Chapter 27
twenty-seven
Kate
If heaven is a place, it smells like salt water, sunscreen, and the faint trace of Josh’s cologne, feels like warm sun and dried saltwater on my skin, and tastes like rum and fresh mangos.
We’ve been in Saint Lucia for three days, and I’m still waiting for someone to pinch me or to wake up in the back of the RV. I didn’t think life could slow down for someone like Josh, but it has. It has, and it’s bliss.
There’s no schedule. No sneaking around or pretending we’re just assistant and rock icon. Here, we’re just two people who wake up every morning tangled up with each other, eat breakfast on our patio facing the ocean, and kiss under the sun and the stars and wherever else we feel like it.
The resort is secluded, surrounded by lush greenery and mountains that are so breathtaking my brain doesn’t seem to want to believe they’re real. The sand is powdery soft beneath my bare feet, the water clear enough to see fish darting between our legs when we wade in.
I never want to forget the way Josh’s hand feels in mine as we walk along the shore, or how he looks with sun-kissed skin and a relaxed smile that doesn’t carry the weight of fame.
We’ve spent the mornings in the ocean and the afternoons wrapped around each other under the shade of a palm tree.
Sometimes we talk. Sometimes we don’t. It doesn’t matter because there’s something sacred about this silence we share, how it rests between us with a sense of comfort instead of awkwardness.
Our villa has a private plunge pool and an outdoor shower that Josh insisted we “break in” after our first beach day—twice. He’d made me come so hard I nearly slipped, but he caught me, eyes full of mischief and something I’m still trying to figure out.
Last night after dinner, we danced barefoot on the patio, half-drunk on rum and whatever spell this island has cast over us. The music drifted from a speaker, soft and slow, and he held me like I was something precious.
“I could get used to showing you off,” he’d whispered against my hair. “No hiding. No pretending. Just you and me.”
And god, I could, too.
The tour has been nonstop, but here, just the two of us away from all the chaos and noise, it almost feels like a different world, and it’s been hard not to get caught up in imagining that this is what it could be like all the time.
Going on dates. Kissing. Touching. Being together outside the four walls of hotel rooms.
But the thing about paradise is, it makes you believe. In peace. In possibility. In love. In things that are too good to be true. Things that the person you’re with has already mentioned they’re not interested in.
We walk side by side along the shoreline, the rhythmic crash of the waves filling the silence between us. The sky—as it has been every night—is breathtaking, streaked with gold and lavender, the last traces of sunlight melting into the horizon.
“What’s on your mind?” Josh asks.
I shrug as I watch the sun finally sink below the water, then tip my head back, watching as the stars slowly blink to life across the darkening sky.
“Alright, well, whenever you’re ready, I’m listening.”
I can’t help but smile, because there’s something about the way Josh handles me when I’m like this—insecure and trapped in my own head—that does something to me.
He’s always sure of his words and yet, with me, he waits.
He doesn’t push. He just stays close. Steady and patient, waiting for me to find mine.
His kind of quiet understanding means more than I could ever explain, because he’s proven that when I do speak, when I feel ready to let him in, he listens. And that’s not something I’m used to.
“I may be way off base here, so forgive me if I am,” I say. “But I feel like things are changing between us.”
“Finally,” he says, smiling and shoving his hands into his pockets. I laugh, assuming he made a joke, but he just keeps grinning like a fool as my heart beats faster.
“So, I’m not imagining it?”
“No, Kate, you’re not.”
“And you don’t think…” I sigh, trying to find the right words. “You don’t think this is crazy, you and me?”
“No, sweetheart,” he says, without hesitation. “I think we’re pretty great together.”
“Please,” I say, rolling my eyes. “We’re polar opposites.”
“Are we?” he teases. “I hadn’t noticed.”
“Shall I list off all the supporting evidence?”
The corner of his mouth tilts up into a smirk.
“You do love a good list,” he says, and the playful tone in his voice catches me off guard.
The way he says it, it’s more of a statement than a judgement.
Like it’s something he’s noticed and appreciates, not something he’s tolerating.
No exasperated sigh, no condescension. Just an easy acknowledgment that my appreciation for something as simple as a checklist isn’t a flaw or a thing that needs to be fixed—it’s simply part of who I am.
“Alright,” I say. “You’re outgoing and talkative. The life of every party.”
“And?”
“And I’m quiet,” I say.
“I like that you’re quiet.” I look at him and he shrugs. “Not because you don’t have anything to say, but because when you do, it matters. Tons of people say words but don’t actually say anything, you know?”
My heart warms in my chest.
Why would anyone want to listen to you? You never have anything to say.
Logically, I know Josh doesn’t know all the things Anthony had said to me, but every single time I’m feeling insecure about something he’d criticized me for, Josh comes through and praises me for it.
“What else?” he asks.
“I’m hyper-organized. Like, to an almost obsessive level. And you’re…well, I think we’ve established that you’re not.”
“Some would argue that makes us complementary. Harmonizing, if you will.” He playfully elbows me in the arm, and I chuckle. “See what I did there?”
“Yes, it was a very clever use of musical terminology,” I concede.
“Hey,” he says, pulling gently on my elbow so that we stop walking.
“Feel free to continue going through the list, I’ll listen to whatever you have to say.
Just know that nothing will change how I feel.
I’m aware of how different we seem on paper, but I’m also aware that it’s all bullshit. We just…fit, Kate.”
He’s lying, the voice in my head whispers.
I squeeze my eyes shut, forcing a slow exhale through my nose. Now isn’t the time to let doubt crawl in and sink its claws into everything good, so I shove the voice deep, locking it away behind every ounce of stubborn hope I have left.
Yes, he told me in the beginning he didn’t want a relationship, but that was…before.
Before he held me like I meant something. Before he kissed me like he’d been starving. Before the list. Before he invited me away with him.
“You’re always so busy taking care of everyone else, but who’s taking care of you?
” he asks. I swallow the lump of emotion growing in my throat as he stares down at me.
A gust of wind blows my hair into my face, and he reaches up to tuck it behind my ear, his thumb tracing lightly across my cheek.
“I want to be that person, if you’ll let me. ”
“I thought you didn’t do relationships,” I say. “That you didn’t need them.”
“I don’t think I knew what I needed until you.”
I blink up at him. “So, what? You just woke up one day and realized you wanted a relationship?”
“No,” he says, smiling. “I woke up and realized I wanted you. I’ve never wanted someone like this.
It’s like I can’t fucking breathe without you.
” He cradles my face in his hands and presses a kiss to my forehead before resting his forehead against mine.
“I don’t just want your body, Kate,” he whispers.
“Please. Be mine. In every possible way, be mine and let me be yours.”