30. Bottoms Up to Bad Decisions
CHAPTER 30
bottoms up to bad decisions
BELLE
A week turned into two. Mick and I had a rhythm. We did a call in the morning since Boston and Reef Harbor were in the same time zone with the team. Thanks to whatever satellite magic Mick had done, the whole island was getting better cell and Wi-Fi service.
I worked until lunchtime when Mick dragged me away to eat. After we ate, he insisted I join him when he took tourists out on the waters. I enjoyed that time as I spent it with Franco and Cato goofing off . I, Isabelle Volnay, was goofing off . Never in my life had I imagined living like this. Even my parents and sister, who were all a little nuts in their own way, were still die-hard workaholics. None of them would know how to rest and relax if their lives depended on it.
"We were doing you a favor," Mama protested. "I wish I could be on an island. Is that a hammock behind you?"
We were on a Family Zoom call, and I'd read them all the riot act about drugging me. I witnessed not an ounce of remorse from any of them.
"Yes, it's where Mick used to sleep. But since I moved in, he's gotten us a bed."
"The water looks so tempting," Anna said sadly. "I wish I could be there with you."
"Why don't you come over?" I suggested.
"Can't. So much work," Anna groaned. "Not all of us can take off like you."
I quirked an eyebrow. "I didn't take off. I was kidnapped."
"Po-ta-to, poh-ta-to," Dan said. "But Anna is right, I have too much to do. I have surgeries up to here." He rubbed the side of his hand to his forehead to indicate how he was drowning in work.
"I'd be there," Dad offered. "But, Molly can't, and I'd hate to burn through vacation days without her."
"So, you're all okay being workaholics who can't take a break, but you forced me into taking one?" I was pissed at their hypocrisy.
"You don't have boundaries." Mama used her stern mother's tone. "Anna and I went to the spa yesterday, and we sleep at night for at least eight hours."
My parents were militant about getting enough sleep because the work they did meant that someone's life was in their hands.
They were right about my lack of boundaries, but I didn't thank them even though I was grateful. I had been very close to burnout, I realized. It had taken a week for me to start sleeping properly, and in just fourteen days, I felt refreshed. Mick had even asked me if I wanted to go back, but I decided that it could wait until we got the first batch of trial results, and then we'd see. I was able to work from here. Keep in touch with my team and spend time with Mick on the beach. We were at that point in the trials where I could work remotely, and I was taking advantage of that, even though I'd been forced to do it.
But all good things had to come to an end, and they did when I got news from my team about the clinical trials .
We'd had another setback—no, another failure.
I read the email three times, each word feeling like a jab to the gut, each line pressing on a wound that refused to heal. The data was clear: there was no improvement in any of the variables we'd set to gauge progress. There was no reduction, no slowdown—nothing to give even a hint of success.
The weight of it settled heavily on my shoulders. I could almost hear the disappointment of my team back in Cambridge and felt the unspoken questions from the families who had put their faith—and their children's futures—into our hands. I felt as if I'd let them down, and all I could do was sit in Mick's quiet hut, staring blankly at the weathered wooden walls, the sound of the waves a distant reminder of how far I was from the answers they needed.
In the past, this would be when I'd hole up in the lab and push, push, push to do better, more, just anything. In Reef Harbor, I relied on alcohol.
Mick and Cato were out with tourists, Franco was actually working at his radio station, and RiRi was away as well to pick up supplies, so I was alone, and I felt lonely without the friends I'd gotten used to having around.
"You okay there, girlie?" Toothless Nick asked me.
"Nah, I'm not okay," I told him.
"I can make you feel better, girlie," he offered lecherously.
I laughed. "Maybe another time, Nick."
With the taste of three rum cocktails coating my mouth, I decided I needed something stronger. Something…cathartic. By the time I staggered out of the Coral Cove, the warm island evening swirling around me, I was a few drinks past responsible, and my brain was stuck on one singular, ridiculous mission: blow off steam .
I wasn't sure how, exactly, but my mission led me to the lizard racing alley. A long, sand-carved racetrack stretched ahead, and palm trees threw shadows under the glow of overhead lights while a small crowd of locals and tourists cheered as the tiny, absurd reptiles scurried toward the finish line.
"I'll bet on…that one," I slurred, pointing a finger toward the least coordinated lizard, who seemed more interested in staring into the distance than moving.
Rico, who managed the races, chuckled as he watched my dedication. "The green one with the limp? That's your pick?"
"Absolutely," I said, slurring just a little, waving a handful of crumpled bills.
"He's called Stump, and he's never won anything ever," Rico warned me.
"Winner right here, I'm telling you," I assured him.
The lizard, however, had other plans. After a few uninspired inches forward, it curled up like it was ready for a cozy nap. Apparently, it wasn't as invested in this race as I was.
"Come on!" I yelled, crawling down to give it a tiny nudge. "I bet on you! You're supposed to be a champion!"
But just as I leaned forward, encouraging my sleepy champion, a bellow erupted from across the race alley.
"She's cheating," a bearded guy in a floral shirt bellowed.
"Who's cheating?" Rico demanded.
Floral shirt pointed at me.
I tried to look innocent when someone shoved the man beside me (it could've been me, but who knew how these things happened), sending his drink flying and splashing me and half the spectators around us.
A loud argument broke out, both men turning on each other as they gestured wildly at the lizards, each claiming their pick had been sabotaged.
Before I knew it, the whole crowd around me devolved into a mess of yelling and shoving. I tried to step back, but someone elbowed me forward, knocking me right back into the fray.
