Chapter Eight
The tropical sun had been replaced by a moon so bright and close it felt like a movie set rather than real life as Kayla and Mack settled into padded wicker chairs, an oversized café table between them.
Kayla swept her short sundress against her legs as a waiter slid the chair under her, then handed her a wine list in a heavy binder.
Instead of searching for the perfect bottle, she used the wine list to hide her broad smile.
Across the table, Mack was locked in a battle of wills with another waiter.
He tried to push her chair in, but she took hold of the arms and settled in on her own.
She gave him a warning look as she settled back in her chair, smoothing out nonexistent wrinkles on her linen pants and straightening her pale blue, short-sleeved button-up.
Just when Kayla worried Mack would be rude to the server by delivering one of her famously firm lectures on the misogyny of chivalry, she turned a warm smile on the young man and took the menu he handed her.
The scowl was back in an instant when he tried to drape a napkin across her lap.
She politely plucked it out of his hands, and he scurried off.
The wine list may have hidden her smile, but Mack definitely heard her giggle. She turned that scowl on Kayla. Unfortunately, that did nothing to stop the giggling since there was nothing cuter than Mack’s glowering eyebrows and flashing pale green eyes.
“What’re you laughing at?”
“Just wondering if I was going to have to hold you back. You eviscerated that kid with your stare.”
Mack blushed adorably and fiddled with her napkin. “I wasn’t rude, was I? I’m just not used to that kinda thing.”
“Being treated like a lady?” Mack gave her a half smile, and the blush deepened. It was almost too cute for Kayla to handle. “You weren’t rude, but you were the one who wanted to be pampered.”
Mack said, “I meant drinks delivered poolside, not the water boy trying to feel me up.”
The words had just left her mouth when the young man returned, carrying a sweating pitcher of water.
His hand shook while he filled Mack’s glass, but the look he gave her wasn’t fear.
He was obviously smitten. Mack’s appeal was somehow universal.
When she gave him a disinterested smile, he scampered off without filling Kayla’s glass.
Kayla sighed and handed the wine list to Mack since she was better at fancy things. “You’ve got another one hooked. He’ll be following you around like a puppy dog all week.”
“What? No way. I mean, he knows I’m a lesbian, right?”
The string quartet in the corner ended their song right as she finished her sentence. More than a few faces turned to look over at their table. As Kayla struggled to hold back another giggle, Mack groaned and buried her face in the wine menu.
When the new song started up, Kayla leaned in to whisper. “Now that you’ve outed yourself to the entire resort, is there a wine you’d like to try?”
Mack’s eyes appeared over the top of the wine list, eyebrows furrowed again. She hissed, “This is all your fault, you know.”
The sweet older couple from the shuttle sat two tables over. They waved and winked but were mercifully the last ones paying attention. Mack noticed them, too, and a strange look crossed her face.
Mack reached out, laying her hand palm up on the tabletop. “Not just a lesbian but taken.”
“Huh?”
Kayla stared blankly at her and tried with all her might to understand what was going on. Mack rolled her eyes and gave her a significant look. “I’m engaged to you, remember?”
Kayla blinked twice, trying to force her mind into gear.
Eventually, the realization hit her. Their cover story.
No time like the present to start practicing the whole couple thing.
She reached out and tried to entwine their fingers, but the angle was all wrong.
They fumbled for a few minutes and ended up in an awkward embrace that was less a romantic grip and something closer to the church and steeple hand trick they used to do as kids.
The older couple gave them an odd, confused look before turning back to their own menus.
Anxiety bubbled up in Kayla’s chest. Maybe it was a good thing they hadn’t seen Skye yet. If they were this awkward with candlelight and violin music, one slip-up thanks to a pina colada would do them in entirely.
Mack said, “Um, sorry. I was trying to, you know, play my part.”
“It’s okay. I should have thought of it, too. We really need to practice this sort of thing.”
A completely new waiter appeared at their tableside, his bowtie was straighter and his suit jacket smarter than the others. “Good evening, ladies. Welcome to Eduardo’s at Rainbow Sands. May I start you with a bottle of wine?”
“Yes, um.” Mack looked helplessly at Kayla. “What would you like…sweetheart?”
She was trying, so Kayla didn’t cringe over the long pause before she added the endearment. “Oh, you know what I like.”
