Chapter 42
Chapter Forty-Two
TRISTAN
As I walk up to the dive center, I spot the two police officers and two coastguards loitering outside. “Just so you know,” I say in passing, pinning Officer Odinga with a cutting glare, “if you damage anything in this dive center during your raid, I’ll make you pay for it.”
Roger did me proud, telling them to take a hike until we’re out with the guests. Now my student is coming up to me, concern in his eyes. Fuck. My head can’t get around Jem’s accusation. To think she was blindly dragging Roger and Deshni into this mess too. And Lexi… Shit.
Roger pulls me to the side for a second, away from the few guests who are still in the dive center. “Stupid police raid. As if this type of thing would happen again so soon—”
“Why did nobody tell us?” I say, baffled and annoyed to be caught off guard.
“Bro, you should see the pile of papers we had to sign. Every one of us not allowed to say a word,” Roger says as he shakes his head.
“Can’t let Beaumont be part of the drug problem on the coast, see?
Ne’emba and Beaumont have a reputation to uphold…
Imagine getting tagged as Drug Island! Love Island?
Any day, but drugs!” He huffs. “In the end it was only management and two maintenance guys who were caught. It was a big hush job.”
Fuck me. Lexi. This is what she went through with St Chalamet.
All I want is to go back to that office and drag her into a hug, reassure her, but I have no choice but to do my job.
I rake my hands through my hair, forcing myself to focus on the dives ahead as I step in the direction of the dive center.
Roger’s hand on my arm stops me. “What’s going on, Tristan?” he asks, and cold fingers squeeze my heart at his edgy tone.
“What do you mean? We’ve got nothing to do—”
“I know, but rumors are going around that you aren’t really engaged to Lexi? You’ve been pretending?”
I don’t know how to answer him, so I just nod. I can’t even look the guy in the eye.
“How?” Roger sounds stunned.
This. This is one thing we never imagined. Having to deal with questions from people who trust and respect us. “Because we’re idiots?” I mutter under my breath. “We were both desperate. Lexi for a new job, and I to finish my TV series.” I look up at Roger, but he now averts his gaze. “Roger.”
“I thought you loved her.” He says this as if nothing else matters. “Like I love Deshni. Now I see you’re not the man I thought you were.”
No. I’m not the man he thought I was. I swallow as I drag my hands through my hair. “Let’s just get through this morning, okay? We can talk after the dives. It’s all more complicated than that.”
“Is it?” Roger’s frank stare only magnifies the truth in those two words.
I’m punched straight in the chest. It isn’t complicated at all, is it? I do love her. I love Lexi like Roger loves Deshni. I’m still reeling from that truth when Nathan Beaumont walks into the dive center, ripping me out of my haze.
“Care if I join you?” he asks.
Every brain cell seems to malfunction at once, but I have to get a grip. Filming my TV series won’t be in the cards anymore, but that’s not the primary reason I’m here. Not now, anyway. I need to keep it together, not only for the guests’ safety, but for Roger’s future too.
“Sir.” Roger nods at Nathan. “I’ll see you on the dinghy.” He files out with the last of the guests, leaving me with the man on whom my whole future suddenly hinges.
“No problem. You’re qualified?” I know the answer. Nathan, after all, interviewed me.
“I’m a dive master,” he says. “I’ve been coming to Ne’emba for more than thirty years. Started with snorkeling as a kid and got qualified as a dive master when I turned eighteen. This place is magic.”
“I know.” Here’s someone who gets it, and I hate that I wasn’t open about my real work off the bat with this guy. “Do you need help—”
“I’m good. Just the oxygen tanks.” Nathan walks toward the wetsuits.
I prep his scuba gear while he suits up.
The air around us is charged with a thousand unsaid things.
Might as well put a dent in them now and advocate for Roger’s future.
“I’ve been teaching Roger to dive,” I tell him as I connect the regulator to the oxygen tank.
“He’s qualified for Open Water Two now and is logging hours toward master diver. ”
“I never knew he was interested.”
Neither of us has to play dumb here. “We both know you need a local to run the show. You good to go?”
“Yes.” Nathan heaves his scuba kit over his shoulders as I gather my camera and fins. “That’s a pretty impressive setup you have there,” he says as we head out. He’s eyeing my underwater camera and lighting equipment. “Care to tell me more?”
It’s time to put my cards on the table. “I have a deadline for television series I sold to a streaming service. I’ve been filming on the side since I arrived here,” I confess.
