Chapter 3
sofía
“I’ve decided I’m going to marry him,” Charlie declares, her smile bordering on scary through the computer screen.
On her left, the top of Amy’s bright-pink hair pops in and out of the frame, nothing but a bubblegum blur.
Below Amy, Vivian sits in the dark, empty command center of the research vessel she works on, somewhere in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
“Who? Mateo?” I ask.
Charlie and Mateo are madly in love, but isn’t it early to contemplate marriage?
There are timelines to follow, and eight months isn’t sufficient time to decide you’re ready to marry someone.
I’ve dated a few men now—one for years, and others for short stints—and not once did I think “yes, this is the one” at the eight-month mark.
I convinced myself I was happy to marry Tommy after a few years, but even that had taken a lot of mental gymnastics on my part.
Charlie cackles. “No. I mean, yes, maybe one day, but I mean Jett.”
“Ah, so you read my email?”
This morning, after I completed my wake-up routine, I sent out an email to everyone Jett wants to travel to Australia, either for the duration or for a short stint on the Great Barrier Reef. It came from his email address, but I wrote and sent it.
So, by proxy, she wants to marry me. I’m flattered.
“I knew he didn’t use the word comprehensive to describe an itinerary. That’s not Jett Pack’s style,” Amy says, the light catching on the fuchsia stone of her eyebrow piercing. “I’ve heard you use it once or twice, though.”
I huff, digging through my bag of nail polish for the right color. “White or champagne?” I ask, lifting the bottles for them to see.
“Champagne,” a chorus of voices responds.
Setting the bottle to the side, I slide the strap of my red-light mask over my head and click it on to a symphony of giggles.
They laugh, but my skin is incredible.
“Is he really covering all expenses?” Amy asks. “I don’t know if I can afford—”
“All of it,” I confirm.
When I mentioned they might not be able to afford the trip, I was told to “yell at them if they even try to offer to pay.” The voice note relaying the message was far funnier than it should have been, and I found myself relistening to it.
Jett gave me unfettered access to his bank accounts and credit cards.
The sheer number of zeros sent stars along my vision.
When the initial surprise settled—I had no idea he was that popular online—the questions rolled in, one after another, until I was elbow deep in Google searches about him and down the rabbit hole of watching every video he’s ever made.
The man has his own fan club. A well-designed blog and chat group full of women who love him. And it’s massive. Thousands of women around the world who would kill for a chance with Jett.
User @Mrs.JettParks runs the fan page, but I would argue it borders on stalking.
If he’s been somewhere, she’s documented it with photo and video evidence.
They speculate about his love life and favorite beach, and whether he’s a boxers or briefs kind of guy.
I don’t think he knows it exists, and I’m not sure I want to be the one to tell him.
Not only is he rich and popular online, but he also donates a significant portion of his income.
There are dozens of scheduled payments to different organizations, ranging from mental health to food pantries to the environment.
I had to sit with the information for a long time to wrap my head around his level of generosity.
He overwhelms me. Sends my neurons on the fritz when he’s in the room. He’s chaos wrapped in a go-with-the-flow bow. Loud, extroverted, laissez-faire. In every manner, he is what I am not. Or at least, that’s what I had thought.
While those things are true, he’s also empathetic, generous, loyal to his friends, and the first to celebrate those he loves. Spending hours watching him online offered a new perspective, and I’ve been forced to do a total reevaluation.
I’m still concerned we won’t work well together, but I understand why Mateo speaks so highly of him in a way I didn’t before.
“I can’t expect him to pay for all that,” Amy says.
“Oh, yes you can,” Vivian chimes in. “And I would, too, if I weren’t stuck in the middle of the ocean. A free trip to Australia sounds like exactly what you need. Who knows, maybe you’ll meet a hot man and fall in love.”
“I support Amy in all of her endeavors.” The abrasive scent of nail polish fills the air, and I begin the tedious task of painting my toenails. “I’m taking a new approach to my dating life. I’m calling it ‘not dating at all.’ Also known as giving up entirely.”
