Chapter Nineteen
Nineteen
While the rest of the van occupants slept, Lulu remained rigid in her fury.
Stinging with hurt, she developed an itemized list of Tyler Demming’s shortcomings, including but not limited to his self-centered behavior, his inability to take responsibility for his actions, and his fickle womanizing.
Mentally breaking his pickleball paddle into kindling, she vowed to be through with the back-and-forth volley, done with his game.
Her brain throbbed with a self-care promise.
Next time Lulu Gardner stepped onto love’s courts—if there was a next time—she’d hold out for someone who would serve it to her directly.
To pass the time on the long ride, Lulu pulled up the review form that Carmen asked her to fill out at the end of the trip.
Lulu found she had lots to say, and for a blissful who knew how long, she relaxed a little, absorbed by the clarity of the task.
She wrote thoughtfully, offering detailed information about the optimal places and activities to keep in the tour, and the segments that could be trimmed or altered.
The landscape changed as they neared the Guanacaste province, the hills and jungle giving way to palm plantations and flat fields of yellow grass.
Lulu felt the dry air on her cheeks and the warm wind whip at her hair through the open window.
Taking a brief break from her recommendations for the Blue Seas Resort, she texted a series of messages to Laverne.
Heading back to resort. Then, Should be there within the hour.
Can’t wait! And Kiss to Zoe. See you soon, then a string of heart emojis.
In return, she received a thumbs-up.
She stared at the reply, disappointed. Did they not miss her enough to type a word or two?
Sighing, she took solace in her routine: the sunscreen, the hydration, the satisfying snap of the barrette at the crown of her head.
The anticipation of her reunion with Zoe and the promise of a hot shower.
She completed the document for Carmen, which, after all her suggestions and tweaks, had resulted in seven finger-fatiguing pages of ideas.
Finally, Bill rolled the van up to the Blue Seas entrance, a majestic gate flanked by sculptures of crashing waves. The guard checked his clipboard, and when he glimpsed Lulu, he did a double take. “Lulu!” he said, smiling.
Tilting her head, she studied the guard, trying to place him. Had they met? Or maybe Laverne had let them know she was returning?
The guard waved over his colleague. A woman in a turquoise Blue Seas polo shirt peeked into the van and scanned the passengers. When her gaze landed on Lulu, her face lit with recognition. Nudging her coworker, she nodded her chin toward Tyler, and the guards exchanged a knowing glance.
Odd, indeed, Lulu thought. Nevertheless, she was relieved to be back at the resort, back where she would be reunited with her family.
The driveway, bordered by manicured gardens and leafy trees bursting with orange and yellow flowers, stretched toward the reception building.
By now, the groggy passengers were waking and gathering their packs.
Lulu, wide awake, was happy to get herself out of her head and jump out of the van.
A Blue Seas valet reached for her pack. “Let me get that for you, Lulu,” he chirped, grinning as he took her in.
Okay. This was weird. Why did these people know her name? To be real, it was beginning to give her the heebie-jeebies.
Tyler ducked his head and emerged with his pack in hand.
Several employees gathered near the entrance, busying themselves with conversations and shooting surreptitious glances at the returning crew.
A young tourist with sunburned shoulders muttered something to her girlfriend and giggled at Tyler.
With a flip of her blond hair, the whisperer walked straight up to Lulu.
“You two are just adorable together. Loving it!”
Before she could escape, Lulu placed a hand on the young woman’s forearm. “Hold on. I’m sorry. What are you talking about?”
The cheery tourist grinned at Lulu and gave her a sidelong glance.
Then, tugging her phone from her pocket, she flicked open her social media.
Scrolling, she landed on Ariana’s feed and flipped past posts until she landed on an image of Tyler very near to Lulu’s shoulders, demonstrating a stroke, with his gaze directed at her lips.
Another, on the river raft, side by side and thigh to thigh.
Another checking the buckles of her zip-line harness.
Lulu’s ears tingled and she felt the heat of her embarrassment crossing her cheeks.
The young woman gushed, “It’s been so fun following you two this week. Not gonna lie. You’re basically the main characters of my feed.”
Lulu watched as the women strolled toward the resort lobby, turning their heads to gawk at Tyler as they passed.
