Chapter 27
I’m two mai tais in and Dom is starting to look more and more like a blurry combo of Zac Efron and Jason Momoa. At least, when it comes to his stature, and the intensity of his green eyes.
After the sun disappeared on the beach — and he left me thoroughly confused about what’s real and what’s part of this game — Dom suggested we grab a late dinner at Cliff’s again. This time just us, without his friends.
Now, the acoustic musician in the corner is playing a slowed-down version of “Brown Eyed Girl” while I watch the happy faces of everyone around us. With Dom sitting close by, no one has dared come near me or make a smartass comment about that clip. For the first time in weeks, I feel totally relaxed, knowing both he and Cliff would jump to my rescue if I needed them.
I turn to him, grabbing hold of his pie-tin-sized bicep.
“This is why I came here,” I announce.
He grins. “You came for the mai tais or the music? Both are pretty good, right?”
He takes my drink and pushes the straw aside, taking a sip. He’s been nursing a Kona Cream Ale all evening, but every once in a while, he steals a gulp of my mixed drink. If anyone else was doing that, I’d tell them to get their own. Even Rex. But for some reason, when Dom does it, I kind of like it. In fact, I kind of love it.
I laugh. “No. This .” I dramatically circle my arms around the room, then hold my hand out toward the soft waves rolling in under the moon, just past the bar’s edge. “I’ve never been to a place that so easily feels like...” I try to come up with the right word. “Well, for lack of a better way to say it, this all feels familiar . But I’ve never been to this island before, so I don’t know how that is.”
The flames from the torches near our table are reflected in Dom’s eyes, making them flicker with firelight.
“It sneaks up on you, doesn’t it?” He smiles faintly, his eyes drinking me in, and I swallow hard. I don’t know if it’s the drinks or the ambiance in here, but he looks downright dangerous tonight. His darkened tan from our day of surfing is setting off the gold firelight dancing in his eyes.
“Cliff’s mai tais?” I giggle, holding the straw between my teeth. “Yeah. He makes them pretty strong.”
“Well, yeah, those too.” He laughs, and I memorize the sound so I can play it back in my mind later tonight. “But no, I mean this place. The whole island. There’s something about being here that’s always felt like home to me. It’s why I still call it home. Every time I leave, I just want to come back.”
“I was ready to get on a plane and not look back a few days ago,” I remind him.
“Why else do you think I asked you out? I had to keep you around, right?”
My stomach twists at the words asked you out . His hand grips the bottle, then wipes a drip of condensation swiftly up the side. The humidity in the air makes everything sweat here, even the drinks.
“I’m glad I agreed to come here with you that first night. Even if it was all just an act for Rex.”
I hold my breath, hoping he tells me I’m wrong. That he really just asked me because deep down he wanted to.
He leans over to take another sip of my cocktail, pushing the straw — the straw that had just been in my mouth a moment ago — aside with his tongue, while I try not to stare. His fingers are long and strong. I bite my lip and look away.
His mouth hovers over the rim of my glass, lips parting with a grin, as if reliving an inside joke in his head.
“I’m glad you agreed to it too,” he says, grinning wider, more mischievously.
I can’t drink him in enough, like everything about him is intoxicating after today. Like one kiss, one make-out session, will never be enough.
He finishes the sip, sets my glass down, and grabs a stray pen Cliff left on the counter. He starts twirling it around his fingers. I haven’t seen anyone do that with a pen since high school. Back when we all wrote everything by hand and always had a pen within reach. “Believe me when I say that taking you out to my friend’s bar that night was the least I could do to help you forget about your ex.” Each tendon in his forearm ripples every time he flips the pen over.
“Yeah, you have a lot of sucking up to do for making me stay on this God-awful island.” I shove his shoulder playfully, but it doesn’t move. The man is like a boulder. He grabs my knee again, like he did in the car, squeezing it just once. But his hand on my bare skin, along with that heart-stopping look he’s giving me? It’s enough to make my pulse throb between my thighs.
The solo guitar player starts strumming an old Cat Stevens song, adding his own Hawaiian flair to the familiar tune. It’s a sweet song I recognize from my childhood — my shoulders instantly uncurl from my ears. As if this scene here tonight could get any more perfect.
We listen to him play. The break in conversation feels strangely comfortable for two people who only met a few days ago, but, in this moment, it feels like I’ve known him a lot longer.
“This song reminds me of my dad.” I lean into him when I say it, then pull away. The musician shifts seamlessly to “Morning Has Broken” without missing a note. It’s one of my favorites. “He always sang this one to my mom while flipping pancakes at the stove. Every Sunday morning.” I smile, picturing the way my parents openly shared their love for each other. “He still does whenever I visit. They’ve been together thirty-two years, and counting.”
