Chapter Twelve #4
“Think about it,” Kitty said. She rolled onto her stomach and propped her chin in her hands. “He loved that girl so much he built all this for her.”
I unstuck a string of marshmallow that was hanging from my chin. “This place is creepy, and she never saw it. Not exactly romantic. He built all this for love and died alone, so what was the point?”
“I’m with the girls,” Nina said. “It’s a testament to the power of love. What do you think, Alex?”
I narrowed my eyes at Nina. Were she, Mia, and Kitty in on this together? Part of me hoped this place would awaken some latent psychic ability I didn’t know I had so I could send her my annoyance telepathically.
Alex looked thoughtfully at the camping lantern. “It depends. Spending twenty-eight years building a monument for a woman who left you is a little out there. But who’s to say his love for her didn’t add something to his life even if she couldn’t love him back?”
Alex’s expression had that intensity again, and I thought about what he’d told me about Greyson’s mom.
Was that how he felt about her? I knew he didn’t trust her, or anyone for that matter, but did a part of him still love her?
Was that what he’d come so near me to say?
Perhaps he hadn’t wanted Greyson to hear.
Maybe the real reason he’d been single all these years was because he was waiting for Maggie to come back and stay for good.
“Who gives a crap about love?” Greyson said.
“I want to know more about the aliens. Do you think they were grays or reptilians? My vote is for reptilians. I saw this YouTube video once about how half our politicians are actually lizard people. At first, I didn’t think that made sense, because wouldn’t you see them?
But the video says they’re shape-shifters, so I guess it could happen. ”
Alex shook his head. “I think we need to reevaluate your internet privileges.”
After that the subject of love was forgotten. Once the conversation moved on from debating whether or not reptilians were real, the girls argued over which list item I should tackle next and settled on number twenty-eight—host a dinner party.
Nina rubbed her hands together. “Now this is going to be good.”
“Not just any dinner party,” Kitty said. “A fancy dinner party.”
“Everyone has to wear the fanciest outfit they can find from a thrift store,” Mia added.
“A thrift store?” I said. “I was planning to wear the dress I bought for item ten.”
“No.” Nina sat up with a look of horror on her face. “Absolutely not. You’ve worn it to everything this year.”
“Because it’s a great dress!”
“You need to think about what you’re saying,” Nina insisted.
I shoved a caramel-dipped s’more into my mouth. “I’m saying I’m reliable.”
“Nobody wants to attend a reliable dinner party. They want to go to an exciting one.”
“Fine. Exciting, thrifty, fancy-pants dinner party it is. Does Saturday night work? Or is that too predictable? Maybe we should have it on a Wednesday! Now that’s unexpected.”
Nina rolled her eyes and turned to Alex. “Well, whenever it happens, Captain Lean Cuisine over here is going to need some help.”
Alex looked behind him with a who, me? expression.
Yes, you! I thought.
He rubbed his chin and looked me over. “I don’t know. I guess I could help you find some recipes, but what do I get out of it?”
“My undying gratitude,” I said.
“Nah,” he said. “I want a better nickname on the blog. Hot Yacht Chef will do.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “I’d rather use Pinterest. I bet there are better recipes there anyway.”
Alex laughed, and I thought about the last time we’d worked together in a kitchen.
One minute his hand had been on mine, and the next he’d fled as far away from me as possible.
Tonight, it had happened again: a moment of closeness, his face so near mine I thought he’d kiss me, and now he was acting like nothing had happened. I couldn’t make sense of him.
I didn’t need Alex to find recipes for a dinner party. What I needed was to get Alex out of my head.
Because I knew exactly what this was: a recipe for getting my heart broken.
—
It was past one in the morning when the six of us finally settled into our sleeping bags.
The girls had whispered to each other for a long time, while Nina, Alex, and I traded yachtie horror stories.
But one by one, the girls fell asleep. Soon, everything was quiet, except for the sounds of the occasional passing car and Nina’s soft snores.
All those charter seasons made it possible to sleep anywhere, which was usually true for me as well.
But of course I was having trouble falling asleep tonight.
My mind wouldn’t shut up. The pressure of needing to fall asleep to check this item off the list was one problem.
But it wasn’t the only one. My mind raced, replaying that moment on the limestone beds with Alex, my fight with Nina.
I couldn’t stop thinking about how she’d said Alex wasn’t like Peter or how after tonight, there would only be four items left on the list. Two I was terrified of (getting a tattoo and singing onstage), one made me nervous (hosting a dinner party), and one was impossible (visiting five more countries).
After what felt like hours, I sat up and grabbed Nina’s fun bag.
Maybe I really did need some Dramamine. I undid the zipper as quietly as I could and slipped out the bottle, inspecting it in the light of my phone, groaning when I realized the Dramamine was expired.
“Can’t sleep?”
I looked over Nina and spotted Alex sitting on his sleeping bag.
“Yeah.” Though we’d turned off the camping lantern, I could still make out his face in the light leaking in from the city around us. “You?”
Alex leaned back onto his hands. “Have you ever had to make a decision where you’re pretty sure you know what the right thing is, but it doesn’t feel like the right thing?”
