Chapter Ten
CHAPTER TEN
NATALIE
M y evening finished book in hand, cocooned in my luxurious bed, with the ceiling-to-floor windows wide open, allowing the sounds of the ocean and the breeze to swirl through the room. My eyes kept reading the same paragraph until the words weren’t making any sense. I was too lost in the memory of earlier that afternoon.
When we pulled apart on the balcony, we stood there—my hands tightly holding onto his waist, his hands still tangled in my hair—and silently studied each other.
Finally, Joel opened his mouth. “Wow.” It came out breathy.
I bit my lip and felt the heat creep up my neck. He had looked at me like I’d never been looked at before. And it was unnerving. I truly felt like he saw me for me and liked what he saw. I would never have to become any certain persona for him or live up to any expectation he had created. It hit me like a ton of bricks how badly things had really spiraled with Dane leading up to the end.
“A month ago I hadn’t met her . . .”
“Her? Her who?” I felt my voice falter.
Dane ran his hand through his hair and paced the room. “He r
name is Lucy. She is a paralegal who recently got hired at my office ? —”
I scoffed, cutting him off. “Oh that’s rich. You think you have feelings for your new paralegal? Could you be a bigger cliché?”
He stopped and looked at me. “I don’t think I do. I know I do. I didn’t mean for this to happen, Nat. She was assigned to my team on that big environmental case I’ve been working on all year, and she’s . . . well, she’s like nobody I’ve ever met.”
“Like nobody you’ve ever met? You’re going to throw away us over her ? What does she supposedly have that I don’t?”
“I don’t know how to describe it. She makes me feel all the corny things from all your girly movies you’ve made me watch. She makes me feel validated. I don’t feel judged by her at all. I—I don’t know what you want me to say.” He sounded defeated.
“I don’t judge you,” I whispered.
He gave me a half smile. “You’ve been stressed a lot the last couple of years. I don’t think you realize how critical you can be, but . . . it would’ve been nice for you to check in with me sometimes and not just tell me how I should feel.”
Tears of frustration, bordering between immense anger and embarrassed rejection, fell quickly. “So you’ve made up your mind, then? You are calling off our wedding?”
He crossed the room and used his thumb to wipe my cheek. I felt nothing from his physical touch. In fact, right then, I realized I hadn’t felt anything from his touch in longer than I could remember. My gut was telling me he would say the same about me.
We had been on autopilot with our lives, and the trajectory had led us to walking down the aisle in two days. Because it was the next logical step. We were friends, we were compatible on paper, we were comfortable—but we lacked a spark. As I stood there crying, I wanted to feel something. I wanted to feel that even his presence would solve all my problems. Had it even really felt that way in the beginning? I had no idea anymore .
“Are you happy? Do you want to marry me?” He really wanted to know.
I looked up at him and sighed, regaining control of my emotions. “It’s weird. We’ve been friends for so long . . . best friends. But that didn’t exactly morph into the kind of love that I think either of us wants for the rest of our lives, did it?” I paused and Dane put his hand over mine, giving it a light squeeze as he shook his head. “I’m going to miss you as my friend, and while I love you in some capacity, no . . . I’m probably not as happy as I should be about getting married.”
This admission elicited a full smile. “I’ll miss you as my friend, too. I think we can love each other and not be in love with each other. But I want more, and we both deserve more. We owe it to ourselves to find that person who walks into our life and completely turns it upside down, you know?”
I nodded, letting go of his hand. We both breathed in deep and sat down on the couch, sharing a long goodbye.
The buzz of my phone brought me back to the present. I picked it up and smiled. With the late hour, I assumed Joel had already gone to bed. I’ve never been so happy to be wrong. He was not only awake, he was thinking about me.
Hey, Red.
That simple two-word text sent butterflies through me. There was something about the way he called me Red, not Nat, not Natalie, not Reddington. He started with it on the kayak, and even then it felt so familiar. Like we were long-lost friends.
I sat up, nestling into the collection of down pillows against the headboard.
Hi.
Three dots. I eagerly waited.
Confession. My shirt smells like you.
Before I could reply, another three dots.
Okay, fine. Second confession. I’m still wearing the shirt, I’m wearing it to bed, and I’m not washing it until the smell is gone.
I giggled. He was slightly ridiculous, and I liked it. A lot.
I’m almost afraid to ask what I smell like. Is it at least a nice smell?
Burrowing further into my pile of pillows, I found the most comfy position to enjoy our exchange when his response appeared.
