Chapter Nine
CHAPTER NINE
NATALIE
A local grocery store sat two doors down from the pharmacy below Joel’s apartment. After picking up my prescription, I told Joel I needed to run inside and get a few things. Before he could follow me, his phone buzzed, and I left him out on the sidewalk. I emerged shortly with a grocery sack full of ingredients and momentarily enjoyed Joel’s puzzled expression.
“I’m going to make us dinner,” I announced, heading back to his apartment lobby.
“How do you know I don’t have plans tonight?” he asked me as we stepped into the elevator and headed up to the eighth floor.
“Because you just asked me on a date to your friend’s wedding, which tells me social calendar is pretty open, and I decided I’m cooking for you, so you don’t get to have any other plans.” Duh. “I mean, you pay rent on that whole studio, you may as well utilize all of it.”
“Don’t be surprised when you discover I don’t own a large amount of cookware or bakeware. I left a lot behind when I moved here and never bought most of it again, even after I got settled.”
“I like a challenge,” I told him, crossing over the threshold into his place. I set the groceries on the table and washed my hands. “ Before you get too excited, I only know how to make one thing?—”
“You’re making me crepes!” There was delight in his voice as he began pulling items out of the bag. “Oh, you bought Nutella and bananas and raspberries. You are spoiling me.”
After whipping up the first batch, I carried the kitchen chairs to the balcony, placing them side by side, and served our dinner.
Joel eagerly took a bite and let out a little groan.
“These are so good. Bravo to the chef.” He leaned closer and nudged me with his shoulder.
“I’m glad you like them,” I responded. “Ah! I cannot believe you get to look at Diamond Head every single day. Do you know how lucky you are?”
I took a bite while he paused and thought about my question.
“Sometimes.” He put a forkful of crepe into his mouth and slowly chewed. I knew he was torn at what he wanted to say by the way he tensed up and furrowed his brow. I waited patiently until he was ready, happily spooning more food into my mouth. “I want to look out and feel like the luckiest man alive that I live in Hawaii and get to see all of this beauty all the time. I really do.
“You also have to remember why I moved here. I only came because I had to escape Arizona. My company had an opening, which they gratefully let me take. I literally got word of the opportunity a month after Lottie’s death and moved two days later. I took the first apartment that had an availability and hit the ground running one day after arriving. Weekends were lonely for me, so I found the kayaking job.
“Sometimes, I’m lucky and they’re double booked out, so they need me both Saturday and Sunday. Otherwise, Sundays are the one day I have nothing to do and having nothing to do is not a good place for me to be.” He swallowed hard to steady his shaking voice. “I battle a lot of demons and have a lot of guilt, Red.”
His eyes welled up for a tiny second, and he turned his head from my view. I heard him suck in a deep breath and sniff once over the din of the traffic below. Setting my plate down on the ground, I leaned over and touched his arm, giving him a little squeeze to let him know I was there for him.
He turned back to face me. “Sorry about that. Whew. My therapist, Dr. Adams—I’ve been seeing him since I moved here— has been working with me to get over the survivor’s guilt I have with me nearly constantly. I mean, we were supposed to be driving home together. Three days earlier. I feel like if we had both been on the road, maybe it wouldn’t have happened or we both would have been killed. I don’t know. He and I have gone the rounds on all the ways I feel. And some days really are better than others. I have an appointment with him tomorrow because I can feel a lot of my old feelings dredging to the surface with everybody coming this weekend?—”
“Because the island was your safe place where nobody knew your past, and now they’re all coming, and it feels like they’re invading your new life, right?” I interrupted.
“Yeah.” He nodded, giving me a little smile. “And none of them have ever made me feel anything but supported during all of it, but I still feel shame and associate them with my life pre-accident. Does any of this even make sense?” He was watching me.
“Why shame?” I asked carefully.
“Because I failed her as a husband. I should’ve stood up to my boss and explained I would get back when I got back. Our car was in the shop—I wasn’t just hanging out longer in San Francisco to be difficult. Or I should have flown back at the end of the week, and we could have done the drive together over the weekend.
Because I should have been there. I just . . .” He trailed off.
I nodded. “I don’t understand what you have gone through, but I want you to know I am so sorry. And I will listen as much as you want to talk about it, without judgment. I don’t think you’re at fault in any way. The person who chose to drive drunk is the one who is at fault. Not that it changes anything.
Letting go of his arm, I picked up my plate and went into the kitchen to make another batch, leaving Joel alone with his thoughts. After filling up both of our plates with seconds, I sat down and readied a bite of crepe but didn’t lift it to my mouth.
“Wait a minute—all the calls and texts you have been getting are about this weekend, aren’t they?” I put the fork back on my plate and reached over to rub his back.
