The Pleasure of His Company

by Lindsay Evans

  “Thanks.” Kingsley had to laugh.

  “Anytime, buddy.” Max slapped Kingsley on the shoulder and stood up, brushing the sand from his knees. “I’ll see you later. This breeze is too nice to waste.”

  “Yeah, later.” The breeze really was nice, its strong gusts coming from the direction of Venezuela and bringing with it the faint scent of flowers and fresh coconuts.

  Any other day and Kingsley would’ve been in the air even though he wasn’t scheduled for any events; he loved the sport that much. But today he was too distracted.

  Everything reminded him of Adah.

  He watched Max launch into the air and wondered if his friend could see everything happening on the beach, and if he could see Adah.

  Damn. Maybe she was somewhere nearby right now but he just couldn’t see her, a problem he wouldn’t have if he was in his kite. Kingsley sat up and started to grab his stuff. If he left now, he could be in the air in less than half an hour...

  A pair of bare legs and a plastic bag carrying a green coconut appeared in his view.

  “Hey,” Adah said.

  His mood switched so quickly from desperation to relief that he almost felt light-headed.

  Cool it, man.

  He forced himself to relax, to switch back on the casual flirtation they’d both grown used to. Kingsley deliberately trailed his eyes along her legs, taking his slow and good time appreciating the sheen of her skin, the long limbs he’d imagined wrapped around him, the loose fit of her denim shorts hiding the warm heat he longed to bury his face into. He forced his gaze abruptly higher. That tactic wasn’t a good one either.

  “What brings you out here?” Kingsley asked. “Are you looking for a new guy to cheat on your old man with?” He clenched his teeth. That was completely uncalled for, but dammit, she had him twisted up in so many knots he didn’t know if he was coming or going.

  Adah winced at his words and looked ready to bolt. He reached out and grabbed her ankle, startled at how delicate and soft her bones felt between his fingers.

  “Sorry.” He deliberately bit his tongue. “That was a stupid and mean thing to say. Take a load off. I promise not to say any more dumb things to you. At least not for the next few minutes.”

  Adah hovered above him, obviously undecided, obviously hurt. He brushed his thumb over her ankle.

  “I was being an idiot. It’s a bad habit I default to sometimes.” Without waiting for her to say yes, he moved to make room for her on his blanket. “Sit. Please.”

  When she sank gracefully down on the blanket next to him he released the breath he’d been holding. She chewed on the corner of her lip, waiting, it seemed, for him to say something else that would hurt.

  “When I don’t get what I want, I can be an ass,” he said.

  “No kidding.”

  She stayed next to him instead of getting up and walking away like any sane person would. She cradled the plastic bag in her lap, her fingers tugging nervously at the handles of the bag. Then she took out a straw and put it in the coconut, which sloshed with sweet water. She began to drink, watching him from beneath her lashes. Suspicious. Curious.

  “Do you want to start over?” she asked.

  Christ, yes. He chuckled, shaking his head ruefully. “Her Majesty is so very generous to her foolish subject.”

  “I learn from the best.”

  She drank, thirsty and purposeful, from the coconut in her hands and watched him in a way that made him thirsty and purposeful. He looked away from her mouth around the straw, to the water and the beach. It was already full of spectators and sun worshippers at half past two in the afternoon. Down the beach, he noticed a familiar trio. The girls from the day before.

  They wore bikinis again today, solid-colored bottoms in bright shades with halter tops fringed like western wear. He knew that was the current style now, fringes along bikini tops to make women’s breasts look bigger. It wasn’t an illusion he appreciated.

  His gaze landed on them for only a moment. But it was long enough for them to notice his attention and for all three to notice Adah, who sat like a queen on his blanket, mistress of everything near her, especially him. One of the girls winked at him, and Kingsley raised his eyebrow at her before looking away. He still wasn’t interested in what they had to offer.

