Chapter 30 Lily
“I’ve got five excursions we could do today.”
After the number of times we had sex last night, I figured we’d spend the day lounging. I swallow the piece of fruit I’d been chewing. “Five?”
“They sound so fun. I want to do them all, so you pick which three we do.”
“Three?” I stare at him in his vacation dad outfit, with a film of sunscreen all over his face. I know he just goes and buys whatever sunscreen he can find without a thought about his skin tone.
I promised to stop calling him Pawpaw yesterday after he was really out here explaining things to people like he was acting in a State Farm commercial. Nobody here cares about where the tiles were sourced from.
“You don’t want to do anything?” He turns the brochure for the glass-bottom boat over for me to see.
“We can’t make out on the glass-bottom boat. The fish and other people will see it.”
He covers his chest. “I’m not a piece of meat, Lilith.”
“That’s not even my name.”
“It’s weird your parents gave you a nickname as a name.”
“Wow!”
He shrugs.
“You know what, Pawpaw...” I tilt my head and open my eyes real wide.
His hand flies to his heart. “I’m going home.”
“Pick the one excursion you really want to do, and I’ll go with you.”
He walks over to me. I lean my head back, taking him in. I love that I have to strain my neck to get a good look at him.
“That’s not the best compromise, but I have a feeling it’s all I can get.”
“It definitely is. We’re supposed to be relaxing, not acting like there’s a point system for excursions.”
He frowns. “They do have a deal. Go on three and the fourth one is on them.”
“In one day?”
“Doesn’t matter. We’re going to the local market.”
“I love a good shopping spree.”
“You get a $10 budget.”
I burst into laughter. I’m so comfortable with him again it catches me off guard. I never thought we’d get back here, joking around in the sun like nothing between us ever broke.
But something did break.
And somehow, we’ve pieced it back together into something new.
“I love you,” I say.
He smiles widely. “I love you too, Lily.”
Javonte stands beside a display of woven straw bags, reading the little card propped against the table like he’s studying film.
“You know this is one of the oldest industries here?” he says.
I look up from a round bag with wooden handles. “Did you research the art market?”
“I researched excursions. This was under cultural experiences.”
“That sounds like a yes.”
He ignores me and points to the bag in my hand. “They used to weave baskets for carrying fruit and fishing stuff. Then tourists started buying them, and it turned into this whole craft market thing.”
I stare at him.
“What?” he asks.
“You’re cute when you come with facts.”
“I’m trying to enhance the experience.”
“You’re trying to be a sexy tour guide.”
He leans closer. “Is it working?”
I look down at the bag, then back at him. “Unfortunately.”
He grins and reaches for the bag. “Then we’re buying it.”
“You don’t even know how much it costs. I bet it’s more than my $10 budget.”
Javonte laughs so loud the vendor jumps. “I know you smiled when you picked it up.”
I go to pay it on my own, and Javonte swats my card away. It lands in the sand. “Hey!”
He leans over and picks it up, putting it in his pocket. “What did Mint Condition say? ‘What kind of man would I be?’”
I put my hands on my hips. “That’s about cheating, not buying woven baskets at the market in the Bahamas.”
“Same principle.”
“It’s not the same at all.”
He taps his phone on the card reader and hands me my new basket. “Here you go, beautiful.”
“Thank you.”
I tuck the basket under my arm and try not to smile too hard.
“You know buying me things isn’t going to make me like you more.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
He looks down at the basket, then back at me. “I didn’t buy it because I wanted credit. I bought it because you smiled when you touched it.”
Well.
That is much harder to argue with.
I turn away before my face tells on me and keep walking through the market.
The whole place feels alive without being too busy.
Music plays from somewhere nearby, and vendors call out to people passing by, offering jewelry, prints, bags, carved animals, little bottles of hot sauce, and soaps wrapped in brown paper.
I stop at a booth full of small paintings, all bright colors and bold lines. Some are beach scenes, some are women in big hats, some are little houses lined up in colors I would never think to put together but somehow work.
One catches my eye immediately.