Lulu, cringing in irritation, followed behind them into the airy lobby, past the Doric columns and explosive flower arrangements grand enough for a royal coronation.
And there, near the reception desk, she spotted Ariana regarding her cautiously.
Ariana’s expression wavered between pride and contrition, as if weighing which was going to be the right reaction to this discovery. Judging the look on Lulu’s face, Ariana chose the second option.
“Lulu, listen. I was hoping you wouldn’t be too mad…” Ariana began. “It’s just. You two are so great together. And after I posted the first shots, the comments went crazy. There’s nothing bad on there. Really. Just the two of you getting to know each other. I think you’ll—”
Lulu’s open-mouthed speechlessness stopped Ariana’s words. “Maybe we can talk about this later?” Ariana asked, the plea in her voice replacing her usual confidence.
It was too much to consider right now. She could not believe, could not even comprehend, how Ariana could imagine that Lulu would be okay with her actions.
And as Lulu watched the younger woman turn away, disappointment threaded through her, too.
One of her major comfort zone–breaching achievements this adventure had been to forge new connections.
She really thought that even though things with Tyler had blown up, she could still count on Ariana’s friendship.
Jogging steps approached from behind her. “Lu—”
She whirled. Tyler halted in his tracks.
“Did you know? Did you know she was filming that and posting, too? About us? The whole time?”
“No!” he shook his head. “I didn’t know. Of course I didn’t know. But I mean. We knew she was filming the trip. It’s just clips she shot in public, right?”
Disbelief ringed her features. Maybe for him it was fine.
Maybe in the world of Tyler Demming, there was no such thing as too much exposure, but Lulu had not signed on to be his marketing tool.
In fact, the only tool in this picture was the tatted-up pro standing beside her looking like the image search results for “incorrigible.” If incorrigible had chiseled features and a rockin’ bod.
Okay, she thought. This will all blow over as soon as I get some distance. Tomorrow, she would fly back to the States, face the firing squad at her teaching job, and go back to eating broccoli from Laverne’s fridge. And still, tomorrow could not come soon enough.
But all of her frustrations melted when, from one of the lobby’s commodious sofas, three figures sprang up.
“Mommy!” Zoe cheered and ran face forward into Lulu’s thighs.
Lulu knelt, crushing her daughter to her chest. She would deal with the fallout from those posts later.
For now, she just wanted to get into her clean and non-spidery resort room, snuggle up with Zoe, and reclaim a sense of normalcy.
“I missed you, bugaboo!” Lulu smothered Zoe’s neck with kisses.
“Mommy. We had pancakes!”
“Wow.”
“With chocolate sauce.”
“Yum.”
“And syrup. And honey.”
Lulu snuggled her daughter and kissed the top of her head. “I’m so glad to see you.” She stood and hugged Laverne and Rooster in turn. “Thank you, guys, so much. Did you have fun?”
Rooster’s lip curled at the edge. “Not as much as you did, apparently.”
“Rooster.” Laverne elbowed him. “I said don’t bring it up.”
Lulu blanched. So everyone, even her seventy-year-old godparents, had witnessed her burgeoning romance.
Yet none of them know about its private demise, she thought miserably.
Across the lobby, she could hear Tyler chatting and laughing, entertaining a crowd that gathered around him like moths to a light bulb.
Her insides coiled in self-protection. “Let’s go get into our room,” she said to Zoe.
“There’s just one little catch,” Laverne said. “They’re still trying to get you into your own room. How ’bout you and Zoe take a little break at the beach while it gets worked out?”
Yes. The beach. The sand, the sea, and the company of her daughter. That would help her get her head on straight. Grounding herself with her daughter’s presence, she breathed and headed out the French doors toward the blue sea.
Dumping a bucket of wet, crushed coral onto the sand, Zoe grinned.
“I made a mush,” she said. Before pushing herself to try a zip line or rafting a river, the old Lulu might have let her daughter know that if she used the packed sand from higher up on the beach, she would have a better chance of building a well-formed sandcastle.
But this Lulu focused her attention on her daughter’s plump cheeks and familiar head of dark curls and said, “That’s beautiful, Zoe. ”
Grinning at her sandy creation, Zoe scooped more of the dripping mixture into the bucket. “I like Crusta Rica.”