“Yeah. It’s so dumb I’ve been avoiding them, isn’t it?” He looked like a child caught in the act of stealing a cookie before dinner.
I paused, holding my hand still between his shoulder blades. “You would get so sad and disappear into yourself after your phone buzzed. It all makes sense now. It’s not dumb. You’re still grieving and maybe they aren’t recognizing that.”
“Thanks. And I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean to be bad company—here you’re on vacation, and I’ve ruined it.” He was sincere in his apology, shifting the focus from him to me.
“We all have baggage of some sort. I honestly have enjoyed the company. I wouldn’t have gone hiking with you Sunday if Saturday had felt like a bust. I hope you know that.”
“I haven’t done this”—he pointed back and forth between us —“in what feels like so long. I don’t know what I’m doing.” He put his plate down and leaned forward until his elbows were resting on his knees, his face in his hands. “Maybe I shouldn’t go to the wedding.”
I went back to eating and let that thought sit a moment. “I’m going to ask you the wise question my kayaking instructor asked me last weekend: do you want to go?”
He shifted to look at me, playfully rolling his eyes. “Yes.”
“I think it’ll be good for you to go and see that you can do hard things. And see your old friends. And it will be even better because you’ll have a hot date who can talk you up and keep you company. Or if you need to go a different route, you can give me some kind of sign, and I can get a wicked headache, and we can leave early.”
He sat up, leaned over, and kissed me on the cheek. This time,he lingered a second, and I breathed in his smell. Then, before he could pull away, I turned my head slightly, and our lips met. A moment passed between both of us, lips frozen in place on one another.
Pulling back ever so slightly, I whispered, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that.” I stood to gather my dishes to take them inside, slightly embarrassed at being completely inappropriate considering the situation.
He stood to meet me and took my plate, setting it down on my chair. There was a glimmer of something in his eyes. Hunger. “I’m not sorry at all,” he whispered back, before putting his hands behind my head and pulling me in for another kiss.
It was a perfectly innocent, exploratory first kiss. The kind where both parties take it slowly and just enjoy the moment, both wanting a little more than they’re willing to let on to. Based on what Joel had shared, I was probably his first kiss since his wife. I had always been a big flirt, but never one to attract much attention beyond flattery, so my kiss card was mostly punched out by Dane.
For about six seconds, it felt weird to be kissing somebody who wasn’t my ex-fiancé. But quickly those feelings kicked aside and felt my head get fuzzy and my knees go weak as I held tightly onto his waist and felt his smooth lips press against mine.
“Shut up. Shut up. Shut up. He did not!” Carlie squealed loudly enough at the screen that our twenty-six-hundred-mile distance didn’t feel so far.
“Shhh! You’re going to wake Liam and then Matt is going to get mad at me for it.” I laughed.
“No, it’s totally fine. I’m hiding in my car. I knew if you were video calling me this late, you had a good story, so Matt got his ear on the baby monitor, and I grabbed some M&Ms and came out to the garage to take the call.” She pulled her face back from the screen, and I could see her sitting in her Toyota 4-Runner, snacking away on candy, looking to be enthralled. “So, spill the details about this kiss. I’ve been married too long and have forgotten how fun first kisses are. Did he kiss you? Did you kiss him?”
“Some of both. But it’ll only make sense if I start at the beginning.” I felt heat rush to my face reliving that kiss in my mind as I told my sister a general overview of the day, starting with discovering my swollen face, briefly explaining he had lost his wife, and ending with the moment on Joel’s balcony.
“Could you have found a more complicated man to make out with while on vacation?” she trolled.
“Hang on a second,” I told her, setting my phone down. Room service arrived at my lanai, bringing a small combo pizza and seasoned sweet potato curly fries. I thanked and tipped the attendant, then left my phone to run inside and grab a water.
“Okay, I’m back.”
“You’re living a pretty amazing life all things considered, little sister. You’re getting room service by your pool while looking out at the ocean, and you are spending time with a hottie. I’m not going to lie—I’m a little jealous of you at this very moment,” she said.
“Moments are fleeting. I am always jealous of how it seems you just found your person and you created a life together. And despite your inability to carry a tune and your allergy to housework, he adores you!” I hit back.
She thought about this as she threw a few M&Ms in her mouth. “I wouldn’t change my life for the world, but I look back on my beginning with Matt and miss it sometimes.”
“When you met Matt, what was that like?” I changed the subject, settling into my lounge chair and eating a fry.
