Chapter 4
“Um, who was that?”
I jerk out of my dumbstruck reverie and turn to see Marianne peeking out from behind the unused tiki bar.
“What the hell, Mer!” I hiss. “Where have you been?”
“I didn’t want to interrupt!”
She emerges from her hiding place, her hair three times as fluffy as it was thirty minutes ago.
“How long have you been there?” I ask her.
“Long enough to see you fail to get abs-on-a-stick’s number. Will! You can come out now!”
Will emerges sheepishly from behind a palm tree a few yards away, his face framed with the eavesdropper’s guilt his wife so obviously lacks.
“You were both just going to let me die of urchin poison?” I hiss at her. “Why didn’t you come out!”
“And ruin all the fun? That was like a movie! Hot water god rescues hapless damsel from near drowning and sea monster attack? Stella, I think the universe is telling you something!”
“That I need to invest in some cuter underwear?”
“That even the sea urchins want you to get some. He’s a ten, Stella, and he was totally flirting with you! I could see it from a mile away.”
This again. If I left Marianne in charge of my love life, I’d be sharing bodily fluids with every available man on the island.
“It doesn’t matter,” I sigh. “He’s got to go back to work. He works on one of the boats at Denarau.”
“And you didn’t exchange digits? Stella, this could be your vacation fling!”
“Don’t listen to her,” Will says, plopping down on the lounger next to me. “I spent three years working docks in high school and let me tell you: all those water boys are the same. Charming, flakey, and total womanizers.”
“You’re such a cynic!” Marianne says. “Let the girl dream.”
“Seriously, Stella.” Will ignores her. “I’ll bet you fifty bucks he’s got a different girl in every port. Even if you had gotten his number, you’d still never hear from him again after tomorrow.”
“She’s not looking for a husband, William,” Marianne chimes in. “She needs to get laid.”
“No, I don’t,” I protest. For once, I’m grateful for Will’s pathological practicality. Between us, Mer certainly has a type.
“Maybe you’ll see him out in the water!” Her face lights up. “He’s probably working for one of the charters in the marina—you could anchor together! Get a private tour of his big deck.”
I can’t help but laugh at that one.
“I’m sure the Warrens would love that. Nothing says I’m presentable like sneaking off with a deckhand on my family vacation.”
Besides, Will’s obviously right. As charming as Caleb is, no man can have a body like that and a sense of integrity.
And more importantly, no one who has that kind of effect on me can be allowed into my orbit.
I’ve got enough to worry about right now—the last thing I need is some handsome fuckboy charging in to throw off my focus.
“But those abs…” Marianne swoons. She quickly corrects herself after an eyebrow raise from Will. “Are nothing compared to yours, honey.”
She plants a big kiss on his cheek.
“Trust me, Stella,” Will says, turning his head to face me. “You don’t want to go there. If there’s anything I know about yachties, it’s that they’re all trouble.”
Like the rest of the aspirationally-named Paradise Cove, our room leaves something to be desired.
The “Double Deluxe Suite” I thought I booked turns out to be more like a repurposed supply closet.
Luckily, we’re all so wiped after our trip we hardly notice.
After sneaking off to share some a few beers and a mouthwatering Fijian dish called kokoda at the local dive bar, Will and Marianne push the two single mattresses together to create something resembling a full-sized bed.
I grab a pillow and offer to take the hammock outside.
“You sure you want to sleep out there?” Marianne asks as she slips on her silky purple pajamas. “We can squeeze!”
“Or we can blow this pop-stand and go to the Hyatt…” Will drones from the bathroom.
“I’m positive,” I assure them. “Mosquitos hate me. And anywhere that’s warm enough to be outside for more than five minutes without my toes going numb is good enough for me.”
But even lulled by the gentle swing of the hammock, I can’t stop thinking about Caleb.
After eighteen hours of traveling and approximately zero sleep, I should be out like a light.
But the memory of his fingers trailing up the sides of my calf won’t leave me alone.
I’ve spent the last few years completely closed off to male attention (not that I was getting much of it, anyway), so what is it about him that has me so mesmerized?
Is there a chance I’ll see him again on the water?
And, perhaps most importantly—how the hell does he stay that fit on a boat?
Somewhere between thoughts about Caleb’s perfectly placed dimples, I drift off.
I wake up just as dawn is spreading its golden fingers over the mountains on the eastern side of the island.
I yawn languidly and roll myself out of the hammock.
Immediately I feel the urge to scratch my arm and discover that it’s mottled with little red bites.
Not just my arm, but my foot, too—any part of me unfortunate enough to have slipped out from beneath the blanket is covered in angry dots.
Shit. Apparently Fijian and American mosquitos have different appetites.
The door slides open and Marianne steps out in her satin pajamas, eyelids heavy with the weight of the morning. She holds a big mug of coffee out to me and I take it, inhaling the dark, earthy scent.
“You didn’t have to make me coffee,” I tell her, but she only puts out her hand to ward off my incoming hug.
“Too early. Stop talking.”
I laugh and follow her through the open screen.
“Jesus Christ,” she says as she surveys my arms. “I told you not to sleep outside.”
“Is it that bad?” I ask, scratching my arm as she pours herself a cup of tea from the plastic pot on the side table.
“Not if you meant to look like a smallpox survivor.”
“Ugh!”
Will chooses that moment to walk out of the bathroom, his head and body both wrapped in a blue and white striped towel.
“Looks like Stella was on the menu last night,” he jokes. “Guess the mosquitos like their meat grass-fed.”
“Very funny,” I wave him off. “You were right.”
