Chapter Twenty-One
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
NATALIE
J oel grabbed my hand as we watched the happy new couple drive away. Lifting my fingers to his lips, he gave me a kiss and thanked me for being his date.
“I couldn’t have made it through the past two days if you hadn’t come with me,” he claimed.
I looked at him with narrowed eyes. “Oh I don’t know about that, shark guy. You seemed to do just fine without me.”
He helped me into the car and then pulled onto the open highway toward the resort.
I gave Joel a long once over—he looked at ease and deep in thought. “I noticed Ben whispering something to you when we said goodbye.”
“Huh?”
“Before they got in the car and left, when he was giving you a hug, he definitely whispered something. What did he say?”
“He told me you’re a keeper,” he stated without hesitation. “And I completely agree. He also told me he was glad I decided to join them for everything.”
I squeezed his hand. “Are you happy with the way things turned out? I mean, are you glad you spent all this time with them or was it weird?”
He shook his head. “It was really good. I don’t know what I was so worried about. But I do really think it helped having you there.”
“I am happy I was able to be a part of it,” I replied, then shifted gears. “Okay, time’s up. What is that name about? What happened out there today?” I readjusted, settling back into my seat and unhooked my sandals with my free hand and slipped them off.
He rubbed his thumb back and forth across the back of my hand. “It’s nothing. It’s . . . look, I punched a shark.”
Whipping my body to face him, I wasn’t sure I had heard him correctly. “Excuse me?”
A car passed us and illuminated his profile, letting me see the hint of a grin creep up his face. “It’s so embarrassing. You wouldn’t even believe me if I told you.”
“No, you just said you punched a shark. Are you serious?” There was no way he was.
“Yes.”
“I’m going to need full sentences that turn into a monologue here. Explain yourself,” I insisted.
He glanced over, giving me his closed mouth smile before launching into the tale. “We got on the dive boat and the captain said we were going a few miles offshore to a spot they’ve had luck with sightings this week. As I told you earlier, there were four sharks. The guys were all excited about getting in the cage and seeing them. I have surfed and kayaked here for two years, so I’ve seen sharks, right? I thought this was going to be no big deal . . . turns out, they freak me out when I’m staring them in the face head on. Who would have guessed?
“I was in the last group to go into the cage. It was me, Ben, and Matt. The sharks were getting kind of antsy and circling us. Something set one off and it rushed the cage, and I know, I know, we were fine in the cage, but I reacted. I threw my arm out and punched him in the nose like I’ve always heard you should do if one attacks.”
His deadpan tone left me determining the validity of his story.
He let me stew a minute, index finger to my lips. “That’s the truth?”
“Yes,” he defended himself. “And since I’m sharing my shame, I should tell you: I’m not proud of this, but I may have peed myself when the shark came at us.”
“Full disclosure: I peed myself when we jumped off the waterfall.” I scrunched my nose. “We’re both awesome. But we are talking about you. All of them saw you punch a shark?”
“There are monitors on the boat that link to GoPros in the cage, so you can see what’s going on below the surface at all times. They all saw it. And lucky me, one of them recorded everything on their phone, so I’m most likely going to go viral. You are hanging with an almost-famous person,” he boasted.
“What did Matt and Ben say?” At this point, it was so ridiculous I couldn’t help laughing.
“I’m fairly certain they peed themselves, too, and then they gave me my nickname,” he said.
I reached out and twisted my fingers up through his hair as he continued driving. “You’ve had quite the marathon day.”
“And what about you?” he asked with hesitancy in his voice.
“My day was a marathon in a different way,” I replied, feeling like my drive to town and afternoon at the spa were a lifetime ago. We’d spent most of the day apart, and my gut sank realizing we would most likely spend the next one apart too. “Are you working at Island Water Sports tomorrow?”
“Yeah, but I’m working the second half of the day. I have my first tour at eleven, and I’ll be done by six.” He glanced at me from the side of his eyes. “That gives us some time in the morning.”
“Mmmm,” I pretended to ponder it. “I guess so, but only if you bring some donuts. Really good ones, you know, fresh from a bakery.”
We got back to the resort, and I waited until he opened my car door and took his offered me his arm. Tiki torches lit up the path back to the bungalow, and we took our time leisurely walking, me barefoot with my sandals in my free hand. The mood shifted between us— laced with anticipation—as I opened the door to my bungalow. We both walked shyly into the living room, where I turned the dimmer light on just enough that we could make out the space. Joel set his phone on the table, and the song from our first dance that evening played.
I twisted a strand of hair around my finger coyly. “We have a song.”
“We have a song,” he mirrored.
Closing the gap between us, I reached up and untied his bowtie, holding it away and dropping it flirtatiously on the couch. Then continued to unbutton his top button and loosened the collar. “That’s better,” I assured him, giving him a once-over.
He brushed my hair behind my shoulders and gave me a kiss on my neck. “You told me earlier I looked good,” he mused before kissing the other side.
“You did. But this is more you, and I like you-you,” I couldn’t create a coherent sentence with him distracting me by kissing up the other side of my neck. My hand reached for his shirt, pulling it untucked, before feeling the tightness of his lower back.