Mack swallowed so hard that Kayla could see the contraction of her throat. She smiled weakly, first at Kayla, then at the waiter, poised with a pencil hovering over his order pad. “Yes, of course. I know what you like. I know that, for instance, Chardonnay…”
Kayla locked her smile in place but gave a shake of her head that she hoped was subtle.
Fortunately for them both, Mack was smarter than most people. “Chardonnay is one you don’t like. Sauvignon Blanc, I think. Is that okay, babe?”
“Perfect.”
The waiter seemed oblivious to their game. “Excellent choice, madame. We have a French or a New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc. Which would the lady prefer?”
“New Zealand,” Mack said.
“French,” Kayla said simultaneously.
The waiter’s smile was fixed as he split it between them.
“We’ll take a bottle of each, please.” Mack handed the menu back to him with a self-satisfied smile.
“A bottle of…each?” he said. In the face of Mack’s broad grin, he relented and left the table.
“Good thing this place is all-inclusive,” Kayla said.
Mack’s grin was charming, but she couldn’t let it make her feel better.
Here Mack was trying so hard, and Kayla was the one screwing it up.
She couldn’t let that happen. Not when Mack had given up so much to do this for her. She couldn’t let Mack down.
“LaLa.” Mack’s voice was so gentle it was almost lost to the sounds of the night. When she looked up, Mack’s eyes were even gentler. “Stop freaking out. We’ve got this.”
“You’ve got this. I’m a mess.” A voice in her head that sounded very much like her therapist reminded her that negative self-talk was unhelpful and unkind. She took a deep breath. “You’re right. We’ve got this. I just need to work harder.”
“What you need to do is give yourself some grace. Especially because you’re going to be drinking a lot of wine tonight.”
Mack’s soft laughter released some of the tightness in her chest. Just when she wanted to freak out, there was Mack making her smile instead. “Okay, fine. For tonight only, though. We have to really focus on making this work. No way Skye will be fooled unless we really commit.”
Mack refused to let her wallow. “You’re right. We won’t let it happen again.”
Kayla reached out, and this time, Mack slid her palm into hers smoothly. It felt nice to have that moment of physical connection. After all, there was no one in her life that Kayla trusted more than Mack. They could totally pull off these little intimacies.
Looking across the table, she studied Mack in a way she never had in all their years of friendship.
She looked at her as a romantic prospect.
It wasn’t hard to see why half the world was falling all over themselves to get with Mack.
She was tall and muscular, but not in a rugby player way.
Her muscles were leaner than that. She had more of a triathlete build.
Broad shoulders and a neck just this side of thick.
Then there was her jawline, which looked like it had been sculpted by Greek gods.
Add to that her easy smile and piercing eyes and she was a heartache just waiting to happen.
More importantly to the mission, she despised Skye, and the feeling was most assuredly mutual.
Kayla had never gotten the full story of why, but sometimes two butches butted heads like big-horned sheep for no reason other than they were attracted to the same type of women.
Skye was competitive in everything she did—it was one of the things that had drawn Kayla in from the start—but Mack didn’t usually get into pissing contests.
The fact that she agreed to this scheme was honestly shocking for multiple reasons, not least of which was the unspoken but obvious truth that Mack had been thrilled when Skye ended things.
“Okay, what do you need me to do?” Mack asked, clearly steeling her spine.
Before Kayla could answer, a whirlwind of activity descended on their table.
Two runners arrived with standing ice buckets and wine glasses.
They were clearly confused to both be coming to the same table, but their waiter arrived to pour the wine and take their orders.
He played off his confusion about the excess alcohol with more finesse.
As soon as they were alone again and Mack was happily sipping away at her glass of wine, Kayla went into coach mode. Snatching a small, leather-bound journal from her bag, she began. “Okay. I’ve mapped out a game plan that I think will give us the highest chance of…what?”
Mack giggled into her wine glass, pointing at the top of the page. “You’re too much, LaLa. You literally wrote Plan of Seduction across the top. Like capitalization and everything.”
“Yeah. And?”
“There are bullet points. And is that a drawing of the resort grounds?”
A tingle of embarrassment shuddered across Kayla’s skin. “Of course. We need to know the places with the highest likelihood of interaction.”
“Is that what the little red x’s are?”
Kayla slid her hand over the map to block it from view. “I think we’re losing the thread here.”