“I know.” She wiped at her mouth with the back of her hand. “It’s okay. Go find your friend. If she locks you out again, you know where to find me.”
I smoothed my hands over the front of my skirt. My heart was still galloping in my chest. “I-I’ll see you later.”
If she responded, I didn’t hear her.
CHAPTER TEN
The sounds of foreign birds chirped and chattered and greeted me good morning. My vacation partner, however, was not in an equally chipper mood. The sheets on Racy’s bed were twisted and rumpled, and I could make out the shape of her arms and legs, equally contorted, beneath the hotel sheets. Her head poked up amongst the pillows and blankets.
“God, can you shut those things off?” she complained.
“The birds?” I laughed.
Her head slammed back down on one of her pillows. “It’s way too early for them to sound so damn happy,” she groaned. “There’s pounding. So much pounding. Why won’t the pounding stop?”
“Maybe because you drank the bar dry last night?” I supplied.
“I was just getting my money’s worth,” she grumbled. “And how are you so goddamn chipper this morning?”
Probably because I had a wicked awesome orgasm, but I wasn’t going to tell her that.
“So I take it you’re staying in bed a little longer,” I remarked.
“I may never get out of bed again.”
I didn’t particularly want to look like the sad, lonely, single lady on vacation by herself, but the pull to make the most out of our final full day on the island was too strong to remain in the hotel room while Racy slept off her hangover.
I discovered that the rest of the resort guests must have been experiencing similar symptoms as Racy; it wasn’t too early, but was certainly late enough that more people should have been by the pools or at the bars. After breakfast, I wandered around the resort grounds and took photos of the various flowers and wild, indigenous animals that had claimed the resort as their own.
My exploring inadvertently brought me to the merchant row that Racy and I had visited earlier in the trip. I told myself the detour had been unintentional, but I couldn’t deny how my entire body seemed to flush and my heart leapt into my throat when I spotted Kate at her makeshift kiosk. I observed her from afar, interacting with a couple of tourists, no doubt trying to charm them and convince the man in the group to open up his wallet and buy one of her painted coconuts.
She wore her red swim trunks and another of her horrible Hawaiian shirts—this one bright green with even brighter red flowers printed across the shirt. It was almost Christmas colors, appropriate for the holiday season. Mirrored sunglasses acted like a headband and kept her short hair out of her face. When she laughed or smiled, bright white teeth showed her amusement, and she leaned close and touched people’s arms as if confiding intimate secrets. It was all part of her sale’s pitch, I knew. Like wait staff whose paycheck was dependent on patrons’ tips, her survival was similarly reliant on being able to convince strangers that their lives were not complete without a painted coconut.
I feigned interest in a kiosk selling beaded bracelets while I continued to observe Kate. The couple she had been conversing with had passed on the coconut purchase. I watched her face for signs of disappointment or discouragement, but her features remained stoic until the next potential couple approached and the routine started all over again.
It made me ponder her existence painting and selling coconuts. I wondered about her overhead costs: did she have to pay for the canvas or did she forage for the raw materials herself? She probably had to pay a fee to the resort in order to set up shop on their property. Was it a monthly fee? Annual? Did they take a cut out of every coconut she sold? Did she own her one-room house outright? Was she paying rent? Did she plan to do this for the rest of her life? Could selling coconuts pay for health insurance and an IRA? I nearly gave myself a panic attack thinking about this woman and the uncertainty of her future.
I eventually bought a beaded bracelet more out of guilt than necessity before slowly walking in the direction of Kate’s kiosk. I didn’t have a plan, but it seemed silly to be in her general vicinity without at least stopping by to say hi.
She had her head dipped low in concentration and didn’t notice my approach. As I grew closer, I saw her latest art project in her hands—a beach scene complete with an oversized multi-colored umbrella and the words Bon bini to Paradise scrawled across the length of the coconut in a careful calligraphy.
