Chapter 3
Three
Lucas
It doesn’t matter where I travel for work, I always have a packed itinerary.
Early-morning coffee stops at hole-in-the-wall diners.
A different hotel every night. Waterfront brunches and downtown lunches.
Beaches. Parks. Shopping districts. Campy roadside amusements.
Weekend farmers’ markets. Museums in the morning and nightclubs at, well, night.
To most, my nomadic life running a vacation-planning website sounds like a dream come true.
In a lot of ways, it is. How many people get to go on vacation for a living?
I’m grateful for it, don’t get me wrong.
But sometimes? The constant going and going with nowhere to come back to can be a real beach—bad pun intended.
I never go anywhere twice.
So why, then, did I rearrange my entire morning for an impromptu second visit to the marine life center?
I’m just here to get coffee. At least, that’s what I told myself when I waltzed right past the coffee maker in my hotel room.
So maybe I’m not really here for coffee. Maybe I’m really here to see her.
Beck. Not Rebecca or Becky. Just Beck. Beck, who I’m fairly certain does not order a coconut coffee frappé on the regular, if the iced coffee with her name on it behind the cash register yesterday is any indication.
Beck, the marine biologist I haven’t stopped thinking about since she told me she hates beach days because sand is sandy.
All this traveling by myself might finally be getting to me.
When I arrive at the marine life center, there’s no sign of her.
Not in the lobby. Not in the café. Not out by the turtle tanks.
I pass by the coffee shop again and wander down the hall toward her office.
Suddenly, I feel foolish. I don’t even know if she’s working today.
And even if she is working, what am I going to say?
Hey, Beck, I know I’m a total stranger, but is there any chance you’d like to hang out this weekend while I’m in town? I promise I’m not stalking you.
Nope. This was a mistake. I need to leave.
I turn around and head toward the exit. Just as I am about to pass the coffee shop again, the door flings open, and I find myself face-to-face with none other than Beck herself, black iced coffee in hand.
I knew it.
At the sight of me, Beck stops so suddenly that her ponytail starts swinging.
“Lucas?” she says.
“Beck?” I don’t know why I say it like a question. For someone who always has a plan, I am really just flying by the seat of my pants on this one. Not exactly my airline of choice. I hear the frequent-flier miles program is terrible.
“This is perfect!” she says.
“It is?”
She nods to the door to the coffee shop. “You’re getting coffee, right? I can pay you back!”
“No,” I say. “I mean, yes, I’m here for coffee. But really, you don’t owe me anything. Besides, you just bought your coffee.”
When she looks up at me, her tortoiseshell glasses slide up her nose. “Yeah, sorry. It’s happening. C’mon.”
Beck turns away from me without waiting for a reply. She swings open the door to the café and steps inside, marching ahead of me as if she expects I’ll just do whatever she says.
Which, of course, I do.
“What are you having?” Beck asks once we’re in line. She turns to face me, and when she does, her expression changes. She furrows her brow, and her tortoiseshell glasses slide a little ways down her nose.
“Are you okay?” she says. “You seem . . .”
Weird? Ridiculous? Mentally unstable?
“. . . stressed out.”
Well, yes. But that’s no different from any other day.
What else is there when work is vacation and vacation is work?
No, what’s different about today is that when I woke up and looked over my itinerary, the thought of yet another weekend sitting alone at all those tables felt .
. . intolerable. Ten minutes of conversation with Beck had felt more exciting than a Broadway show in New York or a wine tasting in Napa.
And so I let myself imagine what the next seventy-two hours might look like if I wasn’t alone at all those tables.
What if someone were with me? The same someone for every meal. And what if that someone was Beck?
Next thing I know, I’ve canceled my breakfast reservation, booked a rideshare to the marine life center, and voilà—here we are.
Beck looks at me expectantly.
“I’m not really here for coffee,” I say. “I’m here to see you.”
I brace for her to tell me thanks, but no thanks. Or that she’s got a boyfriend. Or to look at me like I’m some kind of creep.
Instead, her gaze flicks to the register. “Can I still buy your coffee, though?”
Just when I think I’ve figured out every possible way something can go, she says something I don’t expect. “Uh, sure,” I say. “If you really want to.”
“I want to,” she says. “So tell me your order, and then you can tell me why you’re here to see me. I’ve got a little extra time before I have to visit Boris.”
“Boris?”
“He’s a turtle.” She says this matter-of-factly, like it’s an obvious thing I should know. “If you don’t tell me your order, I’m getting you a coconut coffee frappé, and trust me, you do not want one. They’re terrible.”
I tell her my order, and a few minutes later, the barista sets another black iced coffee on the counter.
“Mind if we walk and talk?” Beck says. “The music in here gets on my nerves.”
I follow her from the coffee shop and outside to where the turtles are. She stops in front of one of the large white tanks. “This is Boris,” she says, nodding to a giant sea turtle floating near the viewing window. “Boris, meet Lucas.”
“Hi, Boris,” I say. “It’s nice to meet you.”
“He can’t hear you,” Beck says. When I look at her, she’s got this little smirk on her lips, as if she’s waiting for me to catch on to the joke.
Beck props a hand on one hip. The other lifts her iced coffee to her lips, and for a moment I completely forget what we’re talking about because now I’m thinking about how nice her lips are.
“So you’re here to see me?” she says.
Right. “I travel a lot for work,” I say.
“I run this website. It’s kind of like a vacation-planning service.
I go to a different city every few days, check out as much as I can when I’m there—hotels, restaurants, unique attractions, stuff like that—so users can build the perfect custom vacation itinerary. That’s why I’m in here in Palm Beach.”
“So your job is amazing,” Beck says. “Not sure that’s a problem I can help you with.”
I don’t know how to ask her out without sounding like a total loser, but it’s too late to bail now.
“Yeah, it is great, but . . . it gets a little lonely sometimes. I go to all these amazing places by myself, and I guess what I’m trying to say is that I really liked talking to you yesterday, and I was wondering if you’d want to hang out with me this weekend?
You said you don’t get out much, and maybe you were joking, but it just got me thinking that maybe you’d have fun being a tourist for the weekend.
Or even just for dinner? Maybe tonight?”
Beck doesn’t say anything at first. When she looks me over, I find myself holding my breath.
“What do you think, Boris?” she says to the tank beside us.
“I thought he couldn’t hear you,” I say.
That makes her laugh, and I feel as if I’ve passed some sort of test. “Boris and I have a connection,” she says. “He doesn’t need to hear me. He just knows. But you’re right. I haven’t gotten out much lately. More importantly, I don’t feel like cooking dinner tonight. You’re buying?”
“For Boris,” I say. “You? I’ll think about it.”
“I’m a much cheaper date than Boris,” she says.
“Fine, you too. My treat.”
“Boris says he’s going to pass on the invite.”
“And you?”
She looks me over again, and I’m pretty sure it will ruin my entire life if this girl won’t go to dinner with me.
“I guess I can do dinner,” she says. “Maybe if it’s a good time, the rest of my weekend will open up.”