Chapter Thirteen
Thirteen
Sapphire, despite having crept around the underbrush of the Costa Rican jungle at half past midnight, looked like a champagne breakfast on a yacht in the Mediterranean.
Her springy, dark coils framed her face, and her emerald tank top set off her green eyes.
Realizing she was gawking, Lulu forcefully closed her mouth before any bugs flew in.
“Tyler,” Sapphire said. “You are one hard guy”—Lulu checked him quickly and noted he was not anymore—“to find,” she finished.
“Sapphire!” Tyler finally managed.
“Ty. I told you I was coming tonight. Remember? The FIFA game this morning, and I was going to see if I could meet up with the tour?”
A dull buzzing fizzed behind Lulu’s ears. The shame of being duped. The embarrassment of drinking him in like he was water in the desert. And the humiliation of being caught in flagrante delicto by a hot sportscaster. Aka Tyler’s wife.
Lulu had been right. There had been a predator nearby. His name was Tyler, and she had almost let herself get devoured by him.
Sapphire’s jeweled eyes flashed at Lulu. “I don’t think we’ve been introduced.”
“This is,” Tyler said, and his mouth opened and shut like a fish. “This is…”
“Lulu,” Lulu prompted.
“Lulu,” Sapphire repeated, a strange lilt of recognition in her voice.
Tyler, whose lips not moments ago had vibrated against her earlobe, now stood mute and frozen, glancing from one woman to the other.
“I was just…” Lulu began, but her voice trailed off.
What was she planning to say? I was just popping by to have unbridled sex with your husband?
Or could she spare Sapphire and make something up that she would buy.
Like, I was coming by at nearly the morning because I had a pickleball emergency. Yes, that was believable.
Blinking, Lulu said nothing. Tyler said nothing. The silence stretched.
At last, Sapphire said something.
“Well, what are we doing standing here in the middle of the jungle? There are wild animals out here. And bugs!” she declared, her velvety voice rising over the cicada’s trills.
“Listen.” She looked to Tyler with her feline grin.
“I have the network’s RV in the parking lot. We have air conditioning. Come on!”
Caught in his stupid pickleball net of lies, Tyler glanced from one conquest to the other.
“Lu…” he began but apparently could not manage to complete the thought.
His expression wobbled from guilt to helplessness until finally, realizing that his toast had somehow landed butter side up, he shrugged his assent to Sapphire’s request.
Sapphire flicked a glance at Lulu, whose face was wreathed in panic. “You can come, too, if you want,” Sapphire said. “It’s huge. First class!”
Lulu took a harried glance around the dark jungle pathway.
“That’s okay,” Lulu rushed to say. “I’ve got to go…
back to my room.” Which she knew there was no way in hell she was going to do because her Jungle Book hut was inhabited by a spider that resembled a fuzzy bowling ball with legs.
Lulu stepped toward the darkness, but realizing she had no plan, her footsteps faltered.
What was she going to do? Where the hell was she supposed to sleep?
“Are you sure? It’s no problem,” Tyler said at the same time as Sapphire said, “Okay. Have a good night.”
“I’m fine.” Lulu gulped, stiff-lipped, swallowing down the panic that was rising in her throat. And for several torturous paces, Lulu slogged along with them down the path, not daring to meet Tyler’s eyes, even though he kept peeking over his shoulder.
“Oh!” Lulu said. “I think I forgot my…something…in your cabin, Tyler.” And turning back toward his room, she felt the mortification cramping her face. “You two go ahead. I’ll be fine. My room is super close to here.”
And Lulu trudged her way back to Tyler’s cabin because what the effing fuck else was she supposed to do?
Sweating with the humidity and melting with embarrassment, she checked to make sure the couple was out of sight and crept back inside his house.
Stifling tears because he was not worth it, dammit, she crumpled onto his mattress.
Sapphire Roe. Tyler’s wife’s beautiful—but unsurprised—face swam in her vision. This kind of thing must happen to her all the time.
Damn him. Damn him. Damn him to the moon and back. She was so mad. What a pickledick he was for using her!
Furious, betrayed, and feeling stupid, Lulu stared at the dark sky through the filter of the screened roof and thanked her stars that she had narrowly avoided a huge mistake.