  The sun was hot on his nearly naked body, burning through the white Speedo he’d absentmindedly pulled from the dresser drawer, his mind already on what the day would bring. But with Adah so close and doing a terrible job of hiding her interest in seeing him half-naked, he felt himself stir. Kingsley shifted and cleared his throat, amused. He hadn’t lacked this much control of his body since he was a kid and waking up sticky from dreams he barely understood.

  “Do you want to go for a drink?” It was early enough in the day that an invitation like that was a little questionable. But he didn’t want to go kiting now, and he certainly didn’t want to go swimming with her and expose himself as the desperately horny teenage boy he’d suddenly become.

  Adah hesitated a moment before she shrugged. “Sure. I could use something more interesting than this coconut water.”

  From the sounds she was making with the straw, the coconut water was almost finished. Perfect timing. Without looking, Kingsley reached behind him and into his bag for the jean shorts and T-shirt he’d shrugged off earlier.

  “I know the perfect place.”

  As he pulled on his clothes, he thought about the girls from the day before and the offer they’d made him. A drink and sex. A bar and a bed. Kingsley tried to convince himself he wasn’t offering Adah the same thing now.

  He finished buttoning his shorts. “You ready?”

  “Yeah.”

  He wanted to feel more regret about leaving the tournament and the beautiful kiting day behind. The wind was perfect and could easily take him high above any sharks or temptations lying in wait for him. But Adah was what he wanted now, her warm presence by his side, her skin that smelled like a sweet-and-spicy mix of ginger and sugar and glowing with more color than when he’d met her. She walked, steady and unafraid, by his side. As if even though she didn’t know exactly where Kingsley was going, she would confidently go there with him.

  “Have you been in the water today?” he asked.

  “Not yet. I was hoping for later this afternoon when the heat is less intense. The water feels really good on my skin near the end of the day.”

  He hummed a response, mentally tripping over the image of her in the water. Bikini and sunlight. Wet skin and vulnerable belly begging for his touch.

  “Sounds like a good way to spend the hottest part of the day.” He convinced himself he was being generous for a moment before he opened his mouth again. “You can come over and take a dip in my pool if the sea gets too rough for you, or you don’t feel like getting sand in your bathing suit.”

  She grinned at him, genuinely amused it seemed. “You’re so kind.”

  “I am. I’m glad you finally realized that.”

  They walked down the beach toward the quieter stretches of sand, past million-dollar houses and empty plots of arid land that investors had yet to take advantage of. Kingsley had thought a time or two about investing in more than just the small house he’d bought for his own private use while he was on the island. Maybe a hotel or restaurant, something separate from his family’s corporation and financial interests. But something in him was reluctant to make money from a place he found so much pleasure in. Some deeply buried hippie part of him wanted to keep it “pure” in a way the business part of him thought was highly impractical.

  He stopped Adah with fingers on her lower back when they got to the modest beach bar owned by an old friend. “This is us.”

  She looked over the bar fronting the smooth stretch of white sand and calm water, the quaint wooden structure with a thatched r
oof and handmade wooden stools in front. Reggae music played from behind it. On the sand closer to the beach, a half dozen hammocks swayed under the palapas, whose coconut-thatched roofs rustled in the perpetual Aruban wind.

  A place like this, affordable and old-fashioned in the best way, would normally be overrun by tourists, Kingsley knew. But Josue kept word of it quiet, inviting only a select few to his bar. He didn’t turn away the tourists who found him, but he wasn’t exactly welcoming to them either. His scowl and crappy service were usually enough to send them packing—even with his delicious rum punch in their bellies—never to return.

  “I like this music,” Adah said. She was smiling and walking up ahead of him to approach the nameless bar.

  From behind the counter, Josue waved at Kingsley. His tersely offered “Afternoon to you” made Kingsley grin.