“I’ve been working on it for so long, but as karma has it, as soon as you have a deadline, things start going wrong.
When this opportunity came up…well, Lexi and I thought we could kill two birds with one stone. ”
Nathan shoots me a look, but we’ve reached the dinghy. “I see,” he says as he lifts his scuba gear into Roger’s outstretched hands. “We’ll discuss this later.”
Roger is clearly on edge with Mike on the boat, and the guests I’ve gotten to know over the past few days are looking on, likely sensing the awkward tension between us. Yep. I’ve crashed straight into a dead end, but I need to get through these dives.
With Nathan’s last-minute addition, Mike is taking up a seat we can’t spare. It’s cramped. “It’s fine, Mike,” Nathan says. “We’re good.”
Mike reads between the lines, gives me a curt nod, and jumps out of the boat. Well, thank fuck for that. The last thing I need is Jem’s husband’s eyes on me the whole morning as he wonders where I hid the cocaine.
I settle in next to Nathan, and we hit the waves.
Luckily the site for our first dive isn’t too far from the island.
It’s when the floatplane flies overhead that the tense grip in my stomach twists.
“You’re staying a few days?” I ask Nathan over the noise of the dinghy’s engine.
To my knowledge, no new guests are arriving today, and the pilot is probably heading home.
“That would be Lexi flying out,” Nathan says.
My heart stalls. “Lexi? On the plane? Did you fire her?”
He shakes his head. “She wanted to go.”
She’s gone?
I’m winded, not wanting to believe Nathan, but the coil in my gut tells me it’s true.
We’ve reached the dive site, so there’s no stopping the process now.
I plunge in with my back to the water, letting the oxygen tank take the hit.
I signal to Roger that I’m okay and wait for the guests to drop back.
Once everybody is in the water and next to their diving buddies, I give the signal, and we descend.
It’s quiet. Only the sounds of my breathing and the rhythmic rise of air bubbles to the surface intercept this strange silence I love so much.
There are other noises, but they’re subdued.
I usually find this calming, and my body relaxes into this familiar world where I feel so at home, but today my heart is a jackhammer in my chest and my wetsuit feels too tight.
Nathan is my dive buddy, and as we descend, I try to focus on him. My mind is going into overdrive, and it’s dangerous territory.
I wait for my training to kick in and shift my mind into the right gear, but everything in me refuses. All I can think of is Lexi. Of us. How it felt to be with her. Easy. I could just be with her—no expectations, no judgment, just love.
Love.
She’s gone. Fear rises in me, so strong that for a minute I need to concentrate on my breathing.
As the emotion swells, I realize my love for her is like oxygen that’s gotten stuck deep in the ocean.
It’s at last breaking free and surfacing, catching the light as it dances and balloons toward the sky and freedom.
And this feeling isn’t new. I’ve loved her since forever, but we were trapped. Because of her age. Because of time. Because of me.
She’s left me. At this thought, I can hardly breathe at all.
Beaumont shakes my arm. He signs with his hands, asking if I’m okay and holds out his spare regulator.
I inhale deeply and exhale such a rush of air it curtains the space between us.
When the air bubbles clear, my gaze connects with his.
His eyes are wide with concern, but I nod and return his okay signal.
We’re doing a drift dive and herding everybody together in the same general direction is important.
The current isn’t strong, but divers on the edges can lag and we could lose them.
I turn around to watch and count the others.
I need these dives done and everybody back at shore safely—myself included.
With steel determination, I force myself to focus on what I need to do. Then Nathan indicates my camera, asking that I show him how I film and take photos.
Between filming and keeping the dive going, forty minutes pass quickly, but nothing keeps my mind away from Lexi and the recurring thought that this is no longer what I want.
I want Lexi, and everything else can wait—maybe forever.
When we resurface after the dive, Roger helps the guests back onto the boat, one by one. As soon as everybody is settled in the dinghy, I clamber in and strip out of my wetsuit. “Since you’re a dive master,” I say to Nathan, “could you lead the next dive with Roger?”
I turn to Roger as his jaw goes slack. I lean closer to where he sits by the rudder. “With everything that happened this morning, my head isn’t in the game. And this is your chance to prove yourself.”
“Sure,” Nathan says, his gaze jumping between me and Roger. “Where’s the next dive?”
“The Pinnacle.” It’s a shallow and easy dive as you circle a coral mound a few times at different depths.
“That’s fine,” Nathan says with a nod.