Chapter 22
The next twenty-four hours are an exercise in restraint.
If I thought it was difficult to stay away from Caleb before I had my way with him, now it’s borderline torture.
I can’t so much as look at a banana without feeling like I’m going to pass out.
And the worst part is I can’t talk to anyone about it.
I feel like a Jane Austen heroine, living off stolen glances and the brushing of hands in hallways.
I wonder if Elizabeth Bennet would have been so principled if she had to watch Mr. Darcy sorting ropes in nothing but his board shorts.
“C’mon Stella, the water’s beautiful!” a snorkel-masked Harry calls to me from the reef just off the beach.
I snap to attention, realizing I’ve been staring at Caleb like a dog drooling over a ribeye.
The Vela Bianca is anchored about twenty yards out, but even from here I can see his muscles flexing as he hauls equipment up from the bottom deck.
“I’ll be there in a second,” I call back to Harry, burying my head in my book.
It’s our final morning before we head back to the main island of Viti Levu, and Jim’s taken us to the beaches of Monoriki Island.
It’s where they filmed Castaway, so Matthew’s making sure to get sufficient drone footage of himself looking broody beneath the palms for his TikTok.
A few yards away, my sister follows little train tracks in the sand in search of hermit crabs.
“I got one! I got one!”
She trots up the palm-lined beach with the excitement of a golden retriever, and I put down my book. I don’t think I’ve gotten through more than two pages since I got here.
“Stella, hold out your hand!”
I do as she asks and let her place the olive-sized pink shell in my hand.
At first, I think she’s found a dud. But after a few seconds of quiet, two tiny eyes pop out from beneath the shell followed by a couple spindly grey legs.
I giggle as the hermit crab scampers across my open palm, his tiny crab feet tickling my skin.
I look around at the bone-white sand, the reef, my newly tanned skin. Less than ten days ago, I was dreading this trip like a root canal. Now, with only two days left before we fly home, the thought of leaving behind these palm trees and turquoise waters makes my stomach clench.
And Caleb. The thought hits me like a stone to the temple. In the few times we’ve managed to sneak away into a dark corner, there hasn’t exactly been a lot of time for talking. What’s going to happen when I have to leave?
“Sure beats Chicago, hmm?” Jules elbows me, probably noticing the rainclouds that are starting to form over my head. I laugh.
“I dunno,” I reply, “I’m really missing the soggy French fries from Mickey’s right about now.”
I lower the hermit crab into the sand and let him scuttle off, his spirits undoubtedly renewed after surviving what surely seemed to him like a near death experience.
“Thank you for this, Jules,” I tell her as she drops down onto the towel next to me.
“Me?” She looks surprised. “I didn’t do anything. I’m just a grateful passenger.”
“Yes,” I tell her, “you did. You kept pestering me to come on this trip even when I was being a stubborn cow. And I’m really glad you did.”
She smiles.
“What I mean to say is, it’s a good thing you’re such a pain in the ass.”
Jules flicks hot sand on me, her nose crinkling. Harry chooses that moment to emerge from the water, his fins slapping against the sand like an emperor penguin. As he waves to us, one of the edges catches on the ground and he pitches forward, barely catching himself before he topples to the sand.
My sister giggles and tilts down her sunglasses before blowing him a kiss.
“You really love him, don’t you?” I ask her.
The smile on her face is the size of a sliced grapefruit.
“He’s my rock,” she says. “When I’m around him… I dunno. I just feel like the best version of myself. I always thought I’d end up with someone artistic. Some bearded woodworker out in the forest—someone who whittled his own coffee spoons and played the guitar.”
I laugh. Jules had a lot of boys following her around growing up, but her kindness sometimes got the better of her.
She brought home loser boys the way I brought home stray animals.
After Dad passed away, I deferred from college to stay in Seattle and make sure she didn’t run off with any leather-clad musicians or pothead, quasi-homeless van-lifers.
But apart from the occasional fuckboy and one secretly married finance bro, she managed to survive her early twenties on her own without any situations too sticky to pull herself out of.
“I know you’re probably surprised,” Jules says. “I’m surprised. He’s such a…”
“Unique character?” I fill in for her.
“I was going to say massive dork,” she laughs.
“But he’s my dork. When Harry first walked into the salon, I didn’t think twice about him.
But the more time I spent with him, the more I realized I’d never felt more grounded in my life.
He makes me feel so safe. When I’m around him, I’m braver.
I’m relaxed. I feel like I can trust him to carry me when I’m not sure I can carry myself. ”
I mull over her words carefully. When I was with Patrick, I never felt truly content.
Relieved, maybe. Happy to be out of a dating pool that felt more like a toilet bowl than a place to swim.
But safer? Braver? The only thing our relationship emboldened me to do was stay up later doing research for my subpar dissertation.
But with Caleb… I’m different. Bolder. I can actually be myself instead of the closed-off, people-pleasing shell I’ve learned to become over the last decade.
And what’s more, I’m finally sketching again.
The greatest thing about not being able to talk to anyone about this is that it’s forcing me to express myself visually, and it’s actually working.
It’s funny—even when I thought I hated him, just being around Caleb made me brave.
Jules shifts so she’s facing me and leans in like she’s about to tell me a secret.