“Mmmmm,” she hummed, remembering. “We got set up on a blind date, you know. I had no desire to actually go to the restaurant, but figured I’d show up and then make an excuse to leave. He walked in, and it was game over. I was immediately drawn to him, and we became inseparable. Why? Wait, you’re not feeling something like that for Joel, are you?”
I glanced to the side and pursed my lips. When I looked back at the screen, her eyes were wide. “What?”
“You know I love and support you and am so happy for you to have had these few days on what was otherwise looking to be a depressing honeymoon, but Nat, you’re leaving next week. You do realize that, don’t you?” The empathy was in her voice, but the words came across as condescending.
“I know I’m leaving,” I said sourly.
“Exactly. So Joel’s a rebound. But this is good. You never dated much before Dane, and I was worried you’d wallow for years when you two called off the wedding, but I mean, look at you—less than two weeks later, and you’re going on dates. It’s a great time in your life to have fun and not get so invested in the next guy who comes along. Just enjoy them all.” Carlie was in her famous I-know-best mode, and I tried to not take it personally. She thought she was doing me a favor by pointing out what should be the obvious.
“Yeah, I don’t have guys knocking down my door to take me out. Even if I did, I’m a relationship person, not a serial dater.” I put up my defenses. I had called her because I thought she’d celebrate with me, and heavens knows I needed somebody to scrutinize every detail with. “And you just made a big deal out of our kiss, so what is your stance? You’re saying I should just go around kissing everybody?”
She put another handful of M&Ms into her mouth. The shift in our conversation was tense through the screen. “I want you to date a lot of guys. I wish I had. I mean, I love Matt—he’s my person, right? But I seemed to find him pretty quickly, and I don’t know, maybe it would have been fun to have a lot of first kisses. You know?”
“Sure, maybe,” I replied, dejectedly. I took a bite of the pizza before I ended up cussing her out .
We both sat there silently, lost in thought. After a long drink of Pepsi, I asked, “What are you not telling me? There is something you want to say to me that you aren’t saying.”
Her eyes lingered on my face, reading my mood. I nodded at her and hoped it would give her the courage to just say whatever was on her mind. Even though she was older, I sometimes felt like she was afraid to hurt my feelings.
“Okay. I’m going to level with you,” she said. “The reason it would be best for you to just enjoy this vacation fling is because you’re . . . well, you have always lacked a certain amount of empathy, and I don’t know Joel, but it sounds like he’s been through enough already to not?—”
“I’m not empathetic?” My jaw dropped.
She chuckled. “And that proves my point. You didn’t even let me finish my thought.”
I rubbed my temple on one side and didn’t say aloud the first few words that came to mind. “I apologize. Please explain.”
Carlie smirked. “You can’t tell me you don’t know this about yourself.”
Self-reflection was not my strong suit. I still hadn’t even fully debriefed how I felt about my wedding being canceled—I liked to avoid personal discomfort at all costs. “I like to think of myself as a go-getter. I am just not built to get emotionally attached to every little thing or person who comes my way. It’s why I kill it at my job. I can compartmentalize and push forward.”
“Okay, Nat. I didn’t mean to rock that boat,” she said, holding up her free hand in defeat. Clearing her throat, she changed the subject. “How’s your wallowing coming? Any good insight? Making peace with life?”
“I turn on sad music and eat. I don’t deliberate.”
“Fair enough. When do you think you’ll see Joel again?” she tried to rally the conversation back to where it had been in the beginning, but I wasn’t going to give her much.
“I’m not sure,” I lied. Had Carlie reacted in the way I hoped, she could be helping me plan what to wear on Friday. Maybe help me process the fact I didn’t have the wedding I’d been planning for a year, but I’d be attending one soon and I would probably survive. “He works all week. I need to do some work. I have a massage scheduled for tomorrow and a few other things planned throughout the week. Maybe this weekend.” Vague and noncommittal—I didn’t need her opinion working its way into my excitement on anything. At this point, I almost regretted calling her at all.
“Well, keep me posted. I still need a picture of him!” she gave me a big smile like she hadn’t just lectured me a minute before. I heard Matt open the door to the garage and say hello to me before his message to Carlie was muffled.
“Okay, I’ll be there in a minute! Hey, Nat, Liam woke up and won’t go back to sleep. He wants me to lay by him, so I gotta go. Love you!”
“Love you too,” I told her, ending the call.
I jumped into the pool and swam laps, something mindless to wade through my thoughts. What made me the most frustrated with the call was everything she said regarding Joel were things I had already thought about on the drive home. I wasn’t stupid enough to think this would go beyond my vacation, whatever this was. I was also aware I wasn’t exactly the most compassionate person, but I felt I had handled the news from Joel with the right amount of empathy.
But above everything, I knew that when Joel kissed me earlier, my life changed.