14. From the Bottom Of My Heart
CHAPTER 14
from the bottom of my heart
BELLE
I watched Mick leave for work . Apparently, he had to entertain some tourists on his boat. It felt domestic to have him kiss me and tell me he'd see me later.
It had been another amazing night with Mick. He'd helped me cross one off my bucket list. (Other items that I didn't even know were on the list but got on all the same, including skinny dipping, having sex on a beach, and bathing under a waterfall.)
We had climbed up the old, rickety steps of Crane's Point Lighthouse, the wood creaking under each cautious step, threatening to give way at any moment.
The air inside was heavy with the tang of salt and the sharp scent of old paint, while the beams overhead threw ominous shadows in the faint glow of our flashlight. The higher we climbed, the more my heart pounded—not just from the unsteady staircase but from the thrill of being up in a lighthouse, hidden from the world, with Mick. At the top, we leaned out over the turrets, and watched the moonlight spill over the waves, feeling the vast, open sea stretch out before us. It felt like a place out of time, a secret held just for us, balancing somewhere between exhilaration and danger. I'd never felt so alive.
I leaned against the wall of Mick's hut, the only place I'd managed to find a decent signal at his place. It was late afternoon, and the salty breeze drifted through the open windows, ruffling the curtains as I dialed Anna's number. The past few days with Mick had swept me away—laughing, dancing, and zipping around on his Vespa like we didn't have a care in the world. I'd been so caught up that the only time I reached out to anyone was to send a quick note to my family and work, letting them know I'd changed my arrival date.
Anna picked up on the third ring. "Finally! When the hell are you coming back?"
I sank onto Mick's bed, which he'd gotten for me. "In two days, but…," I hesitated, already hearing the skepticism in her silence, "I don't want to."
"Ye gods!" she muttered. "Have you gone and fallen in love with someone there?"
"I think so." My cheeks warmed at the thought because I didn't think so; I knew so. I'd gone ahead and fallen head over heels in love with a beach bum.
"Seriously?"
"Yep."
"And?"
"He's…not a scientist."
"Good."
"He's…Anna, he's a…he's a tour guide who lives in a hut and sleeps in a hammock. I made him get a bed."
What the hell was I doing? How could I be in love with someone so different from me?
"A tour guide? Expound," Anna demanded.
"He takes people around on a boat. The rest of the time, he's at a bar called the Coral Cove."
"You sure this isn't just an island fling, babe?"
I sighed. "I…I mean, it's going to end up being that because I can't stay here, not really, and he's not equipped to live anywhere else," I looked around his hut and realized how true my words were.
"What's his name?"
"Mick Bottom."
Anna burst out laughing. " No !"
"Yep."
"Mick Bottom?" Anna laughed some more. "You fell in love with a tour guide called Mick?—"
"Cut it out," I grumbled.
"The parents are gonna love this."
They were. My parents were whacked, and they'd get a kick out of me getting my freak on with a beach bum.
"My therapist would probably say I'm drawn to him because he's so different from me—and he is—but really, he's nothing like the men I used to date," I tried to explain. "I…I'm not the Boston Belle. I'm having fun, Anna. I mean…I got arrested!"
"What the who?"
I told her about the arrest and how Mick and I spent a romantic night in a jail cell.
"So, he held you all night?"
"It was sweet."
"In a jail cell?"
"Yes."
"Christ!"
"I know," I agreed that this was absurd. "He's really insightful about me. And… the sex is…I mean, Anna, I've never had sex like this before. It's raunchy, it's dirty, it's fun…it's all the things I never associated with sex."
"I've been married forever, and I think sex is a freaking chore."
"Not when this guy is going down on you. "
Anna chuckled. "So, he got you with his Big Dick Energy ?"
"Eww! Never say that ever again. But there's truth in that. I mean, the last guy I dated was Dustin."
"Who is a world-class economist," Anna supplied. "And terribly boring."
"Mick is…well?—"
"Let me guess." Her tone turned dry and amused. "Tan, charming, occasionally wears a shirt? Looks like Matthew McConaughey from Magic Mike ."
"Oh my God! Yes! He does. Exactly ."
"You sure you're not just in lust?"
I leaned against the wall and smiled dreamily. "I know myself. It's the way he makes me feel. I've never—God, this sounds stupid—I've never felt like this before."
My heart fluttered as I thought back to the past few nights. It had been amazing, yeah—better than I'd ever thought possible. But it wasn't just the sex. There was an ease with Mick, something solid beneath his roguish smile and ridiculous jokes, and it was pulling me in so deeply that I didn't know if I'd come back out.
"Oh, Belle," Anna sighed, but her voice had softened a little. "Listen. Maybe he's swept you off your feet. But people often come back from their beach getaways with vacation flings and STDs! He's a distraction. A well-built, good-in-bed distraction. But he's not real life."
I bit my lip, knowing her skepticism came from a good place, but it didn't make it sting any less. "Speaking of which, I should get an STD test when I get home."
Anna groaned. "Belle!"
"But what if he is real life, Anna? Just a different one than I planned for?"
There was a pause, and I could practically hear her giving that trademark Anna sigh. "I know you, Belle. You've always been practical and focused; a bit too much if you ask me. You're not the fall-in-love-in-a-week type. Maybe this feels different because you're on vacation, away from work and deadlines."
"I know," I said, frustrated that she wasn't getting it. "But it's more than that. When I'm with him, it feels like I'm actually living. I've never had this kind of fun, never felt this free before. And when I'm around him, it's like he sees me. Not the version of me that's ticking boxes and managing projects, but me."
Anna was quiet for a moment, and I thought maybe I'd broken through her wall of practical detachment. "Belle, listen to me. You've never been in love before. So how do you know this is it? But at the end of the day, have fun. All I ask is for you to be careful."
"Careful of what?" I asked, feeling a pang of defensiveness. "Careful of falling in love? Isn't that what everyone's supposed to be looking for?"
Anna sighed, exasperated. "Yeah, well, falling in love is fine if the guy's got something to offer besides a suntan and a good time in bed. Sooner or later, you're going to have to ask yourself if he fits into your life or if you're just the latest tourist swept up by his laid-back island charm . Maybe the guy will bore the hell out of you in the long term."
"Dustin bored the hell out of me in the short term," I countered.
"True. But the parents were impressed he was on MSNBC talking macroeconomic theories."
"Well, they can fuck him."
"Please do not suggest that, they might take you up on it."
We both shuddered at the thought.
"Look, you're going to come home, and that'll give you the space and distance from his magic dick, and then you can assess," she said understandingly. "If it's the real deal…well, we 'll have to figure out how to build you a lab on Reef Harbor island, right next to the tiki bars and lizard race tracks."
My sister was always on my side.
"You're right, who knows once I'm back with my lab rats…ah, I mean colleagues, this will feel like a dream I once had," I conceded.
"Or you'll find out that Mick Bottom…I can't get over that last name…is the love of your life, and you want to be his bottom line."
"Cute."
"I thought so."
We talked schedules, and she promised to pick me up at the airport; mostly, she confessed to wanting to get more dirt on my sexual escapades. She was, as a sister should be, proud of me for letting myself have the orgasms I deserved, finally .
After we hung up, I sat in the quiet of Mick's hut, the distant sound of the ocean through the window, wondering if Anna was right, and maybe this would all disappear once I stepped back into my real life. But for now, I thought with a big smile, if this was a dream, I wasn't ready to wake up. I was going to enjoy the hell out of every minute of the time I had left on the island.