Unsure of what to say—how to greet her—I simply cleared my throat. Her head snapped up at the noise, and her features split into a broad grin upon seeing me.
“Hey, pretty lady.”
I dismissed the empty compliment. I’d just witnessed her trying to charm several tourists and this felt like more of her saleswoman routine.
“How’s the coconut business today?” I asked.
Her smile flattened. “Pretty slow,” she admitted. “Lots of window shoppers, but no serious buyers.”
“How many do you typically sell in a day?”
“Depends on how long I make my work day,” she qualified. “Some of these guys are out here twelve hours a day,” she said, nodding at the vendors in the immediate area. “If I wanted to work that long, I’d go back to the States.”
She hadn’t directly answered my question, but rather had given me a kind of answer. I was starting to notice a pattern with her; direct questions typically resulted in indirect replies.
“Where’s your bad friend?” she asked as if noticing Racy’s absence for the first time. “Did she find another boyfriend?”
“In bed with a hangover,” I supplied.
Her smile seemed to grow with the information. “Bad for her; good for me.”
“What do you mean?”
“I get you to myself again. What kind of adventure do you want to have today?”
Her enthusiasm and earnestness had me stammering. “Oh, I, uh, I didn’t come over here for that.”
Her fine eyebrows arched. “Then why did you come over?” she posed. “Are you in the market for another coconut?”
Why had I come over? I hadn’t really considered what it would be like to see her the morning after she’d licked me to completion in a semi-public area. Memories of the evening had me growing warm in places thankfully hidden by the bottom half of my bikini.
“You’re working,” I dismissed. “I don’t want to interrupt; I just wanted to say hi before I go read my book by the pool.”
Kate ignored my words and had begun to pack up her things. “I’ve got just the adventure in mind.”
“No, you really don’t have to do that,” I backpedaled.
“Hey, Eva!” she called to the woman from whom I’d bought the beaded bracelet. “Will you keep an eye on my stuff?”
The woman in question waved her hand in acquiesce. I could only stand awkwardly while Kate continued to ignore my progressively weakening refusal.
“I didn’t mean to cut your day short.”
“You didn’t. The lack of tourists did.”
“Maybe they’ll come later. I don’t want you to miss out on a big sale because of me.”
Did Curaçao have universal healthcare? What would happen if she broke her arm?
Kate put her hands on her narrow hips and regarded me. “I can tell this is a big issue for you. How about this—we hang out for a few hours and then I’ll come back to work. Does that work better for your conscience?”
I nodded.
“Good.” She clapped her hands and rubbed her palms together. “Now that we’ve shelved your guilt for a few hours, I hope you’re ready to get wet.”
+ + +
Kate tiptoed across the rocky shoreline and I obediently followed behind. We had ventured just beyond the resort’s boundaries; signs in multiple languages warned of this fact as if to say that those who traveled past the invisible boundary were own their own. Kate had been so confident and so insistent though that I had
put up little to no resistance.
A few yards away, the chaotic ocean crashed against the outcropping of jagged rocks. Each incoming wave covered my feet and ankles, and the tide threatened to suck me out to sea as the water retreated. Neither of us wore shoes, but she was clearly less tender footed than myself. Each tentative step brought a sharp pain to the bottom of my naked feet, but I was determined to keep up with my adventure guide. I grit my teeth to distract myself from the pain and silently trailed behind. My stubbornness knew no bounds.
Just a little farther,” Kate promised. “It’s totally worth it.”
For our excursion, she’d ditched the boxy Hawaiian shirt for a solid blue bikini top. If I hadn’t been so focused on the placement of each careful step after the next, I might have been distracted by the muscles in her upper back, or how the accumulation of sweat had started to leave a wet trail down the small of her back and disappeared down the waistline of her red swim shorts.
“Careful up here,” she cautioned as we reached a group of rocks covered in green algae.