Realizing there are a lot of shitty fish in the sea demolished my delusional belief that jumping into the dating world would help me regain my confidence after Tommy obliterated it.
The final nail in my dating coffin came a few weeks ago when the man I was seeing referred to me as his “West Coast piece.” Upon my pestering, he explained he has a girl in every region of the country and can’t be tied down to one woman.
One thing’s for sure: He’s no longer tied to me.
“Probably for the best, sugar tits,” Charlie deadpans.
My red-light mask hides my response, but I’m frowning. In the background of Charlie’s video, her boyfriend guffaws. “Sugar tits,” he mumbles. “It’s still so funny.”
“It’s never been funny,” I yell. “Not funny, Charles.”
That was a story told in confidence it would never be used against me in the court of friendship.
“It’s hilarious,” Vivian deadpans.
“You’ve had a string of bad dates, but I don’t think that’s a reason to give up.” Amy softens her voice. “There’s someone out there for you, I know it.”
“There was the one guy from the engineering firm. He wasn’t so bad,” Charlie offers, but it’s a lousy save. He wasn’t so bad because the others were worse. On the online-dating scale, chewing with your mouth open is a mild offense compared to having multiple girlfriends.
“He chewed with his mouth open and spent the whole time talking about NFTs,” I remind them.
A chorus of “oh yeah” and “oofs” serenades me, and I even get a “Dios, no” from Mateo, who is crashing girls’ night.
Dating isn’t going well for me, nor has it historically, so I am removing myself from the equation until I can figure out what I’m doing wrong.
Hence my man ban.
An unfavorable silence stretches after my statement. They exchange glances, and Amy clears her throat. “Have you considered there’s a reason for the pattern and why the men you date are…”
“Mean to you,” Charlie finishes for her. “They’re assholes.”
“Why don’t we go back to talking about Australia?” I grumble, wanting to curl in on myself.
This is not a conversation I want to have.
“Tommy said he liked you best with your mouth shut and legs open,” Charlie says, outraged. “If Mateo ever said that about me, I would murder him, chop him into tiny little pieces, and feed him to the fish.”
“Charlie…” Amy scolds. “That’s not fair.”
The scar across Charlie’s brow tugs as her face turns crimson. “They fucking suck. I wish I had better words, but I don’t. If I ever meet Tommy, I’m karate chopping him in the throat and drop-kicking him in the balls.”
I never should have told them, but I was tipsy, fresh off another horrible first date (shocker), and in my state of self-pity, it tumbled out with the rest of my pitiful dating history.
Shame settles like concrete in my stomach.
I recognize how poorly he treated me in retrospect.
But he told me he loved me, and for so long, I believed it above every other subtle jab or backhanded compliment.
Love over the nitpicky comments about my body.
I clung to the sporadic compliments to soothe the pain of the frequent complaints.
Tommy was my longest relationship. Four years with him, and in the end, I was a shell of myself.
I didn’t realize how hollow I’d become until I got out.
He had carved out everything I was until all that was left were the parts he admired. Pretty. Quiet. Reliant. When he broke up with me, it was like my world fell apart because I had made him my world.
Amy cuts in, her voice soft. “I think what Charles is trying to say”—she gives her a pointed look—“is that you are incredible and so worthy of love that lifts you up, not tears you down.”
“Yep. That’s what I was saying,” Charlie says, which pulls a soft giggle from me. “We want you to be happy and cherished, and it’s not happening with the tech bros and finance guys.”
“You need a nerdy man,” Vivian chimes in. “An oddball who worships the ground you walk on.”
“Nerdy men are the best,” Charlie declares, dramatic and loud. “If he’s obsessed with microbes, scoop him up and never let him go.”
Mateo appears in her frame, a wide, goofy grin on his face.
His brown hair is a tad too long and falls in front of his eyes.
Wrapping his arms around Charlie’s shoulders, he places a kiss on the crown of her head.
She smiles up at him, the love between them almost nauseating, if only because they have what every person longs for—the precise thing I’ve been searching for on all these first dates.