“I know this whole trip hasn’t been rainbows and coconuts for you,” she says. “But I want you to know that I’m so grateful you came. I see the effort you’re making with Patricia and Matthew. I know they can be difficult…”
I look over at Matthew, who’s graduated from broody palm shots to posing with a volleyball he probably had shipped in by helicopter at the edge of the sand.
“But it means more to me than you know.”
A fresh wave of guilt hits me right in the stomach. I am making an effort with the Warrens, but I’m still lying to her. And even if I can’t tell her about Caleb without risking a public hanging, there’s one thing my sister deserves to know about.
“Jules—"
“I know we haven’t been as close lately as we used to be,” she interrupts, “And we blame it on you being busy at work, but I know it’s because of me, too. I haven’t been prioritizing you, Stella, and I feel so guilty about it.”
Guilty? I’ve been so wrapped up in my own guilt I hadn’t even considered Jules might have something to apologize for, too.
“Don’t make excuses for me,” she says. “I know it’s true. My point is that you are the most important person in the world to me. And I’m so grateful to you for getting outside your comfort zone this week. Honestly, I think Dad would be proud.”
With those last words, the guilt wave turns into a full-on tsunami. Why did she have to pull the dad card? What will she think when I tell her that my whole career, everything I’ve been working for, has been put on hold? Worse, that I’m not even sure I want it anymore?
I think about Caleb’s pep talk at the gazebo on Mamanuka island. I don’t want my relationship with my sister to end up like Harry and Matthew’s—built on a foundation of omission. I will tell Jules about my fellowship. Just… not today.
By the time we get back to the ship, Jules has collected enough tiny puka shells to make an anchor chain. She, apparently, does not share our dad’s beliefs that shells shouldn’t leave their home beaches.
“We’ll have to declare those at customs,” Harry reminds her. “Make sure you don’t forget!”
I’ve just stepped out of the tender onto the dock when a spitting noise from the water nearly knocks me back in. Something dark is emerging a few feet off the dock. Jules jumps into Harry’s arms as she lets out a shriek to rival Anna Farris in Scream.
“Not a shark, Jules!” I assure her, although what’s coming out of the water is undoubtedly just as alarming.
Caleb. He surfaces and gulps at the air, the muscles in his forearms flexing as he easily hoists his body onto the swim dock.
In one swift motion, he pulls off his snorkel mask and shakes his hair like he’s a guest star on Baywatch.
I have to physically restrain myself from drooling at the beads of salt water that slide down his tan, perfectly muscled chest.
“If it isn’t the Loch Ness monster,” Jim jokes as he finishes tying up the tender.
“Sorry if I scared you, Jules,” Caleb offers as he kicks off his fins. “We had a warning light on one of the thrusters so I went down to check it out.”
Behind him, a second head pops out of the water, although this one sports a tank and dive gear. Yara leaps up beside him like a harbor seal.
“Anything we should be concerned about?” Arthur asks. Caleb shakes his head.
“Nah, she’s good as gold. Just a bit of debris.”
This seems to satisfy Arthur, because he dismisses Caleb with a militant nod and marches through the salon doors. Patricia rolls her eyes and chases after him.
“Arthur, don’t even think about pouring a drink before one o’ clock!”
The rest of the Warrens take off their shoes and follow suit until it’s just me and Caleb standing on the deck.
I shift awkwardly and try to look at something, anything, but his bare chest. Or his face.
Or basically anything below it. I settle on the island over his shoulder, giving me the overall air of what I hope is a wistful sea maiden, but is probably closer to a confused walrus.
Go inside, Stella, I command myself. But my body doesn’t budge.
One casual smirk from my captain and my willpower has gone to sea sludge.
Am I waiting for him to throw me up against the ship’s wall?
To tell me that his dreams were as full of me as mine were of him?
To bark at me for standing to close to the railing or tracking sand on the deck and prove to me that it was all just a dream?
Caleb takes a step towards me and holds out a closed fist.
“I got you something.” He opens his hand to reveal a spiraling bone-white shell nearly as big as his palm. “I thought maybe you’d be better off sketching sea life than pissed-off sea captains.”
I marvel at the smooth, pearly pink that bleeds out from the hole inside. The shell is flawless, marled with purple ribbons and perfect spines that dance along its twisting ridge. It’s so beautiful it looks like it was made from glass.
I hesitate to take it, remembering what he told me about Fijian shells and the venomous lurkers inside them.
“Don’t worry,” he says, sensing my nervousness. “It’s empty. If I wanted to kill you, I’d have left you to the sharks.”
And he winks.
My heart skips, just a little.
“Thank you. It’s beautiful.”
I take it from him, and for a moment our hands stay glued together as he slides it into my palm.
More than a moment. My breath catches as I feel the calloused skin of Caleb’s strong fingers brushing against mine, the weight of the shell pressing my hand into his.
A flutter of desire blooms in my stomach and I shove it back down. We both pull back.
“I need to see you,” he whispers almost noiselessly. I look around to make sure no one’s in ear shot before I whisper back. “This is torture.”
I smile almost involuntarily.
“After dinner tonight?”
Caleb nods.
“I’m on watch at eleven. Meet me on the bridge.”