It’s the best. Like a mix between lemon and plumeria, which is fitting with your sassy but sexy personality. There’s also a slight hint of the crepes from dinner. But mostly, I would say it smells like happiness.
He was happy.
Despite everything he’s shared with me today, he was happy. And I helped him feel that. I was speechless. He helped me feel the exact same way. Currently, my inbox had one hundred and fifteen emails waiting for my attention; there was a promotion to compete for, an apartment full of things to return to an ex-fiancé (and his new girlfriend), plus a million summer events coming up—on top of my first time being at the helm of our company’s largest fundraiser. But all of the usual stress and anxiety that lived with me 24/7 was non-existent when I was with him. It wasn’t the island and the idea of a vacation, it was him. He brought calm into my life. And bonus, he thought I was sexy.
My phone buzzed again.
Natalie?
Are you still awake?
Did I say something wrong?
Did you hope to smell like something else?
His slew of texts made me smile. I quickly hovered over the keyboard so he would see I was responding.
Ha.
Yes, I’m still awake.
Just thinking about how you make me feel calm, and that, my friend, is a tall order.
He didn’t respond right away. Now it was my turn to wonder if I had made him feel uncomfortable, but then a text came through.
I’m really grateful you ended up in my kayak.
He wished me goodnight, and I turned my phone on airplane mode, picked up my book, and grinned like a complete idiot until I fell asleep reading.
It took two and a half waffles with whipped cream and strawberries, and three scrambled eggs, to even make a dent in my inbox. I would delete or respond quickly to one email and two more would show up. It was hopeless. It appeared nobody could possibly function without asking me for my opinion or blessing on the smallest, most ridiculously minuscule thing .
At the office, I never realized how often people came to me with questions, requests, and in need of direct guidance on everything. When I left for Hawaii, the hope was to step away completely for the ten days; being unable to, showed me how badly I needed to cut the cord. For all our sakes.
Either I had done a poor job of training the department’s small staff or they all feared my wrath if something went wrong. Probably the latter. I did hold severely high expectations for our division, which was something I’d learned from Jill. She was just a few years older than me but had been an amazing mentor. She had instilled in me how to balance trying to procure new business and deal with millions of dollars that shaped the community at large. I had to make sure that we always did right by the money and the company name. It probably would serve everybody best for me to ease up a bit and trust that I hired competent people who would do their jobs well.
I stretched my neck back and forth, feeling the tension in my shoulders. Finishing up a few more responses, I turned to the event at hand: Employees Blissfully Give Back. Pulling up spreadsheets and contracts with vendors, I wanted to ensure nothing was being forgotten during my first time organizing the affair.
After our brief text exchange the night before, I hadn’t heard anything from Joel. He had mentioned he usually got up early to run the path we had walked before going to work. He needed to focus on work after blowing it off the day before to spend with me. And that was fine—I had lots of my own to do. If I did some of it now, when I got back, it wouldn’t be so insane. Despite knowing that was the rational way to look at things, I would be completely lying to myself if I said I didn’t miss him. We’d had a crash course on co-existing for three days, and now I was finally alone on my sad, solo honeymoon, and it felt undeniably lonely. At least the meds from the pharmacy made my face go back to normal much sooner than anticipated .
A chime signaled a new email, drawing my attention as I shoved another bite of waffle into my mouth. It was from Kate.
Hi Natalie:
Thanks for stopping that paperwork by the resort’s account manager. She signed everything and faxed it over to us.
But the real reason for this email: I caught wind of a conversation in the conference room between Jill and Mr. Banks. Your name got brought up as a replacement for Jill, pending how EBGB turns out. Would it be unhelpful to say no pressure? I mean, it’s not like you can control how well attended it is by the company or how loose everybody is with their wallets, but what you have been working on before you left is pretty incredible, and I think you’ll
knock it out of the park.
Plus, Jill is rooting for you. She talked you up quite a bit from what I could hear out in the hallway. Hopefully you’re getting a great tan. I need one. Portland has been hiding the sun, as usual.
Kate
P.S. You got a cheese and meat platter as a belated wedding gift from the bookmobile we helped fund. Before you get too excited about it, Luca took it upon himself to make sure it didn’t go to waste. But I wanted you to know so you could write a thank you note. He said the brie was pretty decent but the water crackers were dry. Insert an eye roll here.
So the promotion all came down to that one night. Two weeks away. That seemed easy enough. Plus, Jill was on my side. And Mr. Banks had no reason not to like me, even though it felt like a personal attack when he sent our department Luca, his obnoxious grandson. Nepotism grated me. I stretched out my arms, fingers interlocked, palms facing outward, and breathed in and out in counts of six. After a few rounds, I closed my laptop, popped the last of my waffle into my mouth, and went to prepare for my massage.