She reached back for me, and I too naturally grabbed her hand. I was sure she was only doing it to help me cross the slippery rocks, but I couldn’t ignore the intimacy of the gesture. I nearly forgot my surroundings, distracted by the shape and feel of her hand.
“Check it out.” Her voice pulled me back.
At first I wasn’t sure where she had taken me or what I was supposed to be looking at—I was too busy looking at her. But when I noticed Kate’s downcast eyes, I looked to the ground as well. We must have been at low tide; all around us, craters of rock and sand had become small puddles. Starfish, tiny crabs, snails, and other miniature marine animals had collected in the tidal pools.
Kate dropped my hand to crouch down and get a closer look. “I could stare at these tidal pools all day. It’s like their own little world in there. It’s like their own planet. It makes me wonder if maybe we’re in our own little tidal pools, too, unaware of there being so much more out there.”
I watched Kate through my peripheral vision. In that moment she reminded me of some of my students, in awe of something basic and primal like how a tiny seed can become a tree or a caterpillar becomes a butterfly while the adult world had long ago become jaded and cynical.
“What?” Kate’s attention snapped away from the mini-ecosystem to return to me.
I kept my musings to myself. “Nothing,” I smiled.
“I think it’s cool,” she grunted.
“I do, too,” I appeased. “Thank you for sharing it with me.”
She pulled her sunglasses down to cover her eyes. “It’s not a big deal.”
I opened my mouth to apologize for making her feel self-conscious, but a particularly strong wave struck the back of my knees and shoved me toward the tidal pool we’d so recently been admiring. Beneath the ocean’s blanket, my right knee struck against some of the jagged rock my feet had been complaining about earlier. I sucked in a sharp hiss in pain. The sting was immediate—saltwater on the open wound.
Kate noticed my reaction and she pushed her sunglasses back onto her forehead. “Are you okay?”
I nodded although I hadn’t yet looked at my knee to inspect the damage. I gingerly lifted my knee above the water’s surface. My kneecap had begun to bleed, but I could tell it wasn’t a very deep cut. The rock had only scraped away the surface layer of skin like road rash.
Kate didn’t have the same reaction as me. “Shit. You’re bleeding,” she rumbled.
Before I could tell her I was okay, strong arms were scooping me up and off of my feet, aided by the natural buoyancy of the ocean water. Her arms hooked under my thighs and my calves dangled over the side of her forearms.
I groaned, not from pain or discomfort, but from her sudden proximity.
She misinterpreted the source of my sound. “Shit. This was a bad idea.”
“I’m really okay,” I insisted, quickly recovering as gracefully as one can when their feet are dangling above the ground.
I thought I was bigger than her—slightly taller and definitely a broader frame—yet she’d hoisted me off my feet with little visible effort. She was deceptively strong or strung out on adrenaline like those stories you hear about moms lifting up cars in order to protect their children.
“You can put me down. I’m okay,” I repeated.
Kate looked around as if deciding where to land me. She took a few steps with me still in her arms before setting me down on a small sandy refuge. I leaned over to get a better look at the damage to my knee.
I heard Kate cough. “Uh, I kinda screwed up your top.”
I glanced down at my chest and abruptly tugged the top of my one piece; my right breast was threatening to pop free from the Lycra material. If I hadn’t been so concerned about my knee, I would have dove into the ocean to hide my embarrassment.
“Here. Have a seat,” Kate coaxed. Her hand fell to my hip and she ushered me to a small outcropping of boulders.
The large stones were warm from baking in the sun, but not too hot to sit on. More mindful of my bathing suit the second time around, I pressed my hand to the top of my breasts before leaning over against to inspect my knee. A wide cut bisected the length of my kneecap. The wound was wide, but not deep—more like road rash than an actual cut.
Kate kneeled down in front of me. “The salt water’s probably the best thing for that cut,” she said. She scooped a handful of ocean water from a nearby tidal pool and released it over my knee. Small bits of sand and other ocean debris washed away. She continued to pour handfuls of water over the open wound. The water slightly stung, but no worse than rubbing alcohol.
