22. Tilly #2
The boat cuts a clean line up the coast, cliffs going up green and gold on our right, water so blue it looks fake.
The engine hums below us, vibrating the floor.
Wade has one hand on the wheel and the other around a beer he keeps forgetting about.
Birdie's stretched out on the bow with her sunglasses on and her face tipped straight up at the sun like she's charging in it.
There are seven of us. That's the whole crew now. The group has been shrinking a little each day, and this morning Banksie and Daddy flew out at the crack of dawn. Reeves and Charli are heading for the private airport later.
We fly home tomorrow afternoon.
Six days ago, Rhodes was still the guy sleeping down the hall from me. Now I know what he looks like when he's trying not to touch me in front of people, what his mouth tastes like after espresso, and exactly how long he can keep his hands to himself before one of us gives up.
None of that belongs in New Orleans. At least, that has been the agreement.
Italy ends, we go home, and Rhodes goes back to being my brother's best friend and roommate, while I go back to pretending I don't know what his hands feel like under my shirt.
Simple.
I run my hand through my hair and look toward the back of the boat.
Rhodes is already looking at me. He reaches into the cooler and brings me a sparkling water with a lime already wedged in the neck.
I didn't ask. He just knows, the way he's known all week, the same way he knew this morning I'd want espresso before I wanted food.
"Thanks," I say and crack it open.
He’s good at this, that’s all it is. You sleep with a man for a few days, and suddenly he learns your order and starts anticipating what you want before you ask. That isn’t romance. That’s a man doing what he needs to do to keep getting his needs met.
Libba drops down beside me with a glass of something pink and fizzy.
"You want a sip? It's a mocktail."
"I'm good." I lift my water.
A coil of dock line by my foot catches my eye, and I have to bite down on a laugh, because it puts me right back on this boat yesterday.
Libba came clomping down the boards out of nowhere, and Rhodes and I went flat on the floorboards, dead silent, his hand clamped over my mouth because I was about to lose it, her flip-flops slapping past three feet from our heads.
We held our breath the whole time, and when she left, we lay there shaking with it.
"You're burning," a voice says, and I look up. Cera's holding out a bottle of sunscreen, wavy brown hair coming loose from its knot, brown eyes on my shoulders. "Your left arm is already turning pink."
"Story of my life. Left side neglected." I take it. "Thanks."
"Wells burns in eleven minutes flat if I don't stay on him about it."
"I do not," Wells says, eyes staying shut as he lounges on the chair in the shade.
"You're translucent."
"I'm indoors by design."
Cera flicks water at him, and he almost smiles, which, from what I've seen, is a full parade. I like her. There's no performance to her.
The engine drops off, and Wade swings us into a cove tucked between two cliffs. The water goes glassy and turquoise underneath.
"Anchor's down," he calls, and everybody moves at once, shirts coming off, towels flying, Birdie already at the rail. "Our last Italian boat swim. Make it count."
I run two steps and jump, nothing under my feet. "Last one is a rotten egg," I yell.
The water comes up cold at first, swallowing me whole. Down here it's all green light and my own bubbles going up. This is the one part of me nobody's ever had to manage. The water just holds me.
I break the surface grinning and shove my hair back. Libba does a proper cannonball off the swim platform, tucked and screaming, and the splash reaches me twenty feet out. Somebody's music plays tinny and small over the water.
"Race you to the rocks," she says, already paddling.
I let her have a head start because she needs it, then catch her easily with the shoulders our mother gave us both. We slow near the cliff face where the water goes deep and dark. The boat noise falls away behind us, just the slap of it against the stone and our own breathing.
Libba treads water, wipes her face, and looks at me with that particular sister smile.
"So," she says. "You want to explain the way Rhodes hands you drinks?"
"I guess he's always near the cooler."
"He looks at you like you hung the moon, Til." She's not accusing. She's almost delighted. "I've been watching all week. He watches you like it's his job."
I float onto my back so I don't have to arrange my face. "It's a vacation thing. I guess we've become closer since I've been living in his spare room."
"Hmm. Is that it?"
"We're having fun,” I say lightly, because it is fun. I flip back upright.
I wait for the rest of it: the "are-you-sure," the "is-this-good-for-you," the "can-you-handle-this," the whole gentle interrogation I've been fielding for the last two years.
"Okay."
"Okay?"
"I'm off duty." She splashes me. "You're on your own, disaster."
"Rude."
"Loving."
"TILLY! LIBBA!" Wade yells, cupping his hands off the bow. "Cera wants to snorkel the far side, so we're moving the boat. Get your asses back!"
Libba's already turning. She didn't call me out, and I didn't give her anything to call out. But when I push off after her, I know the secret isn't quite as invisible as it was five minutes ago.
Libba texts me at nine.
Wade, Birdie, and I are staying in town to see a band. Take a cab and meet us.
I look around the quiet villa and smile.
I'm cooked from the boat and still need to pack. Y'all have fun and be careful.
Don't wait up. Band doesn't even start for an hour.
I text Rhodes instead of writing her back.
Clear.
He's there in ten minutes and doesn't knock.
"No timer tonight," I tell him. He shuts the door with his heel and crosses the room as if he's got all the time in the world. We've snuck in stolen moments together all over this resort, but this is the first time in my bed.
His lips land on mine without hesitation.
He walks me back to the bed and takes my shirt off without fumbling, then works the rest of it down over my hips and drops it somewhere behind him.
His mouth finds the spot under my ear that undoes me, the one he learned Tuesday, and I feel him grin against my skin when I make the sound.
"There it is," he says.
"Unfair advantage." I get his shirt over his head and press my palm flat to his chest, pushing him down. "Lie back. I want to take my time for once."
He watches me while I work his jeans open and get my hand around him. I don’t have to ask what he likes now: the slow drag, the twist at the top. His breath catches on cue.
"You're smug about that," he says.
"I earned it, don't you think?"
I take him into my mouth. His whole stomach tightens beneath my hand.
He tastes faintly salty already, and when I run my tongue over the tip, his hand closes on the back of my neck.