My mouth intercepted his as he made his way toward my ear, and I devoured him. His fingers played through my hair while I nibbled his lower lip, slowly guiding him to lie on the couch as I climbed on top. He pulled back and breathlessly said, “It’s getting late.”
I ignored him, kissing him once, twice, three times on the lips before making my way to his jawline and down his neck. “You. Have. A. Toothbrush. Here.” I reminded him slowly between each kiss .
He picked up the earnestness again, lavishing his mouth on mine the way he did after our first dance. I laughed when he rolled us, our bodies landing on the plush rug, caught in between the couch and coffee table. Instead of feeling awkward and cramped, it felt like our own secret hideaway.
“Red, again,” he started, looking at me, brushing my hair from my face, “thank you for going with me. You look . . . there were looks.” His loss of words was endearing, and I leaned up to give him a smooch before he continued. “I think even Lea was the tiniest bit jealous.”
I pulled away and rested my head back on the ground. “You’re crazy. Not a chance.”
“I don’t think you realize what effect you have on people. What effect you have on me.” He nuzzled into my neck and kissed it again before he stopped and looked at me, a question swimming in his eyes.
“What?” I asked him.
“There was something I noticed tonight, something with Lea when she first showed up. What was that? Is everything okay? Did something happen earlier?” He wasn’t going to let it drop.
“Joel—” I didn’t want to talk about it. I was over those feelings from earlier. Processing everything in full could come later, surrounded by another chocolate-dipped fruit platter. It didn’t even feel like a big deal anymore, not with Joel kissing me the way he was, looking at me like nothing else in the world even mattered.
“No, nothing happened.”
He caught my moment’s hesitation. “You can tell me anything. You know that.”
I sat up, and he leaned back on his heels. “It’s really nothing. I just—well, she was wearing my wedding dress, and I?—”
Reaching up to change the subject by kissing him, I saw the confusion, and he let out an unsure chuckle. “Are you one of those women who buys a dress but has no prospects? ”
Feeling a little bit defensive, I replied, “No. I’m not . . . I was supposed to get married two weeks ago.”
There was a pause that lasted longer than comfortable. In my head I counted to ten and there was still silence on his end. I wasn’t sure if I should say something, expand my truth or let him speak first. I put my hands in my lap and decided I would just wait. I watched a mixture of emotions wave over him, but hurt was the most prevalent.
“What are you talking about?” was all he was able to get out.
I responded in one breath. “I was supposed to get married two weeks ago to my best friend, and two nights before the wedding, he told me he wanted to date his paralegal. Needless to say, we called off the wedding, and I am currently on our honeymoon. He and I were supposed to kayak the first morning here, and that’s how I ended up throwing off your roster and kayaking with you.”
Joel rubbed his hand across face and cursed to himself. “Why didn’t you say anything before now?”
I rubbed my arms, not sure how to read him. “Are you mad at me?”
“Yes . . . No. Well, yes,” he stammered and then stood, towering above me. “And I’m completely embarrassed.” He took my outstretched hand and pulled me up so we were face to face. “I don’t understand, Natalie.”
Hearing him use my full name made me wince. He hadn’t done that since we met. “Joel. I’m not sure what to say about why I never told you. What was I supposed to do, introduce myself as the girl whose fiancé called off the wedding at the last minute but still took the non-refundable vacation anyway?”
“Well, why not?” he spat out.
“Because I was humiliated. How rejected do you think I feel? How completely undesirable do you think I feel? He threw us—and our whole history—away for a paralegal he had just met without a second thought.” I sat down on the couch, put my face in my hands, and took a deep breath. I half expected Joel to come sit by me and console me in his quiet, supportive way.
He did not. Instead, pacing around the room, he reminded me of the last time I saw Dane. When he finally spoke, it pierced through me. His tone wasn’t laced with anger so much as that of a man who was damaged to the brink. “I told you the hardest story of my life. I let you into my world—a world I haven’t let anybody into since my wife—and you didn’t trust me enough to let me into yours. How stupid do I feel right now?”
I snapped my head up and stood to meet him, feeling self-protective. “What do you possibly have to feel stupid about? Yes, I guess I could have found some way to bring it up when you shared about Charlotte, but it could have come across like I was trying to one-up you with, ‘Hey! Um, let me tell you my tragic tale!’ Joel, once I learned your story, how ridiculous would I have looked complaining about something so trivial?”
“Don’t.” His eyes darkened. “Don’t you pity me.”
“Joel—” I reached out to touch his arm, but he jerked it away. I cried out the only word my mouth could utter. “Foxhole!”
He stopped short of opening the door and turned around. For a brief second, I saw something flicker across his eyes. Empathy? Brutal pain? He wanted to say something in response to my last ditch effort but held himself back. Then he turned the door lever.
“Please, Joel. What were you going to say?” My voice betrayed me as it shook. I didn’t want to fall apart in front of him. When Dane dropped his bombshell on me, I refused to resort to begging.
Tonight I couldn’t help it.
“What was I thinking, believing I’d fallen in love with you in less than a week? I don’t even know you. And you obviously don’t know me,” he said as he shook his head and walked out the door.