”

  I smiled at him. “Si.” The people here seemed so friendly.

  After he took a credit card number to hold for incidentals, Roberto slid several sheets of paper across the desk toward me. “Here, we have a menu of our spa services. We offer massages, body scrubs, facials—all muy bueno. Your stress and tension will be no more.”

  “That sounds fantastic,” I rubbed my neck, which was stiff from the flight.

  “And here,” Roberto pointed to another sheet, “is a list of popular tours.”

  “God, there’s so many to choose from,” I said, scanning the long list.

  My brain hurt from all the thinking about Douglas I’d done during the three-hour drive from the airport to La Fortuna while Dez dozed off in the passenger seat. In that time, I’d managed to go our entire relationship moment-by-moment—every high and every low—trying to figure out where it’d gone wrong.

  When I couldn’t pinpoint anything, I began picking myself apart to figure out what about me wasn’t good enough—a damaging exercise I’d highly advise against.

  I shook my head and tried to focus on the list of tours again. As I skimmed the short blurbs of each tour, none of them got me excited. Fun seemed like such a foreign concept to me as I wallowed in the deep ocean of my self-pity. I already knew whatever fun I had on this vacation would have to be faked for Dez’s sake. My head and heart were too full of other things right now—there just wasn’t any room for fun.

  “Do you recommend any in particular?” I asked once I got halfway through the list and realized I hadn’t really processed anything that I’d read.

  “Yes, of course,” Roberto said, sliding his finger down the page. “Most people come to hike the famous volcano nearby at Arenal. You can hire a tour guide or hike it yourself. Canyoneering, however, is our most popular tour. I suggest you book that one soon. The spaces fill up very fast.”

  “All right,” I said decisively. “Put us down for tomorrow morning for the canyoneering thing, and charge it to the room.” I rubbed again at my neck, which seemed to have gotten worse during the long drive. “And I’m going to get the Natural Elements massage. First available appointment.” I was desperate to get my mind off Douglas. If I kept busy, maybe I’d have less energy to think about him.

  “Excellent choices, mi amiga.” Roberto typed our tour reservation into his computer.

  “Can we hurry this up?” Dez fanned herself vigorously with a brochure she’d picked up from the counter. “We need to vamos, so I can get out of these clothes and get a few piña coladas in me.”

  Roberto smiled. “You are in luck, señorita. Happy hour just started at the pool bar. And since you are so beautiful, and thirsty, I give you two vouchers for complimentary drinks.”

  “Thank God.” Visibly relieved, Dez looked as if she wanted to kiss him. “Now you’re speaking my language, Roberto!”

  ***

  “Hola,” said a striking Costa Rican girl when I entered the spa lounge an hour after we checked in. “Señora Swiftly?”

  “In the flesh.” I smiled before adding, “Actually, it’s just Swift.”

  “Okay, yes.” The girl walked around the reception desk. “Please, this way, Señora Just Swift.”

  Thinking it might be rude if I corrected her, I instead made a mental note to be more careful about how I worded my responses during this trip.

  As I followed the girl down a dimly lit corridor, I wondered how Dez was fairing at the poolside happy hour. Probably pretty well since the only two things she intended to communicate were “I want a piña colada” and “I want to sleep with you,” and she only really needed to use words to communicate one of those messages.

  The girl stopped at a door and knocked. Another beautiful girl opened it. They exchanged a few words in Spanish, of which I understood las cinco en punto which meant five o’clock and my new surname, Just Swift. When the receptionist left, the girl who I presumed to be my masseuse gestured for me to enter.

  The room was even dimmer than the corridor—only a few candles in each corner provided the lighting for the entire space.

  Despite the lack of light, I could see that the floor was made of dark wood. A ceiling fan with large blades made of similar dark colored wood shaped like broad leaves turned slowly, creating just enough of a breeze to carry the scent of vanilla bean and coconut around the room. There were no sounds except the chirp of birds, the croak of frogs, and the buzz of insects coming from the edge of the rainforest, which lay just a dozen steps away.

  It was the perfect setting for a heavenly massage. I felt more relaxed already.

  At the center of the room were two massage beds covered with crisp white linen.

  Why are there two? I wondered.

  My masseuse sprinkled bright pink, fragrant flower petals along the edge of one of the beds. She looked at me and smiled. “Ginger flowers. Very calming scent.”

  “I can use all the help I can get,” I joked.

  She looked at me curiously for a moment. Then, she sprinkled a bunch more petals around the bed.

  While she coated my massage bed with a thick layer of relaxation petals, I turned to the small, round mirror hanging on the wall. I pulled my hair up into a messy bun and shook my head disapprovingly at the state of my face. In general, I tended to keep my make-up at a minimum, but what little I had put on was melting off my face in the Costa Rican heat.

