One Hot Summer

by Heidi McLaughlin

  “I’m with a strange man, and they shouldn’t worry? Hmm.”

  “I guess your friends are better friends to you than you are to them?” Lincoln raises an eyebrow along with his question, and as much as I’d like to slap him across the face for crossing a line into my business, I also realize he might be a little right, which makes me feel worse.

  “Maybe they’re too drunk to realize I’m missing,” I tell him.

  “Maybe,” he says. “Where are you from?”

  “Boston,” I answer through a sigh. “You?”

  “Upstate New York. I work for a tourism company and requested a transfer for this job about two months ago. It pays well.”

  “Interesting,” I tell him. He doesn’t strike me as someone who came from Upstate New York, but who knows where I look like I’m from.

  “I’m a photo editor for a small city-life magazine in Boston.”

  “I’m surprised you don’t have your camera,” he continues.

  “I’m not a photographer,” I correct him. “I can’t even figure out how to use the filters properly on my phone, but I’ve grown up using Photoshop and Lightroom, so I work mainly with those platforms.”

  Just as I finish explaining my career, Lincoln stands up, looking off into the distance like he sees something concerning. “Crap. Come here.”

  “What’s wrong?” I ask.

  Lincoln pulls me up to my feet so I can see over the rocks I was sitting behind. Dark storm clouds are moving in.

  “Our thunderstorms here don’t last long but they can be brutal for the few minutes they’re happening. We need to take cover.”

  “What? Where?”

  Lincoln helps me down a couple of rocks, then up another two, and through a small maze of other rocks that lead to a few forming a cave. The cave is just big enough for two people.

  “Don’t worry,” he tells me. “Just scoot in and sit down.” I do as he says because I’m silently freaking out again. Lincoln squeezes in next to me, and though there is room for the two of us, the entire right side of my body is flush against the entire left side of his body. He’s warm, which is comforting despite sweltering from the sun for the last hour.

  “I lived outside for a year,” he confesses.

  “Voluntarily?” I ask.

  “No,” he replies. “I was homeless.”

  4

  The rain is thundering over us. Flashes of lightning are coming in every minute and the booms, are simultaneous. The storm must be directly overhead. “Don’t focus on the rain,” Lincoln says. “You’re safe under here, despite what you’re thinking.”

  “Tell me your story,” I mutter, peeking out and around the rocks to see where the tide is. The water looks as though it stopped rising at least.

  “My story, huh?”

  “Yeah, tell me why you were homeless for a year,” I continue. I am trying to focus on his story despite my anxiety.

  “Well, my dad died when I was ten from lung cancer, and my mom never recovered from the loss. She was a stay-at-home-mom before my dad got sick and had been so since I was born. She had no resume, no experience, and no good way to get a job that payed well enough to support us once my dad’s life insurance ran out. I got a job when I turned fourteen, but I was bringing in five dollars an hour and only allowed to work so many hours a week. We couldn’t win the battle, no matter how hard we tried.”

  My hand is on my chest and I have, in fact, forgotten about the rain. Lincoln’s story makes me wonder how many people I walk by every day who has a story like his. I grew up with two parents that weren’t happy together, but they still gave me a stable life. “When did you end up homeless?”

  Lincoln folds his hands together between his knees. I watch his hands as he collects his thoughts. I see an astrology sign of Leo tattooed on his pointer finger. I wonder if it’s his sign or his dad’s. I also notice his fingernails are well manicured for an outdoorsy guy. I like a guy who takes care of his nails. I don’t know why it’s a thing for me, but dirty nails make me crazy.

  “I was sixteen. Our mortgage payment was due, our roof was leaking, and our basement flooded. It was one of those storms you don’t see coming. It hit us hard, and we were late on our home owner’s insurance. We were forced to foreclose. Things just continued in a downward spiral after that. My mom got laid off, and we would not survive on me mowing lawns as I was doing. Our town only had a small homeless shelter, and they took the elderly and sick first, so as hard is it was for us to understand and believe, we had to find other ways to survive.”