"Hey! I'm just here to cheer on my lizard!" I shouted, ducking as one of the men swung his arm toward his opponent. A few spectators tried to pull them apart, but someone else tripped and crashed into the line of makeshift lizard stalls, sending a few tiny racers scrambling. It was complete chaos, and I was right in the middle of it, still clutching my drink.
That's when the flashlight beam cut through the crowd, and I looked up to see the last person I wanted to meet in a brawl: Chief Ray Jenkins. The bane of Mick's existence and the inevitable shadow over every bit of mischief I found myself in on this island.
Jenkins fixed his scowl right on me, his voice booming over the ruckus. "What's going on here?"
"She cheated," Floral Shirt yelled. He now had a black eye. Tattler!
"Did not," I replied.
"And then she pushed me," a guy who I didn't recognize screeched. He was on the floor, drenched in booze.
"Did not," I repeated. I looked at Ray. "Where's the proof?" I hiccupped.
In the end, Ray ended up arresting five of us. Four men and me .
"Causing trouble over a lizard?" Ray admonished me while he put me in cuffs. "I expected better from you."
"I was just”—I pointed feebly with my handcuffed hands at my napping lizard, who had missed the entire fiasco—"encouraging my racer."
"And who do you think you are? The lizard whisperer?" Floral Shirt, who had been the first to get handcuffed, ground out.
"No, I'm the doctor of drunk lizard coaching." Then I turned to Ray. I squinted up at him, my pride in tatters but my defiance blazing. "I was…cheering on the underdog, Officer. Encouraging him, like, scientifically . It's motivational science."
He sighed, clearly tired of my antics, and muttered something into his radio. "Alright, everyone. I'd say it's time you sobered up somewhere else."
Floral Shirt, his companions, and I became friends. We were spread across two cells—they were in the boys' jail, and I was in the girls' jail.
I dozed off somewhere between singing Is This Love and dancing to Kokomo .
When I woke, I was on the bench of the dim jail cell, staring at the cracked wall opposite, the fog of alcohol slowly lifting and giving way to a dull headache. The weight of the failure, the endless disappointments, settled on my shoulders like lead.
"Hey, Babycakes." Mick stood outside the cell waving at the locks as if he were checking into a five-star resort.
"I guess you're gonna be a guest of the city as well," Ray remarked caustically as he opened the cell. "Welcome."
"Jenkins," he greeted him smoothly once the Chief had shut us in together. "Always a pleasure."
Ray muttered something under his breath, his disdain sharp enough to cut glass.
Mick turned to me, his eyes soft, a hint of a smile playing on his lips.
"You know," he began, sitting beside me on the bench, "we're making quite a habit of spending a night in jail."
I let out a miserable groan, leaning my head back against the wall. "He caught me…nudging a lizard, Mick." I covered my face with my hands, embarrassment settling in.
"She cheated," Floral Shirt from the adjoining cell yelled.
"Everyone cheats in lizard racing," Mick waved it away. "Rico gives his gecko speed. Did ya know that?"
I cringed at that. "Drugging a lizard?"
"And then she pushed me," another guy from the boys' cell called out .
"And she stomped on my hand," a third guy complained.
"It was an accident," I cried out.
"Shut the fuck up, Delphi, and get some sleep, yeah?" Mick cupped my cheek.
"I'm so embarrassed," I groaned. "Why did you come here?"
"Because I figured you could use the company." He nudged me gently with his shoulder, his tone shifting from playful to sincere.
"The first set of data is…." I rested my head on Mick's shoulder.
He stroked my hair. "I'm happy to see that you're drinking and getting into trouble. It's healthy."
"What?" I sat up and glared at him.
"In Cambridge, you'd be in your lab, pouring over everything and second-guessing yourself."
That was true. How many times had my colleagues and superiors not said, " Belle, you've got to find a better way to deal with failure. Because if this keeps up, it's going to eat you alive ."
I let out a shaky breath. "I don't know how to just…accept that I'm failing."
He kissed me softly and pulled me into his lap like I was a child. I felt safe and protected. "You're not failing, Belle. It's a setback, yeah, but that doesn't mean it's the end. The only thing worse than stumbling is letting the fear of it burn you out until there's nothing left."
I turned my head and met his eyes. "Easy for you to say, Mick. You left that life. But this is all I've ever wanted to do."
"I've been where you are," he said quietly, his expression turning serious. "Running myself into the ground, chasing perfection until I didn't have anything left to give. You're incredible, Belle, but you're not invincible. You can't give everything without taking something for yourself."
His words started to seep in, loosening the grip my fear and guilt had on me. "So what am I supposed to do?" I asked, feeling rather defeated. "Just accept that it's out of my hands?"
"Not entirely." Mick's lips grazed my forehead. "You have to accept that you're human. It's okay to need a break, to have limits and boundaries. That's what Reef Harbor is for. A place to remind you there's life outside of lab coats and clinical trials."
I swallowed, the warmth of his hand grounding me. "I didn't think I'd end up back here," I whispered. “In Reef Harbor."
He gave my hand a small squeeze. "Maybe you did. Maybe you didn't. But I'm glad you are here with me, and I'd like to keep you forever."
I managed a small smile, feeling the ache in my chest lessen just a little. "And a night in the jail cell is going to continue to be part of our romantic repertoire?"
He laughed softly, his face close enough that I could see the warmth in his eyes. "I believe so."
We did what we had last time in a jail cell, the first time we slept together. Mick leaned against the wall on the bench, and I slid between his legs. And somehow, in that quiet, cramped cell on an uncomfortable wooden bench, I fell asleep and felt more at ease than I had in months.