But yet. The residue of Tyler’s touch and the imprint of his lips clung to her skin.
And even though she cursed herself for picturing that miserable player, even though he was a total shit, and even though she would turn him down if he were the last man on earth and sleeping with him was the only chance to save humanity…
she couldn’t keep her hands from sliding down along her skin, damp with jungle humidity.
She lingered on him for at least another ten minutes, that bastard.
Before the crack of daylight, Lulu bolted awake to the cacophonous jungle alarm clock of the howler monkeys.
She spent the next two hours running through pointless scenarios that involved breaking into an air-conditioned RV with a pack of riled-up capuchins as backup and letting the monkeys have at it.
But instead of acting on said fantasy, she machinated in misery until the hour when her non-stupid, non-gullible tourmates woke up and followed the trail to the patio for breakfast.
Before passing through the banana trees that arched over the entrance, she put on her best brave face.
But she should not have been concerned about making a cool impression, because the group’s attentions were already singularly focused on the scenario playing out in the corner of the breakfast room.
There they were: Sapphire and Tyler at a table for two, chit-chatting while Tyler mixed Lizano sauce into his gallo pinto.
Lulu halted, grateful that he had not noticed her entrance, and then hastily shifted her gaze to the warming pans lining the counter.
Still hyperaware of the performative nature of her movements, she scooped some rice, beans, and plantains onto her plate.
She would not, she would absolutely not, look over there again.
She joined Gwendy, Bill, and Ariana, who pointedly asked her how she slept while casting not-surreptitious glances at the celebrities in the corner.
It was at this point that Lulu fervently wished she had never allowed the name Tyler Demming to cross her lips or, for that matter, let his lips cross her lips.
And certainly had not decided to go on this fuckity, luck-forsaken adventure tour.
At the very least she wished she could crawl under the table and find a secret bunker door there to wait out the awkward scene that seemed an unjust contrast to the delicious tropical fruits available on the buffet table.
Ariana leaned in. “Wanna go for a walk and talk about it?”
And Lulu felt wetness spring into her eyes.
She clenched her jaw. Oh, just great. These past few days, she had managed to keep all of it—her anxiety about losing her job, missing Zoe, being trapped on a jungle adventure with her ex, her tendency to burn on the tops of her shoulders—yes, all of it, in check.
And now. Here in public. In front of a group of strangers she barely knew and her ex-boyfriend and his wife, she was going to lose it.
Simply lose it. She could feel the tears welling.
Please. Please don’t bawl on the papaya salad, she begged her tenuous willpower.
She pressed her lips together to calm herself, closed her eyes, and shook her head at the table. A moment later, she felt the comfort of Ariana’s hand on her shoulder. It rested there a second, and then it was gone, but Lulu sure appreciated it.
She ate little while her brain ran through a series of logistics about how to get back to the Blue Seas Resort before the predicted storm hit.
She could hunker down somehow in her aunt’s hotel room until she and Zoe could find a flight out to Seattle.
The act of planning…or rather planning to plan when they got to a spot with better internet, soothed Lulu’s nerves, and she managed to take a few bites of the breakfast, which even she could recognize was delicious despite the tastebud-dulling effects caused by her heightened awareness of the pickleputz in the corner.
The mostly silent meal—due to a number of unsuccessful attempts at eavesdropping—came to an end.
Hearing the scraping of chairs from the corner table, Ariana pulled out her phone and shot a quick snap.
Too late, Lulu caught sight of the image on Ariana’s phone screen: Sapphire and Tyler embracing.
That was happening! Right now. In front of her.
Lulu pushed back her chair and stood. She busied herself clearing her plate and turning pink from her ears to the tip of her nose.
Her mouth felt like the Atacama Desert, commonly known as the driest place on earth, and she didn’t think she could feel any more uncomfortable in the lovebirds’ presence until she sensed a figure coming her way.
When she looked up, Sapphire Roe was walking straight toward her.
Lulu held her breath. The rest of the room froze in a comical tableau, each person stuck mid-motion either with a fork headed toward a mouth, chewing, or in Gwendy’s case, stuffing a cinnamon roll into her purse.
Stopping not two feet away from Lulu, Sapphire clasped her hands in front of her chest. All eyes were glued on her.