  “In Upstate New York? It’s cold up there like nine months of the year, isn’t it?”

  “Sure is,” he says.

  “I’m so sorry.” I know that’s not what he needs to hear, but I’ve never met anyone who has gone through something like that.

  “It made me a good man, Alex. I don’t regret one day of that year. I kept us alive. I built a shelter in the woods, fished for food, kept fires going. I did what I had to.”

  “I feel like I’m at a much lower standard that you,” I tell him. “I couldn’t even listen to your advice on not coming out here alone.”

  “I was just yanking your chain about your friends. I never knew why chicks enjoy going away for a weekend just to talk about their boyfriends and how much they miss them. I’ve heard it all here, trust me.”

  “Then there’s the one single girl who’s moping in the corner like me, right?”

  “I would have done the same thing in your shoes. I promise,” he says, looking over at me with a small grin. We’re sitting so close together, I notice he has a lot of freckles beneath his bottom lashes and on the bridge of his nose.

  “So how did you find your way out of being homeless?” I press.

  “I was able to secure a landscaping job with a big company that catered to corporate offices. After a couple months, I had enough money to find my mom and me a small apartment. She got a new job, and things slowly improved for us.”

  “You saved her,” I tell him. I’m sure he’s aware, but he’s a good son. A good man.

  “It was the least I could do for her,” he says, looking out beyond the opening of the cave.

  I sigh and peek out again, seeing a clearing in the sky over the horizon. “I think the storm will end soon.”

  “We still have time for your story,” he suggests. How can I compare in stories? My life has been easy in comparison. “Why are you single?” I wasn’t expecting that question. “I mean, you’re gorgeous, headstrong, and kind of witty.”

  “Hey! I’m funny, not just kind of witty.”

  “I don’t know. I think I need to see that side of your more before I can agree.”

  “That’s fair. I am single because I have had a type, and my type doesn’t exist.”

  “A type? Like a gym buff or a rich guy?”

  “Well, yes, those are types, but not my type.” I try to figure out how to describe my type, but I realize I’ve never given my “type” a label per se.

  “I like a man with his head on his shoulders. Someone who isn’t fake, or trying to get me to like that under false pretenses. Do you know how hard it is to figure out if someone is being fake right off the bat?”

  “Yeah, like the women who wake up with a full face of makeup? They want a guy to think they wake up looking that beautiful. I don’t think women realize that men are aware when they sneak off into the bathroom a half hour before officially waking up. I’ve dated four girls who have done this, and it boggles my mind.” I don’t even wear makeup half the time. I wonder what he thinks about that. “Then, there’s the type of girl who wants to play hard to get but doesn’t want anyone to play hard to get back with her. The mind games are just infuriating. I stopped asking women out. Now, I’m just waiting for a normal woman to fall into my life,” he says, twisting his head and looking into my eyes. The feeling of our gazes connecting startles my heart.

  My cheeks are burning, and I softly gasp for more air than I’m inhaling. Whether he’s
referring to the possibility of me falling into his life, I don’t know, but the thought of his words is sweet. I’ve never been a big believer of fate, but this past hour seems pretty close to the idea of such a thing.

  “How long are you in Cabo for?” he asks.

  “Until Sunday, if my friends don’t disown me before then.”

  “I know you are waiting on them to decide about excursions, but you should join me on a couple. Free of charge. The hotel won’t be happy to hear about a guest getting stuck out here anyway, so no one will raise a brow at the vouchers.”

  “You’re sweet, you know that?”

  “You didn’t think that a half hour ago.”

  “A girl can change her mind,” I tell him.

  “The rain stopped two minutes ago,” he says. I didn’t notice. I’ve been staring into this man’s eyes for the last two minutes, feeling no shame about it.

  I lean forward and crawl out of the cave, trying to get my footing on the wet rock in front of us. Lincoln follows, but puts his hand around mine. “You have to be careful. One wrong step and this won’t end well. The rocks are like ice when they’re wet.”