What they found may be hidden treasure—one I don’t have the map to find.
“I have to agree with mi bruja,” he says. “We nerdy men are quite the catch.”
“If you know of any, send them my way,” I joke.
The last thing I need is them trying to play matchmaker for me. It would only create awkwardness when whoever they set me up with realizes I’m difficult to date.
“I’ll keep an eye out.” Mateo focuses on Charlie. “Dinner will be ready in ten.”
“Oh, hell yes,” Amy cheers, her voice echoing through Charlie’s sound. “What did you make?”
“Spicy ramen,” he says, and Amy frowns. “Don’t worry, I made a separate version without the spice so it won’t upset your stomach.”
“Gracias, Mateo,” she says as he disappears from view. “He estado practicando.”
“Tu pronunciación es mejor,” I tell her.
Pride swirls in her gaze. Amy asked me for Spanish lessons, and I was shocked she chose me to teach her instead of Mateo.
That is, until I learned her intent is to surprise shit talk with him when he least expects it.
She calls me once a week for lessons, and my mother joins in on occasion to teach her all the swear words and slang.
She continues to say “estoy embarazada” every time she pronounces something incorrectly. Instead of saying she’s embarrassed, she’s declaring she’s pregnant.
We’re working on it.
“When are you pitching your ideas to Jett?” Vivian asks, steering us back on course.
I’ve spent the better half of the week researching Australia and its biodiversity to find where the organisms he listed are located so I could build the best possible itinerary.
“Tomorrow,” I say, nerves churning in my stomach.
There’s no way to anticipate his response to my ideas, but I’ve done my best to make the presentation engaging without overwhelming him with heavy or hard-to-read text.
It required research, but I found fonts identified as the easiest for those with dyslexia to read.
I want to add a few fun animations before tomorrow, but the plan is there.
It’s also detailed out in a spreadsheet. Though that’s guaranteed to overwhelm him, so we’re going to start with the presentation and then move to the spreadsheets if he’s interested.
“A few weeks isn’t enough time to travel the whole country,” I admit, “but we can hit most of the East Coast, which covers a range of ecosystems and endemic species.”
“Oh, Neptune, you sound like a real-life scientist,” Charlie squeals. “Did you know the grey nurse shark has intrauterine cannibalism, where the first embryo to develop teeth inside each of the two uteri will eat their younger siblings?”
“Uh…I did not.”
“Well, now you do.”
An uncomfortable silence settles over the call as we all sit with the information she shared, broken only when Mateo calls out, “Read the room, bruja.”
“All I’m saying is there’s some cool shit happening on that continent.” She shrugs. “Oh, we might find a mantis shrimp.”
Latching on to the topic, she chatters about the shrimp’s punch strength until Mateo calls out for her and Amy to eat. The screen flickers as they disappear, and then it’s Vivian and me. I refuse to start the conversation I know is inevitable.
While we worked on the vessel, Vivian heard the majority of my complaints. I would vent in our cabin after a long day of putting out tiny fires, and occasionally, I’d tell her some of the odd things Jett said that felt like unintentional flirting.
She raises a brow, but I hold my ground, even though my stomach tightens into knots.
“How is working for Jett? Still flirting with you?”
“I’m not sure he ever was in the first place.” My statement is met with a disbelieving scoff, but I power on. “But it’s…different than what I’m used to.”
The freedom and ability to build my schedule is wonderful. However, working for someone I also consider a friend is not a dynamic I’m used to.
“Different can be good,” she muses. “You could use something a little different, I think. Shake things up.”
“I like things the way they are.”
The lie tastes bitter on my tongue. I mostly like things the way they are.
“Well, even if that’s true, try to have fun while you’re there.”
“It’s a work trip.”
“It’s Jett, not RogueWave. It’s a fun work trip. Let loose a little.” She scans my face, then says, “At least promise you’ll try.”
A heavy sigh deflates my chest.
There’s no way I’m letting loose, but I can have fun sometimes.
“Yeah, I’ll try.”
I have a feeling working with Jett means I have no choice in the matter.