“Is your whole family back in New York?” Dom takes a sip from his beer — I watch his lips curve around the bottle.
I nod, smiling. “My mom and dad supported me coming out here. They’ve always stood behind me. Everything I’ve ever done. Even my producer’s ridiculous idea for me to propose to Rex live on air.” I shudder. The version of me who went along with that whole thing seems so removed from how I feel now.
I take a sip of Dom’s beer bottle without asking him first.
He watches me swallow and I lick my lips like I haven’t noticed his eyes are still on me.
“Are your siblings back in New York too?”
“It’s just the three of us. No siblings.”
“Only child, huh? Explains a lot.” He smiles wider, taking his beer bottle back out of my hand. “You were not going to give up easily the other day on the phone.”
I smack him on the arm, but grab my cocktail glass off the counter, trying not to notice when our hands brush in the exchange. The butterflies storming my stomach make it impossible to ignore.
Before becoming single again, I’d been with one person so long that I’d almost forgotten what it felt like to desire someone for the very first time. It’s stirring something up in me that’s been lying dormant for years. Though stirring seems too tame of a word. Unleashing might better describe what I’m feeling.
“I like to think I’m just assertive,” I say. “New Yorker and all that.”
He pushes his shoulder into mine, but this time neither of us shift our bodies away. “So why didn’t you just take a break and live with your parents then?” he asks. “Why come all the way out here by yourself?”
“The film script I’m writing is set in Hawaii, so I wanted to immerse myself in the island. The culture. The people. This .” I wave my arms around the bar. “I love this . I’ve always been fascinated by the idea of this place, but I needed to immerse myself in it if I was going to write realistically about it.”
“That’s it?” He leans forward, looking at me suspiciously. As if he wants to say more, dig deeper, but for some reason he stops short. “There’s really no other reason you wound up here?”
“That’s it,” I confirm. “What other reason would there be for following through with such a completely harebrained idea?”
He studies my face intensely, like he’s looking for something other than the simple reason I’ve given him.
I turn back to the musician when he starts strumming “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” next . Tears prickle behind my eyes. The last time I heard this song, I was listening to it for inspiration, during the exact second I clicked Confirm on my Airbnb reservation to set this whole plan into motion.
“I guess there was one more reason for coming here.” I turn to face him again, once I’m confident my eyes have cleared.
“Okay. Lay it on me.” His face looks steely, like he’s gearing up to hear something bad. I can’t figure out why me booking his rental seems to be such a suspicious sticking point for him.
“What is it?” I ask, unable to ignore it any longer. This is the second time he’s acted funny about why I came here and booked his townhome. “Every time I talk about my reasons for coming to the island you look like you want to call my bluff. If you don’t believe me, just say it.”
“No, go on,” he says stiffly, not moving. “I want to know.”
“My reason might sound ridiculous,” I tell him. “Those mai tais are stronger than they taste. I’m not usually so open.”
“It won’t sound silly. I might even understand. Everyone has their reasons.”
I watch him take another sip from my glass, wondering if any part of his kisses or subtle touches have been real, or if every moment, every touch, every lingering look he gives me is all just part of the show he’s been putting on as my fake boyfriend. If that’s the case, he deserves an Oscar.
“Do you ever feel like your life is going at warp speed?” I ask, not pausing for an answer. “Like you’re running as fast as you can, to do everything you’re supposed to do, right when you’re supposed to do it?”
He continues watching me so intensely that my heart palpitates like it’s skipped a beat.
But I go on. “And for what? To get to the finish line faster?”
He flips the pen over his thumb without leaving my eyes — it lands right back in his grip. “More than you know.”
“When my entire career went haywire, I realized that I didn’t like the path I was on anymore. I hadn’t liked it for some time.”
“Is that when you decided to try to break into film?”
I nod. “Kind of. I’ve been working on it for years, but I’m using this sabbatical to give it my first real try. That’s not the only reason though.”
I pause, watching his face to see if any of this is making sense to him.
“Then why else are you here, Liv? Just tell me.”
The way Dom studies me, it’s like I’m the most interesting person in the room. His attention makes me feel like I want to cower and explode — both at once — so I don’t disappoint him when he realizes that there’s truly nothing fascinating about me at all.
I take a deep breath before answering.
“To run,” I tell him.
He leans in closer, studying me. He wasn’t kidding about making the woman he’s with feel like she’s the only one in existence.
“Run from what?”
“Everything . . .”
“Go on.”
It all comes tumbling out.
“Everything I thought I’d love about my life but never did. I’ve lived my entire existence doing exactly what I was supposed to do, exactly how it should be done. I got my degree in journalism from NYU, then got a job at UBN, and worked my way up to the news desk. I dated the type of guy my parents would adore, and when my producer asked if I wanted to propose to him on the air to further my career and land the perfect marriage, I did it. I never thought in a million years that Rex would say no. It was the right next step .”