  “Why is this place called Lovers Beach?” We’re both staring out in the crashing waves, feeling the sun break through the last of the clouds. The scene is like the cover of a romance book and I feel the effects of the view in my chest.

  “It’s been said that in the 18th century, there was a sailor who was found to be in trouble out there in the seas off-shore,” Lincoln points out into the ocean. “A local woman saw he was in trouble and rescued him. The two immediately fell in love and spent just a short, but beautiful time together on the beach. When the girl’s father found out about her relationship with the man, he killed the sailor. Much like Romeo and Juliet, the girl in her deepest moment of distress, took her life to be united with the man in her next life. Those who watched the sad scene marked the land as ‘Lovers Beach.'

  My mouth falls ajar. “Really?”

  “It might not be true, but many locals believe it is true.”

  “So, a woman saved a man, they fell in love, then both ended up dead?” I summarize.

  Lincoln thinks over my words for a moment before nodding his head with agreement. “Yup, pretty much.”

  “Well, we shouldn’t fall in love then. It could end tragically,” I tell him.

  “And, there you go. You just earned your funny badge.”

  “How could anyone fall in love that fast, anyway?” I continue pondering the story. When I twist to face Lincoln, wondering what he has in response, he’s staring at me with a coy smile. “What?” I’m blushing again so I laugh to brush off the sensations running through me.

  “I don’t know. I can see how someone might fall in love instantly after such a rush of adrenaline.” Lincoln traces his fingertip across his bottom lip, looking as though he’s lost deep in thought.

  “I think you left out part of that story,” I add.

  “Maybe,” he says with a soft laugh. “Come here. You have to see this.” Lincoln helps me down a couple of shallow rocks, which leads to an enormous boulder that is keeping us from seeing over to the other side where the hotel is. He crouches down and places his finger on the base of the rock. “See that?”

  I squat down too so I can see what he’s pointing at. The words, “Instant Love” are carved into the center of what must be a thousand clustered names. “What’s this?”

  “Supposedly, these couples fell in love instantly on this beach. Crazy, right?”

  “Yeah, totally crazy,” I repeat.

  “The sun is starting to set,” I tell Lincoln, interrupting the awkward tension I’m feeling.

  Lincoln stares out into the horizon and smiles. “Another beautiful sunset.”

  I correct my stance, pulling myself up by the rock to straighten my body, but my foot slips on a puddle, just as Lincoln warned about the ice-like rocks.

  Somehow, Lincoln’s reflexes are fast enough to grab my arm before I slip down to the next rock. “Whoa, I gotcha,” he says, pulling me into him as his feet go out from beneath him too. He padded our fall, but also made it so we didn’t slip off the rock we’re standing on. I’m sideways on his lap, staring at him with wonder. “This cover must have some kind of power over people,” I tell him.

  “It seriously must,” he says, breathlessly. “And I’m sorry for what I’m about to do, but the beach is making me do it.”

  Lincoln leans in, touches the side of his nose against the side of mine and feathers his lips across my lips. The sensation is wild and hot, and I wrap my arms around his neck because I need to be held after being terrified for the past hour of my life. I don’t know if I would have been okay on my own or not, but he lessened the blow big time. Maybe that’s why people fall in love on this beach. Someone always needs to be rescued. Lincoln’s hands cup my cheeks and he’s gentle, but there is passion behind every move he makes. I’ve never kissed a stranger, and I don’t think many people would understand the desire to do so, but it feels perfect and natural and nothing like I would ever imagine.

  When Lincoln pulls away, he brushes a strand of my hair behind my ear. “I don’t want your friends to kill me, so this can be our secret.”

  “They would think this is the most romantic thing to happen to anyone. Trust me. They live in a romance novel, but then again, I like the idea of this being our secret,” I tell him, feeling the inevitable smile creep across my cheeks—a feeling that I have all but forgotten. There’s nothing quite like the sensation of a truly natural smile.