  Josue’s broad body moved with slow skill as he mixed drinks for the people taking up space on four of his eight stools. He was by no means the fastest bartender out there, his nearly three-hundred-pound frame with its massive hands weren’t made for speed. But everything he concocted was good in a way that made Kingsley do a double take, wondering if he’d been drinking his mai tais and Long Island iced teas wrong all these years. Josue was also a good man. Slow to anger. Steady in his friendships. A solid foundation to the community Kingsley had found on the island. Josue slid tall glasses of a red-and-white drink in front of two of his patrons.

  “It’s not a good afternoon?” Kingsley asked.

  “Too early to tell,” Josue said, although it was nearly three. He watched Adah approach, sizing her up not unkindly. “Who is this poor thing unlucky enough to meet up with you?”

  Kingsley leaned against the bar to exchange a quick hug with Josue before inviting Adah to sit on a stool. Once she sat, he did the same. He introduced them.

  “Pleased to meet you, miss,” Josue said. “Although you hanging out with this guy makes me worry for you.”

  “Hey now. I only have the most honorable intentions here.”

  Josue wiped down the bar, swiping his rag past Adah’s resting hands, close enough to give them a pat of sympathy. “What can I get for you?”

  Kingsley asked for the rum punch and encouraged Adah to do the same. Ordering the drinks he did in the lounges in Miami seemed a shame and a waste of Josue’s considerable skill, although the bartender could make something as simple as a Cuba Libre taste incredible.

  “I think I’m in love,” Adah said with a wide smile at the bartender once she’d tasted her drink.

  “I’ll just add you to my list,” Josue said, deadpan.

  She laughed. After a few minutes catching up with Kingsley, Josue excused himself to tend to the other patrons. The space between them and where Kingsley and Adah sat was enough to give an illusion of privacy. The sound of the waves was a muffling sort of white noise that amplified the effect.

  “I’m glad you came out this afternoon,” Kingsley told Adah as he turned on his stool to face her. “Although I’m sorry for taking you away from the tournament. The kiters are fun to watch.”

  Her bottom lip slid from between her teeth, reddened and plush. “To be honest, I only came by to see you.”

  Her confession wasn’t exactly a surprise. But the blood still thudded through his veins when she actually said the words. “You came by to see what your new friend was doing?”

  “Yes?” The way she made her response a question made Kingsley smile. “The dogs scattered my mind yesterday,” Adah continued. “I didn’t tell you everything I came to. I thought if I dropped by today in a clearer state of mind, then I could let you know what was going on and really give you an explanation for what happened the other night.”

  Kingsley wondered if it was just the presence of the dogs that had scattered her mind. If she’d been feeling anything close to what he’d felt, aroused from their proximity to each other and aware of the bedroom not very far away, he understood why her thoughts hadn’t been very coherent. It had taken nearly an hour after she left for him to calm down enough to make any sort of sense of the reports he was looking at.

  “You want to tell me now?” He wrapped a hand around the thick glass of rum punch. The condensation and coolness seeped into his palm.

  “Will you listen?”

  “Of course.” I’ll listen to anything you have to say all day and all night long.

  She blinked at him, and for a moment, Kingsley thought she’d read his mind. She took a sip from her drink, then looked down the bar to where Josue talked with someone who looked like a relative, only with long hair around his shoulders and a naked back covered in tribal tattoos.

  She shook her head, a dismissive motion he was sure would lead to more avoidance on her part. He wasn’t wrong.

  “This is the life,” she said as if she hadn’t just asked him to listen to something important she had to say. “Drinking rum punch and sitting at the bar next to a gorgeous man.” Kingsley grinned at that, his ego decisively stroked by her casual compliment. “I could get used to this. But I always overthink things. That’s my problem.”

  “There’s absolutely nothing wrong with enjoying a warm body by your side and a delicious drink in your belly. That is some of the best stuff of life.”

  “But I’m sure that’s not all you want to do with your life,” she said.

  “You either,” Kingsley responded. “I am very sure of that.”

  “How can you be so certain when you just met me a couple of days ago? You don’t know.”