  As I dabbed at my smudged eyeliner with a tissue, yet another beautiful girl (were all the women in Costa Rica gorgeous?) came out of a small annex room. In the mirror, I watched her cross the room to a table where she began to pour oils into a wooden bowl. She wore the same outfit as the other girl and appeared to also be a masseuse.

  Were they both going to be working on me?

  Just as I began contemplating the wonders of a four-handed massage, the door opened. A man walked in.

  “Perdón por llegar tarde,” he began but stopped short when he saw me. It was The Hottie from the airport. “Oh, hi again,” he said.

&
nbsp; “Uh, hi…you,” I said stupidly.

  “Hola,” my masseuse said to The Hottie with a smile that was way bigger than the one she’d greeted me with. Obviously, this guy’s hotness translated easily across cultures. Her eyes flicked over at me again as if to reevaluate something. And then it became clear why.

  “No hay problema, Señor Just Swift.” The girl then gestured for him to take the very same table she’d been decorating with anti-stress petals for me not two seconds earlier.

  Apparently, hotness translated but Girl Code didn’t.

  “Whoa, wait,” I said, “I think there’s been a mix-up. He’s not…we’re not…”

  I looked to the guy for some bilingual assistance, but he stayed silent with a bemused look on his face.

  Did he really think this was funny, or was he just being rude?

  I glowered at him before turning to my masseuse-turned-traitor.

  “He is not Señor Just Swift,” I tried to explain using lots of hand gestures, as if that would help clarify things. “There is no Señor Just Swift. There is not even any Señora Just Swift. My last name is just Swift, I mean, Swift, no just!” I was annoyed at the thought of my much-needed massage being crashed by the hot-but-probably-gay flower hunter, but for some reason his presence flustered me to the point of idiocy.

  The three other people in the room stared at me as if I were a special needs child. Great. Less than twenty-four hours in Costa Rica, and I had already managed to embarrass myself. Classic Phin.

  Finally, the guy spoke to the masseuses. His voice had a nice resonance to it, and none of the lilts that gay men sometimes had. Though, they were probably just lost in translation.

  As he finished his explanation, the girls glanced at me and said, “Ahhhhhh,” in unison. Then, much to my chagrin, they all had a great laugh about something.

  “What’s going on?” I interrupted to remind them I was still in the room. “Did you clear everything up?” I said to the man, who was really starting to get on my nerves.

  The Hottie grinned at me mischievously. “Almost.”

  He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a wallet. He took out a couple of bills and handed one to each girl. The room was dark, but there was enough light for me to identify the bills as twenties.

  Try as I might, I couldn’t tear my eyes off his bicep, which peeked at me from under his sleeve as he slipped his wallet into his back pocket. For a moment I felt guilty for staring. I must have gotten so used to “being good,” as Douglas put it, and looking the other way that it’d take a little adjusting before I was comfortable with being single again.

  The thought made me sad. I’d never felt weird about with being single before Douglas, but after him, “single” seemed to carry the same negative connotation as “alone.”

  The girls thanked him and left the room.

  “So,” I stuck out my chin, “which one of us is going to reschedule?”

  “You can if you want, but I’m not.” He slipped off his shoes. “These girls are booked solid all week. I had to slip the spa manager a twenty just to squeeze me in.”

  “And the twenties for the girls?”

  He shrugged and smiled. “Because I like my massages extra hard.”

  “But you tipped them both.”

  He raised an eyebrow and gave me a once over. “You look like you have a few knots that need loosening up, too.” He proceeded to take off his shirt.

  “Wait, what are you doing!” I attempted to look the other way, but his washboard abs and heaving pecs seemed to have a gravitational effect on my eyeballs.

  “I’m getting undressed for my massage.” He looked me up and down again. “You should, too. If you’re staying. They’ll be back in a couple of minutes.”

  Next, he unbuttoned his jeans.

  He’s gay, he’s gay, he’s gay, gay, GAY, I told myself, as if that would work to put out the fire that lit between my legs when his pants came off. “Listen, mister. I don’t know if I feel comfortable with a…couples, er, joint massage.”

  The guy stopped his inadvertent strip tease and snickered. “Let me guess. You went to Catholic girls school.” He put his hands on the top edge of his boxer briefs and pulled them down just a tad, revealing more of his V-shaped torso. “If that’s the case, you might want to close your eyes at this next part,” he teased.

  My spine prickled at the implication that I was some sort of prude. I huffed at the thought. There were few things that pushed my buttons more than being judged by someone who didn’t even know me. As my blood began to boil, I felt my pride kick in and say, We’ll show him who’s a prude and who’s not.