The hammock, tucked between two palm trees a few feet o+ my lanai, came with a view of a sea turtle sunbathing just out of the reach of the wave break. Rocking myself lazily back and forth, I watched the turtle just take in the warmth of the sand and the sun, not a care in the world.
I was feeling similarly carefree after my hot stone massage from the spa. Which, I followed up with a facial and then a lengthy one-on-one yoga session. And thanks to Dane’s spa credit, I would be getting an aromatherapy massage later in the week and more than likely tacking on other treatments. Because that indulgent afternoon was something I hadn’t experienced . . . ever. I may be completely high-maintenance in some areas, but I’d never been a spa girl—until now. And I was hooked. When I got back to the bungalow, I stayed in my yoga pants and razor back tank top, hair pulled high in a messy bun and sunk my body right into the hammock. I think this is what vacations were supposed to feel like.
The sound of footsteps startled me. Although room service had been ordered for dinner, I didn’t think it should be arriving yet. I turned my head to see who was approaching and nearly leaped out of the hammock.
“Joel!”
He kicked off his flip flops and motioned for me to slide over so he could join me. “Hi.”
It drove me crazy the way he could simply utter his one-word greetings with all the coolness of James Bond, while I turned into a teenager at a boy band concert upon seeing him.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, still a little too much excitement in my voice.
He maneuvered his arm behind my head and pulled me close. “ Is it okay that I showed up? I tried to call, but I kept getting your voicemail, and then I was kind of worried, so I just came.”
“Oh, shoot.” I scrunched my face. “I put my phone on silent this afternoon and never turned the ringer back on. I had the most exhausting day.”
“What happened?” His brow furrowed, concern etched his face.
I rolled onto my side to face him and snuggled in close. “Oh, you know . . . I woke up and answered emails galore, saved the day left and right. Put a few more finishing touches on the next big event coming up. Then my afternoon was quite demanding—I spent the entirety of it in the spa, then indulged in some yoga. I’ve since been so exhausted all I can do is lie here watching that turtle.” A smirk crossed my face.
“Is that so? I don’t know how you ever made it through all of that. Let me get out my tiny violin for you.” He readjusted onto his side as best he could, while still keeping the balance of the hammock “Hmmmm.”
“What?”
“You’re getting little freckles across the bridge of your nose from all this exhausting vacationing you’re doing.” He thoughtfully traced his pointer finger over each one. My heart beat so hard it nearly broke against my ribcage at his simple touch.
As he tapped them, I took him in: vivid green eyes that were locked on my boring brown ones; lips parted casually; hair, still styled for work; plain navy-blue t-shirt and olive-green board shorts that looked amazing but relaxed on him. Mmmm. Back to his lips. My breath quickened. I could still taste our last kiss and definitely wanted more.
I rolled forward just slightly, extending my neck and pulling my lips into a pout.
Joel seemed to have the same idea. He leaned toward me as I leaned toward him, and my nose ran right into his chin.
Attempting to rearrange myself, I rolled back, he followed, and the sudden momentum tipped the hammock just right, landing us both on the ground below. My back met the packed sand. Joel braced himself on his arms, landing on top of me.
“Not how I pictured that going.” I laughed. “You okay?”
“Yeah, you?” He chuckled.
“I will be,” I told him coyly, taking his face in my hands and bringing his lips to mine.
I kissed him softly at first. A cautious kiss, testing the waters. Oh, yes, I enjoyed doing this with him. It wasn’t a one-time fluke on the balcony after an emotionally charged day.
Kissing Joel was like finally getting a cold glass of water on a scorching day. Or seeing the Christmas tree surrounded by presents. It simultaneously brought relief and a thrill through every part of me. I deepened the kiss, adding urgency behind my movements, and positioned one of my hands on his arm and the other behind his neck. His lips molded into mine and made time all around us stop—being able to experience that for the rest of my life would leave me wanting for nothing else.
Before I was ready, he moved from my lips to placing a gentle kiss on my nose, then jawline, and finally my temple. He looked at me for a second with contentment in his eyes before maneuvering himself onto the sand beside me. Once on his back, I tucked myself under his arm, my head on his chest. Joel’s other arm found its way under his head, and we both just laid there, listening to the ocean. Being so easily comfortable with one another, we didn’t feel the need to fill the silence.
It was paradise.