It’s small, maybe eight by ten, with two women sitting near the water, their backs turned, heads tilted toward each other like they’re telling secrets.
The brushstrokes are loose and confident, the edges soft enough to make the whole thing feel private.
Something about it makes me want to look longer.
Javonte stops beside me. “You like that one?”
“I do.”
He reaches for it, and I put my hand on his wrist.
“No.”
He freezes immediately. “No?”
“No,” I say, softer this time. “Don’t just buy it.”
His brow creases, and for half a second, I can tell he doesn’t understand.
“It’s okay to let me want something for a minute,” I tell him. “You don’t have to fix the wanting.”
His face changes, like the words reached a part of him he wasn’t expecting me to touch.
He lowers his hand. “Okay.”
I wait for him to say something else, to defend himself or explain that he was just trying to be nice, but he doesn’t. He just steps back a little and lets me look.
That should not feel as big as it does.
But it does.
I turn back to the painting and study it again. “I like how unfinished it feels.”
“That’s a good thing?”
Yeah.” I smile. “It feels free. Like the artist knew when to stop.”
He nods, studying it like he’s trying to see what I see. “That’s hard.”
“What is?”
“Stopping before you ruin the thing that’s already working.”
I look over at him.
His eyes stay on the painting, but his voice has gone quieter.
“It makes sense that you’d notice that,” he says. “You always knew how to leave space for something to breathe.”
I swallow and look back at the painting before my face gives me away.
“I didn’t always feel like you saw that.”
He nods once. “I didn’t always know how to.”
The vendor walks over then, an older woman with silver locs and bright orange earrings. “That piece was painted by my niece. She calls it Resting Women.”
“I love that,” I say.
“She says women need to be painted resting more often. Everybody always wants us working, dancing, cooking, posing. She wanted them doing nothing.”
I press a hand to my chest. “Tell your niece I understand her ministry.”
The woman laughs. “I’ll tell her.”
Javonte looks at me. “Do you want it?”
I look from him to the painting.
Then I reach into my bag and pull out my card. “Yes. I do.”
He watches me pay for it without jumping in, and I feel him beside me the whole time. Not tense or sulking. He’s with me.
The vendor wraps the painting and hands it to me. “Can I carry it?”
I narrow my eyes at him. “You may.”
He reaches for the bag, but he waits for me to release it first.
I notice. Of course I notice.
“Thank you,” I say.
“I know you don’t need me to carry it.”
“Then why offer?”
His eyes stay on mine. “Because I want to make things easier for you when you’ll let me.”
We keep walking, stopping at a booth with handmade earrings, another with painted wooden ornaments, and one with rum cake samples that Javonte takes very seriously.
“You don’t have to review every flavor,” I tell him as he tries a third piece.
“I’m being respectful. They cut these samples for us.”
“For everyone.”
“I’m appreciating the effort.”
By the time we make it back to the villa, I’m warm, happy, and carrying a drink with fruit floating in it because I am on vacation. Javonte sets my new basket on the table, then props the wrapped painting carefully beside.
I go into my suitcase and pull out the travel watercolors I packed at the last minute.
His eyes light up. “You’re about to paint?”
“Maybe.”
He grins and drops onto the daybed on the terrace. “I’ll be quiet.”
“You don’t know how.”
“I can learn.”
I set up at the little table facing the water and stare at the water until I make the first stroke. From there, I move on instinct. My logical and analytical mind quiet while feelings pour out of me through my hands.
For a while, Javonte really is quiet.
That surprises me.
He stretches out on the daybed with one arm behind his head, sunglasses on, pretending he isn’t watching me.
“You know I can feel you staring, right?”
“I’m admiring.”
“That’s staring with manners mixed in.”
He smiles. “Then yes.”
I laugh and swish my brush in the water.
The ocean is in front of me. Javonte is behind me.
Nothing pulls at me. Not work. Not worry. Not the question of whether this is too much too soon.
I paint until the sun starts to drop, and every time I glance back, he’s still in the same spot.
Quiet. Comfortable. Like being with me while I do something I love is enough for him.
I forgot how good that used to feel.