Chapter Five
Bella
If there ’ s such a thing as perfect men, Harley certainly lucked into finding two of them.
Lucas and Sebastian were everything she told me they were. Physically—and speaking entirely from a superficial, shallow perspective—they were the very definition of eye candy. Both were tall, dark, and handsome, with sexy Latin accents and bodies akin to demigods. Once I met them, I quickly learned their looks were just the tip of the iceberg.
Their charm, combined with their humor and classiness, was impressive. Both seemed gifted with always having the right answers and the perfect comebacks. Their delivery was so smooth and sophisticated. I guess you call that charisma. They just seemed to be the prototypes for the always-elusive dream guys.
We wound up spending the entire following day with them, lounging around the pool, indulging in tropical cocktails, and munching on delicious food native to the area. Though they both tried to get us to come out to their “ superyacht,” I balked.
“ Bella! ” Harley hisses at me after we say goodnight to them and head to dinner. “ Why? Just why?”
“ Why what?”
“ Lucas invited us to join them for dinner on the yacht! Not only would it have been incredible to party like the rich folks do, but it would have saved us some money, too.”
“ Not if we eat here,” I point out, nodding at the restaurant we ’ re passing as we head to the elevator. “ Meals are included while we ’ re in the main resort and before we move to the bungalow, remember?”
“ But do you really want to eat hotel food again?” she asks. “ We talked last night about how it would be nice to go out for food at a local place.”
“ Right, which we can still do,” I point out. “ We don ’ t have to eat here, and we don ’ t have to go out on that yacht, either.”
“ What ’ s your aversion to going?” she asks, clearly frustrated with me.
“ I just don ’ t want to wind up stuck with them all month.”
“ Stuck with them?” she laughs. “ How can you even say that after getting to know them? They ’ re both so dreamy. So charming! And Lucas,” she says exaggeratedly, fanning herself, “ he is en fuego… HOT! ”
“ And you ’ re acting like a giddy schoolgirl over them,” I say. “ We ’ re moving into the bungalow in the morning, and then we ’ re going to be so busy with surfing and our seminars and everything else we had planned, it ’ s not like we ’ re even going to be around much to hang out with them.”
“ All the more reason to go out on their yacht while we have the chance,” she says.
“ Why do you want to go so bad?” I ask. “ You have never been this gaga about anyone.”
“ I ’ m not gaga,” she retorts. “ I just think he ’ s nice, that ’ s all.”
“ Nice? ” I ask sarcastically with a chuckle and an eye roll.
She reads my look and puts her hands on her hips. “ Okay. He ’ s smokin’ hot. He ’ s rich. He ’ s great. I ’ d like to get to know him better. Is that so bad?”
“ Yes! I mean, no,” I correct myself. I’m trying not to come off as though I don ’ t want her to find someone or get into a vacation fling.
I pause for a moment as I take a breath and try to think of the proper way to say what ’ s on my mind. Part of the problem I ’ m having with just spitting it out is that I know she already sees me as the overly cautious one – a fuddy-duddy even – and the fact that I ’ ve pointed out I didn ’ t want these two guys to hijack our whole vacation is only going to add to that in her mind.
I ’ m not going to just go along with it, either. I have to at least let her know what I ’ m thinking, and we can go from there.
“ No,” I say again. “ I don ’ t think it ’ s a bad thing that you want to get to know Lucas more, but I also don’t think it’s a good idea to come down here and immediately start spending all your time with him. Is he going to go with you to your yoga things? Are you going to drag him along when we go surfing or SCUBA diving? I know you ’ re excited that you like him, but I don ’ t want to be the third wheel in all this. This was supposed to be a trip for us. Plus, you need to make him work for it a little bit.”
My voice cracks a bit when I speak, and I realize just how emotional I feel. I don ’ t know why I ’ m so determined that we have our time separate from them, but I really want to spend time with Harley and not have this turn into some variation of what our spring breaks have been like in the past.
Well, my spring breaks, anyway. Harley didn ’ t go to UCLA, but that didn ’ t stop her from coming along to many of the things I did with the friends I met there. I was happy to have her — she’s a ton of fun — but there were plenty of times that I spent hours waiting for her to get back from hanging out with some hot guy she ’ d found to drool over.
Now, I ’ m having flashbacks of those times, and I don ’ t want to have that as a repeat. The fact that we ’ re both in our early thirties now solidifies my point and feelings about it, and I ’ m trying to get that through to her.
“ Oh, honey,” she says as she notices my misty eyes and rushes over to give me a hug. “ I ’ m sorry. I ’ ve been a little crazy about this, haven ’ t I? ”
“ Maybe a little,” I say. “ I really do want you to have fun, but I want to have fun with the two of us, too. I don ’ t want this to turn into Mega-Man-Fest.”
“ I get it,” she says with a resolute nod. “ And I mean that. So, tonight, you and I will go out and have a great dinner, followed by a girls ’ night out on the town; how ’ s that?”
“ On the town?” I ask as I raise an eyebrow.
“ Why not?” she asks. “ We have money, we have cute outfits, and I have a long list of places I wanted to try while we ’ re here. I say we pick one to start for dinner, then we just cut loose and see where the night takes us.”
“ Alright,” I say slowly. “ But I want you to promise me something right now.”
“ Okay.”
“ Just because I won this battle, I don ’ t want you to run off with some new guy we might run into when we ’ re clubbing. I want it to be just you and me tonight.”