Not what I’d expected him to say. I set the Dramamine back into Nina’s bag and wrapped my arms around my knees. The question reminded me of the day I’d moved in with Beth and Mark. I’d known it was what I needed but still felt guilty for leaving my mother.
“Hasn’t everyone?” I said.
Alex shrugged.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
Alex looked pained as he ran a hand through his hair. “Yes. But I can’t. There are other people involved, and it wouldn’t be right for me to tell you about it before I talk to them.”
Now I was really intrigued. “I’m guessing this decision is why you can’t sleep.”
“Good guess.”
“I’m sure you’ll do the right thing.”
Alex sighed. “I hope you’re right. But what about you? Why can’t you sleep?”
“I keep thinking about the list,” I said, omitting the part where I was thinking about him.
“What about it?”
“It doesn’t matter. It’s irrational.”
“We’re yachties,” Alex said. “We’ve both heard a lot of irrational things. I think I can handle it.”
I looked down at my knees, trying to decide whether I should tell him or not. Maybe if I got it off my chest, I’d be able to fall asleep. If Nina were awake, I’d talk to her. But she continued snoring faintly between us.
“The items I have left are the hardest for me. They scare me. Almost everything I put on the list scares me, actually.”
“Sleeping in a castle scares you?”
I laughed. “Of course not. I meant cooking, and singing onstage, and—”
“Kissing a stranger.”
“No.” I looked up at him. “That one didn’t scare me.”
There was a beat of silence, and I thought I saw him smile. “Okay, so tell me about the fear.”
I hesitated for a moment, wondering if what I was about to tell him would change his opinion of me. Alex was open and sure of himself, but I was none of those things, and the inspiration for my list was evidence of it. “Remember Shitty Peter?” I said.
“Who could forget someone with a name like that?”
I set my chin on my knees. “I kind of lost sight of myself when we were together. Things with Peter were either great or awful. When they were awful, he’d tell me I was crazy or overreacting, and I believed him because I was scared he’d leave.
I guess I thought being in a bad relationship was better than being alone.
” My throat tightened, and I shook my head.
“I don’t think that anymore, though. I’d rather be alone. Like I said, it’s irrational.”
“You’ve lost a lot of people you care about. It makes perfect sense you’d feel that way, even if said person was shitty.”
“Yeah, I guess,” I said, grateful he could make the connection without my having to spell it out. “I’m sure you’ve noticed, but I don’t let a lot of people into my life. It’s why I don’t have many friends. Peter charmed me. I still can’t believe I fell for it.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“You weren’t there. You can’t know that.”
“But I know you. It could happen to anyone, Jo. Especially someone who cares so much about other people. It says everything about him and nothing about you.”
“That’s what Nina says.”
“She’s right,” Alex said. “So what does Shitty Peter have to do with the nerves about your list?”
I sighed. “The whole point was to get back the time I’d wasted with Peter. I purposely put things on the list that scared me to make up for being so weak.”
“You are the opposite of weak, Jo.”
I kept my gaze on my feet, unable to look up at him. “I guess I thought the list would help me figure out what I want from life, or find myself again, as cliché as that sounds. I’m almost thirty. Shouldn’t I know who I am by now? Or who I want to be?”
“I don’t know,” Alex said. “My life now is nothing like I expected it would be when I was twenty-nine. And thank God. I was kind of an asshole.”
“You mean you didn’t plan on wearing a crop top and sleeping in a creepy castle?”
Alex laughed. “No, that was absolutely in the plan.”
I hugged my arms tighter around my knees. “I still don’t believe you were an asshole.”
“You can ask Greyson tomorrow, she’ll tell you.”
“No,” I said. “I don’t need to know the old Alex.”
He didn’t say anything, and I was reminded of the night we’d met and how I’d been drawn to him from the start. If I hadn’t kissed him, would we still have found our way to this moment?
“Can I ask you something?” I said.
“Of course.”
“The night we met at Mitch’s, right before Nina ran off, you were in the middle of saying something. I wanted to know what you were going to say.”
“Refresh my memory.”
“You said something like Florida Girl, you are . . . and then you got cut off. I was just wondering what—”
“Unexpected,” Alex said. “You’re unexpected. Which I think turned out to be true. What did you think I was going to say?”
Unexpected. What did that mean? “I don’t know,” I said. “Florida Girl, you’re crazy or something like that.”
Alex shook his head. “No. I didn’t think that.”
We looked at each other in the dark, and just like when he had his hand on mine in the galley, the urge to kiss him swept over me, strong as a rip current.
And then Nina let out a loud snore. Alex fought to hold in a laugh and glanced at his phone. “It’s late,” he said. “You better try to get some sleep if you’re going to check this one off the list.”
“Hopefully the ghost of Edgar Leafskin will help me fall asleep.”
“I think you mean Edward Leedskalnin.”
“Whatever. You knew what I meant.”
Alex settled down onto his sleeping bag, and I stretched out on mine. I closed my eyes and wrapped my mind around the flicker of happiness within me, the tug of sleep finally pulling me under.