  I twist and turn, looking for a loose rock with a sharp edge. “I don’t know if this is love, but it’s something,” I tell him as I scratch our names into the rock, and sign it with the words: The Secret at Sunset. “In any case, we’ll always have this.”

  5

  We waited another thirty minutes to make our way back to the hotel. The second there was sand to walk across, we took off, finding Grace and Macy, belligerently upset at the front desk, demanding answers.

  “Guys, I’m right here,” I speak up from behind them.

  They’re both clearly upset when they run toward me with their arms open. “This is our fault,” Grace says. “We were being selfish and gushing about men when you’re standing there, single. I’m so sorry, Alexa.”

  I feel like an asshole, once again. “No, you have nothing to apologize for. I just—I wanted to give you a few minutes to ‘gush.’ It’s not fun when the single woman is standing there staring at the two of you. You should be gushing. You’re getting married in a few weeks.”

  As we’re talking, I notice their gaze drift behind my shoulder. I realize Lincoln is still standing behind me. “What happened?” Macy asks. “Where did you go?”

  I guess the front desk didn’t tell her like Lincoln assumed they might. “I went for a quick walk that turned into a high-tide situation that trapped me on a secluded area of the beach. I mean, secluded except for the two of us.”

  “You didn’t venture off to Lovers Beach, did you?” Macy asks.

  “Yeah, why?” I ask as if it shouldn’t have been an issue. Although I know Macy well enough that she most likely Google’d every dangerous area of Cabo before we booked the trip.

  “You’re not supposed to go there alone. You can get hurt or stuck. It’s just not safe,” she explains.

  “Yup, I’m aware now, but I’m not hurt, and everything is fine,” I tell them.

  “Who is he?” Grace asks, smiling and wrapping her hair behind her ear. She isn’t being flirtatious. Grace blushes in the vicinity of all good-looking men whether or not she is interested in them.

  “Oh,” I say, as if I forgot Lincoln was standing behind me. “This is Lincoln. He works for the concierge and heads up the excursions for the hotel. He was thankfully at Lovers Beach when the tide came up, too.”

  I see arm movement behind me and I twist around to see what I’m missing, but whatever Lincoln was doing, he stops, and acts as though he was just combing
his fingers through his dark hair.

  While turning back to Grace and Macy, they wipe their sudden smiles from their faces. “So, Alexa just mentioned you’re in charge of excursions?” Macy changes the subject of whatever is happening behind my back.

  “Yes, that’s correct. I also offered her a free excursion for the three of you, in celebration of your bachelorette weekend, of course.”

  Grace claps her hands together like a small child would. “That sounds incredible. Where are we going?”

  “Well, we have parasailing, ATV tours, snorkeling, and horseback riding,” Lincoln offers, walking backward toward the desk I first met him at. “I have some brochures if you want to take a look.”

  Grace drums her fingers together while in thought. “ATV, definitely ATV tours.”

  “You got it. I will book the three of you for tomorrow. The excursion leaves at 9:30 in the morning. Will that work?”

  “Yes!” Grace answers.

  “Perfect. Make sure you ladies stop by the Cantina for drink specials after dinner,” Lincoln says, winking for good measure.

  “Thank you for taking care of our girl,” Macy offers while looping her arm with mine.

  “It was my pleasure,” Lincoln responds.

  We’re walking toward the elevator and I’m trying not to seem like I’m lost in a trance. It’s almost unreal, what just happened. That kind of stuff doesn’t just happen. Then again, I should be thankful it happened.

  “What were you thinking?” Macy asks.

  “I wasn’t,” I answer, feeling like I’m a kid being scolded by her mother.

  “Obviously. You’re lucky that guy was there.”

  “Yeah, I was,” I answer, sounding a little more aloof than I should if I’m hoping to avoid questions.

  “Alexa, what exactly happened over there on Lovers Beach? I mean, normally I wouldn’t assume much, but your cheeks are red, and there’s this weird shape to your lips, almost like you’re smiling or something.”

  “Don’t accuse me of such a heinous act,” I jest.