She laughs. “ Alright, alright. It ’ s just you and me, Bella. I promise.”
“ And we can ’ t get too crazy anyway,” I remind her. “ Since we plan to surf early and have to be out by eleven in the morning, it’ll be much more enjoyable without a hangover!”
She laughs again. “ Cheers to that, sister. Give me thirty minutes to shower and change clothes. You pick out where you want to go for dinner."
I agree, and she disappears into the bathroom. I grab my phone and flip through it, relieved that she came around to see things from my point of view. I feel a little bad about getting weepy, but I ’ m glad I spoke up.
I pick a restaurant, and while I’m deciding on my outfit, I hear her phone go off on the bed next to me. I naturally look down at it as it buzzes. My heart sinks when I see Lucas ’ s name on her screen.
I suppose it ’ s not a surprise, considering she ’ s completely enamored with him, though I ’ m still a bit put off by it. Sebastian tried to get my phone number, but I told him I wasn’t giving it out. I am not inclined to get to know them on any more than a surface level. And when we go home, I ’ m sure I ’ m going to forget about both of them.
“ I ’ ll quit hogging the bathroom and dry my hair out here,” Harley says as she appears in the doorway of the bathroom with her hair up in a towel.
“ Okay, I ’ ll take a super quick shower, powder my nose, and we can go,” I tell her. “ I ’ ll wash my hair tomorrow after we surf.”
“ Sweet.”
She looks at her phone, and I ’ m glad when she types a simple response and puts it in her purse. I half expected her to be glued to the thing all night, texting the guy I got her to blow off for me.
We get a cab and head to the first restaurant, and from there, we take another cab to the club that ’ s the furthest away from the hotel.
“ We ’ ll start there, and then we ’ ll just hop from club to club and work our way back toward the resort,” Harley explained. “ Whenever we decide we ’ re done, we ’ ll just get a cab to the hotel from there. This way, we don ’ t have to worry that we ’ re getting further away from the home base.”
“ Brilliant, ” I tell her.
To my surprise, she stays off her phone for most of the night. I ’ m happy that the tension of our earlier conversation doesn ’ t take long to melt away. I ’ m blown away by how good the food is at our chosen restaurant.
We specifically wanted to indulge in some of the local authentic cuisine, so we got suggestions from the hotel concierge, and he nailed it. We curated our own “bar crawl,” also based on tips from the concierge and recommendations from Lucas and Sebastian. And the evening is working out great. Each club we visit has some unique twist that makes it stand out.
We have fun dancing and people watching, and by the end of the night, I ’ ve all but forgotten about the conversation she and I had, and the two of us are on our way back to the hotel.
“ I ’ m really glad we did this,” she tells me as she rests her head on my shoulder. “ Thank you for convincing me that going turf for the evening was better than going surf like I wanted.”
I laugh. “ I do have good ideas every now and then, you know.”
“ Well, this was one of them,” she says with just a wee bit of a slur to her words. “By the way, what is this Mega-Man-Fest you mentioned earlier? Sounds yummy!”
I busted out laughing. “That was me being creative and facetious at the same time, Miss Horny Toad. It’s not actually a thing.”
“Well, it should be,” she says with a sleepy smile.
It was the perfect evening. And the bonus is that we won’t be dealing with hangovers tomorrow morning since we showed pretty decent restraint. We get to the resort and head inside, our arms linked together like two sisters as we ride the elevator up to our floor. I ’ m the one with the key card to the room, and it takes me a second to find it.
I feel Harley leaning against me and giggle. “ You ’ re falling asleep on me.”
“ Sorry,” she mumbles.
Getting inside the door, I lock it behind us before leading her to bed.
“ You can change in the morning,” I tell her, and she mumbles another reply I don ’ t catch before curling up into the pillows. I ’ m happy that we got out on the town for a fun night and got back to the hotel safe and sound.
I ’ m exhausted, and it doesn ’ t take long before I ’ m passed out on my bed across the room from Harley.
The next morning, I ’ m awakened by the sun coming in through the sides of the drapes. They do a great job of keeping out most of the light, but where it does creep in around the sides is super bright.
“ Hey,” I call out to Harley. “ You ready to get up and hit the waves?”
“ Harley? ”
There ’ s no answer, nor is there any movement from the bed. I get up and walk over to her, then swear under my breath when I see that what I thought was her lying on the bed is actually just her bags.
There ’ s a note on top, which I grab, then flick on the light to read.
Hey! So don ’ t hate me, but I promised Lucas I ’ d join them for Bloody Marys and breakfast on the yacht. I ’ m sorry I bailed on our surfing, and I swear I ’ ll make it up to you! I plan to be back in time to move to the bungalow, but if not, I ’ ll just meet you there.
Love you, K
I shake my head, thoroughly annoyed that she ’ d chosen to go out on that damn superyacht after all. I have no idea how long she ’ s been gone or even when she left. She ’ s probably already out on the water, and there ’ s nothing I can do about it.
I open the curtains a bit to slowly adjust to the bright sunlight and see what the weather looks like. It ’ s a beautiful day, and I decide I’m not going to focus on my irritation but on the sun and surf instead. I fix a cup of coffee in the room while I brush my teeth, put on my swimsuit, and then go out on the balcony to apply sunscreen before heading out to the beach.
I ’ m going to make the most of my morning. And in my experience, there ’ s nothing the sun, fresh air, and seawater can ’ t heal… including my attitude.