34. Paisley
Heatfrom the sand rises up through the towel I’m lying on. It’s a perfect day, balmy, the slight breeze lifting my salt-dried hair from my shoulders. The sun is proudly displayed in the middle of the sky, like a superhero revealing their uniform.
Klein lies beside me.
Ahh. Klein. My whole body smiles when I think of him, from the tips of my toes to the crown of my head. Last night was perfect. This morning, too, as he gathered me into his chest. He was slower this morning, lazy and sleepy, nearing decadent.
Klein slides his sunglasses down his nose, eyebrows raised as he asks, “Do you need me to reapply your sunscreen?”
I probably don’t need a re-application for a little while longer, but turning down Klein’s offer to rub his hands over my back? I’d be a fool.
“If you’re offering, I’m accepting.” Sitting up, I rifle through my beach bag and hand him the coconut scented sunscreen. He takes it from me, squirting a quarter size amount in his palm as I push my bikini straps off my shoulders.
His touch is cold at first, but quickly warms up.
“Your muscles are tight,” he remarks, kneading at the top of my back. “I think I might know why.”
Looking back at him flirtatiously over my right shoulder, I say, “Somebody worked me out last night.”
“And this morning,” he adds proudly. “We should hydrate. The day is young.”
His comment makes me laugh. He’s mostly finished reapplying, so I snap my straps on my shoulders and turn, lunging for him. It knocks him back on his towel, and I lean over his chest, dropping a kiss onto his lips. “I like your wit.”
“I like your everything.”
His words send a flush of pleasure throughout my body. He claims there is no safer place for my heart than with him. I hope that’s true.
After a second, slightly longer, kiss I return to my previous position on the towel.
A beach volleyball game is being played a short distance from us. It’s the entire wedding party, plus my mom, Ben, and Grandma. My dad has been silent since dinner, and is absent from today’s beach fun. At what point is he planning on joining us? Normally I would care more about his absence, or feel responsible for including him.
Klein has been the best distraction.
My mom yells over, asking if Klein and I want to join the match. Klein tells her we’ll get the next one.
I crook one eye open. Klein is on his back, shades covering his eyes, a book held aloft. It’s a murder mystery, something taken from my grandmother’s collection. He sees me looking and sets down the book. Rolling onto his side, he presses a light touch to my lower back.
Wearing a look I can only describe as adoration, he says, “There are freckles emerging on your cheeks.”
“From the sun.” I point needlessly at the giant lantern in the sky.
He nods, his gaze roaming over me. His hand explores my back, bumping over the ties of my bikini top. He begins using a fingertip, looping and swirling, crossing and dotting.
“What are you doing?” I ask, propping the side of my head on stacked hands.
“Plotting a story.”
I smile lazily. “What kind of story?”
“A love story.” He writes something on my back, something I can’t decipher.
“The book you’re reading isn’t giving you murder mystery inspiration?”
He makes a show of eyeing Shane. “Maybe.”
“Hah.” Even my laugh is slow, molasses pouring from a jar. It’s the sun. I don’t have a fast speed under its rays. “What’s giving you inspiration for this love story?”
He surveys the beach. “The island vibes.” Eyes on me. “And a certain woman.”
“My grandma? Is it a love triangle with Bob Barker?”
Klein’s plotting halts. “You got it. I travel back in time and face off with him to win a young Lausanne’s affections.”
“You’re the obvious choice.” I roll over and prop myself on an elbow. My fingers trace his chest, his pecs, pausing over his heart. “I’d choose you.”
He kisses my shoulder, lingers, nibbling at the warm skin. “Are you catching feelings for me, Ace?”
My heart beats double time. “Do you want me to?”
He pulls back, leveling me with a tender look. “Yeah. Maybe I do.”
I’m hit unexpectedly with emotion. Klein’s question, the sun and the sand, the island paradise, it feels the closest to perfection I’ve ever been.
I want to lie here in this moment forever, soaking up the sun and this man who has knocked me off my axis for a second time in my life.
I prepare to pull Klein in, ready to embark on a partially indecent beach make-out session, but I’m stymied by a shadow looming over us. I tent my hand to see who it belongs to.
Sienna, wearing a white bikini (naturally), looks down at us. “Klein, I need a break from volleyball. Can you sub in, please?”
Klein drops a reluctant kiss beside my ear before standing. “Sure. No problem.” He walks off through the hot sand, and I watch him go. His calves are filled out, shapely, a result of those weekly soccer matches. The lash mark of his jellyfish sting is still red, but a fraction less angry.
Sienna lays out beside me on Klein’s towel. She tips her face to the sun. “You two seem to be getting along well.”
I watch Klein take his place on Shane’s team. “We are.”
“Shane is jealous of Klein.”
The despondence in her voice makes me roll over, bending my elbow and propping my head on my hand.
I’m so confused. Hadn’t she made it a point to tell me in my bathroom yesterday afternoon that whatever had gone on between Shane and Klein was a misunderstanding? What has happened or been said to cause this jealousy she claims Shane feels?
“Why would Shane feel that way?”
She shrugs, hands folded in her lap. In her profile I see her younger self, the little girl who loved making chocolate pudding and hated waiting for it to set.
I try again. “Why, Sienna?”
“Because it’s glaringly obvious you’re beyond happy.”
Maybe my acting skills are better than I thought. Or maybe I’m beyond happy.
“It would be hard not to be happy with Klein,” I say, aiming for pragmatic when all I really want to do is gush about how incredible he is. “He’s a good person.”
“I’m happy for you, Pais, really.”
I sense she wants to say more, so I stay quiet.
Sienna’s grasped hands twist. “I feel awkward asking you this, but would you and Klein mind toning down all the lovey-dovey behavior?”
My initial reaction, my knee-jerk response, is to immediately say Yes, of course I’m not interested in causing my sister grief, especially during wedding week.
But.
I hear them. Paloma and Klein.
You’re the floor.
If you keep being a doormat, what will you do?
Indignation simmers in my blood. “Have you asked your fiancé to stop being jealous? Or have you asked yourself why your fiancé is jealous in the first place?”
Sienna’s mouth drops open. “It’s easier for everyone if you act differently since you’re the one creating the problem.”
My hands clench. “How am I creating a problem?”
“You’re making Shane jealous.”
My eyes squeeze shut as I shake my head. This is too crazy to be real, right? “How do you know this, Sienna? Is this your opinion?”
The set of her shoulders is firm. “It’s an opinion formed by watching him last night.”
She doesn’t know what Shane said to me and Klein after our tryst in the pantry, so on what is she basing this?
“He was his typical obnoxious self last night, Sienna. That’s it.”
“That you saw,” she mutters. “He was a real asshole after you and Klein left.”
“His behaviors are his choice, you know that, right?”
“I can’t believe how disagreeable you’re being about this.”
At this point this conversation is almost laughable. “That’s not how I see it.”
She glares at me. “How do you see it?”
“I’m not letting myself be pushed around.”
She scoffs. “Because you’ve been pushed around until now?”
“Yes.”
It doesn’t feel like it’s me having this conversation. I’m floating somewhere up above, swooping down like the cormorants, listening in.
“Whatever,” Sienna blows out a harsh breath. “I’m going inside the house to take a nap. See you at six for the cruise.”
My heartbeats slow as I watch her stomp off through the sand. Farhana calls to her, and Sienna turns, yelling that she wants to rest. She continues on, but her walk has less stomp and more whimsy. She’s remembering she has a crowd, and now she’s playing the role of jaunty, unbothered bride-to-be.
It appears I’m not the only one behaving a certain way in the name of meeting others’ expectations.