  “Well, I do know. You don’t strike me as the lazy type.”

  “I love kids.” Adah brushed her thumb against the rim of her glass, a slow back-and-forth motion that distracted Kingsley more than it should have. “Although I don’t think I’ll have a lot of them, maybe one, maybe none at all after this mess with my engagement, I’d love to be surrounded by them. They’re so sweet and innocent, they are the best of us, distilled into the smallest packages.”

  Kingsley agreed. Someday he, too, would like to have kids, but only after he found the right woman. His gaze lingered on Adah’s face, on the beauty and kindness he found there. Someone like her should have children if she wanted them. It was easy to imagine her surrounded by a nest of pillows and propped up in bed with a baby at her breast. He ignored the part of him that thought it should be his baby.

  He took a quick drink of the punch to moisten his suddenly dry throat. “What makes you think you might not have any children?”

  Kingsley watched her stutter over the beginning of a thought. She fidgeted on the stool and did not meet his eyes, her hand moving toward her glass of rum punch, then away without picking it up. He finished his drink with a deep gulp and signaled Josue for another. After his drink came, Josue nodded at him before wandering away again.

  “When I was twenty,” Adah finally said, “I made a decision I regret now.”

  An abortion? Kingsley drew a quiet breath of sympathy. He imagined Adah young and studious, a vulnerable girl who’d fallen prey to some slick college senior with pretty words in his mouth to talk her into things she wasn’t ready for. A need rose up in him to protect and shelter her.

  “Choices are there to be made,” he said. “We all have had to deal with difficult ones at one time or another.”

  Adah glanced down to the other end of the bar again, as if checking to see if anyone was paying any attention to their conversation. But Kingsley knew from experience, as both talker and listener, that people tended to ignore the discussions of foreigners. If Adah had been a local, her business would’ve been all over the island before she could climb off the stool and head back home. Even Kingsley, someone who came to Aruba every year and made connections with people he found interesting, was generally ignored. Just like he ignored the threads of gossip about some islanders.

  “It was stupid,” Adah finally
said. “My parents were in trouble.”

  Kingsley’s head jerked up. Her parents?

  “Wait. You didn’t have an abortion?”

  Adah stopped and wrinkled her brow at him. “What would make you think that?”

  He shook his head, gave a soft laugh. “Never mind. Nothing. I was just presuming.” Would Adah have allowed herself to be taken advantage of by some ignorant college punk? When she kept frowning, he waved his drink at her in dismissal. “No, really. Keep talking. What you have to say is much better than what I thought you were going to say anyway.”

  “Okay...” She sucked at the corner of her mouth. “You’re a weird guy—anyone ever tell you that?”

  “Strangely enough, you’re the first.”

  “People have been lying to you all your life then,” she said. “Anyway.” She paused again. “My parents have a company they started just after they married. They became partners in life just about the same time they became partners in business. Their company did well for a long time. At least well by their standards. A small niche market loved Palmer-Mitchell Naturals, and they were happy with them as customers.” A proud smile lit up her face. “They loved their company.”

  Kingsley’s eyebrows twitched up. He was surprised to hear the name of a company that his sister Adisa loved. She’d never had any chemicals in her hair and swore by everything from the Palmer-Mitchell Naturals line, never abandoning them to get on the bandwagon and embrace other, more popular products that had come along to take advantage of the natural hair care movement.

  “But they ran into some trouble along the way, nothing immediate, but it was something they had to deal with using a long-term plan.” Adah sounded like she was repeating what had been told to her about the company, not what she had discovered for herself. “They had to find a partnering company to help pull them into a new and more profitable era, especially since the competition has grown exponentially over the years with so many companies that had been in the hair-perming business suddenly creating products for natural hair. They had to create a strategy that would keep them in business and maximize their profits without compromising quality.” She paused and looked into the middle distance, a wrinkle forming between her brows as she turned over whatever it was that only she could see.