“Don’t worry,” Marianne says conspiratorially. “You can photoshop them out. Do you think the Warrens travel with a personal photographer? Oh! And I almost forgot!” Marianne squeaks with excitement, grabbing for the copy of Glam magazine next to her coffee cup. “Look who I found on the flight!”
I look at the page to see who she’s talking about and find him in the second photo under the section labeled, “Yachtie or Nice.” Perched on the bow of an Italian racing boat with a ridiculously gorgeous twenty-year-old hanging over his arm is none other than Matthew Warren: Jules’s future brother-in-law.
“What about it?” Will asks, craning his neck to see the photo.
“Just Mattie Warren stirring up chaos in Lake Como,” Mer informs him.
“Who?”
“He’s Harry’s brother,” I groan, but Will doesn’t show any signs of recognition. “You know, my sister’s fiancé?”
“Jesus,” Will squints at the page. “How did he end up in a gossip magazine? Is that Leonardo DiCaprio behind him?”
Marianne hits him with her magazine.
“Do you listen to anything I tell you?” she chides him. “Harry and Matthew are the sole heirs to one of the largest media companies in the world. They own NBP, Tiger Sports, Hapsbury Publishing House—“
“And clearly not Glam magazine,” I tell her, pointing to the half-naked photo of Matthew holding up his bottle of scotch like an Oscar.
“What?” She holds it up, mimicking his careless facial expression. “I think he looks charming. Maybe he’ll teach you how to pose for your Instagram.”
I roll my eyes.
“Matthew Warren—“
“You mean your new brother?” Marianne teases.
“Matthew Warren,” I reiterate, “Is apparently a full-blown Kardashian. Harry told me he’s constantly in Ibiza or Mykonos, bottle service, girls all over him—he wears Prada slippers, for gods’ sake.”
“Oh no, not the Mediterranean!” Marianne gasps sarcastically.
“When I was growing up, we went shopping at TJ Maxx and Goodwill,” I remind her. “So sorry if I don’t like the idea of wearing thousand-dollar shoes.”
“Stella,” Will interjects, “you sound like a snob. You can’t hate these people just because they’re rich.”
“Wha—I don’t hate them!”
“She’s right,” Marianne says. “She just hates money. She’s been trying to give all hers away as long as I’ve known her.”
“I have not!” I throw a salted cashew at her from the bag on the table, but she dodges and catches it in her mouth.
“Do too! Case in point,” she motions to the sagging bed behind her. “You would sooner risk bedbugs than spend a dime on yourself. You turned down a ride on an actual private jet to get here! Do you know how insane that is?”
Will looks like he’s just found out I drown puppies in my spare time.
“You bailed on a PJ? For a middle seat in front of the bathroom?”
“I’m terrified of heights!” I protest. “Small planes make it worse.”
“You’re terrified of wealth,” Marianne says between bites of cashew. She turns to Will. “Her dad was a full-blown Marxist. She’s never let it go.”
Marianne never met my dad, of course—by the time I arrived at the smelly dorm room Mer and I shared our first year of college, he’d been gone almost a year.
But like any good prying best friend, she’s worn me down enough over the years to know the basics.
My parents were hippies. Idealists. They didn’t value money the way most Americans do, probably because they spent most of their lives without much of it.
My mom, until she left us to join some off-grid commune in Oaxaca, was a kindergarten teacher, and my dad was a social worker: a man who spoke four languages and dedicated his life to helping refugees and displaced families put their lives back together.
He valued compassion; hard work; integrity: priorities he made sure to pass along to his daughters.
Instead of going to college, Jules saved up enough money to open her own hair salon by the time she was twenty-five.
And I—well, I was going to be the first in my family with a PhD.
“I am not a Marxist,” I bite back. “I’m just not comfortable with the way the Warrens live.
Jules drives a car that parks itself now, and has a sauna in her bathroom.
And from what she’s told me, Harry is the ‘thrifty one’ in the family.
The Warrens are just from a different world, one that I have no desire to be part of. ”
“So don’t be,” she says conspiratorially. “Play nice for Jules, enjoy the bottle service, and go back home to Chicago with enough sunny memories to sustain you through your first ten years in the convent.”
“About that. I’ve had a change of heart,” I announce triumphantly, “convents are too formal. I’m thinking more along the lines of disappearing into the woods to become a witch who keeps owls and scares children away from her bog.”
“Ok, medusa.” Marianne rolls her eyes. “Just promise me you’ll try to have a little fun. You’re going on vacation, not to prison. And maybe they’re not as shallow as you think. Right babe?”
But Will isn’t listening. He’s peeking through the dusty white shades at whatever’s going on outside.
“Uh, Stella,” he turns back to us. “I think your ride’s here.”
He pulls up the shades to reveal the parking lot, where a uniformed driver stands by the door of a sparkling black SUV. For as much as it sticks out from the dusty trucks in the parking lot, it might as well be a horse-drawn carriage.
“How do you know that’s mine?” I ask.
“If there’s another high roller staying here at the Sand Flea Motel,” Marianne interjects, “I will literally give you my first-born.”
“I am not a high-roller,” I remind her. “And don’t think I won’t hold you to that.”
But Marianne just sweeps me into such a big hug that half my coffee sloshes to the ground.
“I’m so glad you came,” she tells me, “And if you need anything, we’re right here. Even if you need to escape the big bad billionaires, I’ll swim out to get you myself.”
“Thanks Mer,” I tell her, and mean it. Because even if my life is falling apart, I’m damned lucky to have a friend who would fly all the way to Fiji just to get me out of my funk.
I just hope the next two weeks won’t make it even worse.