  What did it matter if he saw me naked? After all, I’d probably never see the guy again after this. Plus, he was gay, in all likelihood. Although, if that were true then I had to admit my gay-dar was in need of a serious tweaking.

  I set my jaw, determined not to let this arrogant jerk chase me out of my much-needed massage with his teasing. I pulled off my tank top and tossed it onto a nearby chair, trying hard to exude way more confidence than I actually had. I kicked off my sandals and pushed them with my foot under the massage bed.

  So far, so good. This isn’t so bad, now, is it? I thought.

  But my thoughts became scrambled as I heard him unzip his jeans. Before I could stop myself, I took a quick peak and immediately wished I hadn’t. Nothing made my knees buckle more than a well-toned man bared down to his skivvies, and the sight of his nearly naked body almost made me lose my balance.

  By some miracle, I managed to take my eyes off him and carefully kept averted from his perfect physique so that I could concentrate on what I was doing. I repeated my new “He’s Gay” mantra over and over in my head as I undid my own jeans and slipped them off. My cheeks instantly blushed.

  Damnit. I’d forgotten that I was wearing my Hello Kitty panties.

  Although it would’ve felt more natural to take them off last, I quickly slid my panties off, hoping he didn’t see the smiling kitten’s face on my ass. Thank goodness I’d gotten a bikini wax before the trip.

  As I reached behind my back to undo my bra, I turned away from The Hottie. The closer to buck naked I got, the more my hands began to shake. I’d never bared my bits-n-bobs to a complete stranger before, and it was way more nerve-wracking than I’d expected.

  Unfortunately, my shaky hands made it harder to work the clasp, so I struggled with it for a few moments.

  “Need help with that?” The Hottie said from behind me.

  As the clasp came undone and the bra slid off, my eyes shot over my shoulder to him. He still had his boxer briefs on. That cheater.

  Then, it dawned on me that he’d been watching me the entire time. Not only that, but he was openly checking me out and had a smug look on his face. He was enjoying this. Instinctively, I directed my eyes to the man’s crotch.

  Sure enough, I noticed something going on in his crotchal region. It could’ve been the dim light playing tricks on my eyes, but bells went off in my head. I knew an erection when I saw one.

  My mouth dropped open, and I pointed at his crotch accusingly. “But you’re gay!” I shouted just as the two masseuses walked back into the room.

  “Huh?”

  I raised my pointer finger from his crotch to his bewildered face. “You asshole—you tricked me!”

  Confused and alarmed by the tone of my voice, the masseuses began spewing out questions in Spanish.

  Too mortified to think or explain, I grabbed my clothes and darted out of the room stark naked.

  Chapter 3

  CANYONEERING

  Early the next morning, Dez and I stood outside the Volcano Villas, waiting to be picked up for our canyoneering tour. The air was hot and humid, but smelled fresh and felt nice on my skin, so I didn’t mind it. It had rained last night. But the sky was bright and sunny when we woke up in the morning.

  It was a new day, and I was determined to let all the horrible memories of yesterday’s botched massage be washed away by
the rain. Although, in all honesty, it would take something more along the lines of a typhoon to achieve that. So, when the transportation that was supposed to take us to the tour site pulled up fifteen minutes late, my heart sank.

  “There’s no way in fuck I’m getting onto that thing,” Dez said, looking at “that thing” with distaste. She was hung over and in a bad mood.

  “Now there’s something you don’t say very often,” I said, though I had to admit the exact same thought flitted through my mind.

  I eyed the wood board slats nailed to the sides of the bed of the pick-up truck—jerry rigged seating for ten. A green tarp tied to the top of three metal bars that arched over the truck bed offered questionable protection from the weather.

  “It looks like one of those trucks that smuggles illegal aliens across the border.” I mumbled.

  Ugh. This tour was already not going how I’d hoped. I wanted, no, I needed it to be engaging enough to make me forget about last night. After I got back to our villa, I had spent the rest of the evening stewing until Dez came back late from the pool bar, completely tanked. Too tanked, in fact, to be the sympathetic ear I needed to vent to about how I streaked my way back to the room from the massage-that-never-happened. Not to mention the Not-gay-after-all Hottie who turned out to be a jerk.

  It was just as well. Complaining about him would’ve just gotten me even more worked up, although, I wasn’t sure that was possible. The way he looked so smug about the fact that he’d tricked me into showing him my goods made me so mad I could spit more venom than a jungle viper.

  I just hoped I’d never see him again. He probably slept with both masseuses, too. And at the same time. The thought made me even angrier. He was one of those guys blessed with good looks and charm, and he didn’t deserve either. I didn’t use the word “hate” often, but what I felt toward this guy came pretty close to that.