“You’ll survive,” she announced.
“You think so, doc?” I joked.
“Yep. I bet they won’t even have to amputate.”
Still in her kneeling position, Kate leaned toward me and pressed her lips against the area adjacent to my cut. It was meant to be an innocent gesture; but she kissed my knee and I felt it other places. We still hadn’t kissed. We’d done just about everything else, but I had yet to feel those lips on mine.
“Better?”
Her mouth and breath were warm against my already enflamed skin. Her hands rested lightly on my upper thighs. Luckily, the bottom of my suit was already wet from the ocean; I don’t think I could have gotten any wetter.
She looked up at me from beneath pale eyelashes. Her hair fell across her forehead, and I resisted the urge to brush it from her face.
“I suppose I should attempt to sell some coconuts today.”
I swallowed hard. “I suppose so.”
Her mouth—her lips that had been pressed so gently, almost tenderly, against my knee—formed a crooked smile.
“Unless you’ve got a better idea?”
She stroked invisible patterns across my knee with the pad of her thumb.
A rush of arousal rippled down my spine.
She doesn’t have a retirement plan.
I tilted my head up and stared into the powder blue sky. “You should go back to work.”
Kate slowly pulled herself to her feet. “Really?” Her features pinched together. “Are you sure?”
No.
I let out a slow breath. “I’ve distracted you enough for one day,” I decided.
“You didn’t hear me complain, did you?”
“No. But I’m starting to feel guilty for keeping you from your work. What if you miss out on a big sale because of me?”
Kate shrugged her boney shoulders. “Okay. If you’re sure.”
I wasn’t.
She offered a hand and helped me stand. “How’s the knee feel?” she asked.
I hated how good her arm felt around my waist. I hated that I couldn’t turn off my brain long enough to enjoy a frivolous moment.
I grit my teeth together. “I’ll survive.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
My suitcase was open on the bed. Racy, having spent the day re-cooperating from her hangover, hadn’t even begu
n to pack yet. Outside, the sun was setting on our last night in Curaçao.
“It’s our last night on the island,” Racy announced, stepping out of the bathroom. “What do you want to do?”
I looked over at my nearly empty suitcase. I’d over-packed for our vacation, not knowing what to expect from Curaçao, so luggage space had been tight. I now lamented having to repack. Experience told me dirty clothes tended to take up more space in the suitcase than clean ones.
“We should probably have an early night,” I reasoned. “We still have to pack.”
“But it’s our last night!” she complained. “Don’t you want one more adventure?”
I almost didn’t want to know what she had in mind, but I asked anyways. “Like what?” I questioned.
“Well, we still haven’t gone to the resort’s dance club.”
I felt my lip start to curl, but I halted the movement before my upper lip could lift too high. I was still angry with myself for telling Kate to go back to work. Maybe tonight I could redeem myself. “Okay. I’m game.”
Racy’s eyes widened. “Are you serious?”
“As long as we’re not out too late,” I qualified. “I don’t want to be overtired or hungover on our flight.”
“Have you ever been hungover a day in your life?” she challenged.
“Yes!” I defended myself. “I went to college, you know.”
“I know—but I more picture you spending Friday nights at the university library.”
I grimaced at the description. “That’s true. But there was also a lot of … experimenting … in my first year of college. Don’t forget that I was away from my hyper-religious parents for the first time.”
“Oooh,” she cooed. “Experimenting. Like what? Drugs?”
“No,” I was quick to reject. “Alcohol. And girls.”
“Oh, right!” Racy chuckled to herself. “Sometimes I forget you’re gay.”
“How is that even possible?” I wondered.
“Well, you don’t look the part,” she noted.
I arched an eyebrow. “Just because I wear skirts and have enough hair to put in a ponytail?”
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