“You didn’t actually want to marry that asshat?” He grips the bottle again, running his hand up the slick side.
I smile weakly.
“In hindsight, I don’t think I did. But, do you want to know the weirdest part?” I ask.
“The fact that your producer asked you to do that whole thing live on the air and you said yes?” Dom side-eyes me, which makes me laugh a little at my own expense.
He finally cracks a smile, too.
“No. What’s weird is that, when Rex said no, of course, I was humiliated. That part was written all over my face, obviously. It was that after the cameras stopped rolling and I was back in my dressing room . . .” I pause. I’ve never told anyone this. Not even Abby. “I felt kind of relieved .”
Our corner of the bar fades away as I wait for him to answer.
“Relieved?” Dom leans away from where our shoulders were touching. He massages his sharp jawline like he’s figuring out a puzzle scattered across the table. Knowing that I’m the puzzle makes me want to keep talking, but only if he keeps looking at me like that.
“I think proposing to Rex felt like the next ‘ right ’ thing to do. Even though, obviously, it was totally wrong. I loved Rex.” Something flashes in Dom’s eyes when those words come out of my mouth. “But, if I’m being honest, I don’t think I was ready either. My producer asked me to do it to further my career. She knew I’d been with him a long time, and she was curious if I’d be up for it. She was sure the clip would boost our ratings. I’m sure she was thrilled when the ratings skyrocketed — more than either of us would ever have predicted.” I sigh. “I’ve always had my eye on the prize. The next best thing for me. I thought doing what my producer wanted was the ticket to my next promotion.”
“And coming here? Was that the next ‘right’ thing?”
I shake my head. “Absolutely not. Probably the exact opposite. Taking a huge financial risk on something that may never pay off isn’t smart. But I think coming here was the only way for me to hit pause on my life.”
I take another sip of water and push what’s left of my mai tai toward Dom. Whatever’s in there feels like it’s laced with truth serum, so I don’t care if he finishes it for me. In fact, I want him to finish it — maybe then some hard truths can start spilling out of him too.
“I wanted to try something that looks nothing like my life back in New York.”
Dom leans his forearms on the table, closing the space between us, sucking all the air out of my lungs.
His brows draw together before he speaks again.
“What would you want your life to look like then? If you could pick it off a shelf, like you’re shopping for a new life in a store, which model would you choose?”
I consider his question. I’ve never thought of it like that before. But, clear as day, a vision of the life I want instantly pops into my head, and starts tumbling from my lips, fueled by the liquid courage I’ve consumed tonight.
“I want to tell stories that make people laugh. Or cry. Or laugh until they cry.”
His smile grows wider, urging me to go on.
“I want to sit in an overgrown garden somewhere, wearing some gorgeous granny-chic kaftan that makes me feel beautiful, with a million gold bangles jangling up both my arms while I feverishly type out the next incredible story. The one people want to watch twice. And I want to write hundreds of them. Until my hair is long and gray. Most of all, I want to be in love. Not just with someone I think my parents would approve of. But truly, madly, deeply in love. I want to get off the rat race treadmill too, and fall in love with my entire existence. Live in some quiet corner of the world and just soak up everything that makes life beautiful and worth living.”
The corners of his mouth curl up toward the stars.
He sits quietly for a minute, letting everything I’ve said sink in.
I shift on my chair, feeling like I’ve just laid myself out naked before him. Unsure of where all that came from. I can’t imagine telling any of the guys I’ve met back in New York something so personal right off the bat. This place has put a spell on me.
“So this trip was meant to be your first ‘wrong’ move?” he asks. “Toward the life you’d choose off a shelf?”
“Maybe?” I raise my brows at him, then shrug, scrunching up my nose. “Does that sound crazy?”
“Not even a little bit. It sounds kind of perfect, actually.”
I slide back in my chair and study the faces around us. A few yards down, Cliff leans against the counter, chatting back and forth with someone he knows before letting out with a hearty laugh. The musician has switched to Bob Marley’s “One Love,” while a table of college-age kids next to us start to sway and sing every word together. A couple sitting at a nearby table lean in for a quick peck on the lips, cartoon hearts filling their eyes.
Everything about this moment makes me feel more intimately connected to the world than a thousand days of my regularly scheduled life.
I turn back to Dom, drinking in his green eyes while they dance together in the firelight.
“I don’t think I’ve ever done anything in my whole life that could be classified as so wrongfully right.”
Then I lean across the table and do exactly what I’ve been dying to do since he rolled away from me on the beach. I kiss him softly, until the song comes to an end and another one begins.