“You don’t seem fine.” Dylan tried again, raising the armrest between them. Wanting him to let go of whatever it was. To climb into the bubble with her.
“Dylan.” James’s lips formed a thin line as he gave her a look. He wanted her to stop. To let him cool off the way he always did. To go through his separation process. He called it that. His separation process. The time he needed to transition from his marriage to his relationship with his girlfriend. The first time he’d said that to her, she’d wanted to scream that she had to go through the same thing. She had to shift from the way it felt to hug Nick, so tall she had to stand on her tiptoes to reach his shoulders, versus James, who was just a few inches taller than she. To readjust her mind so she remembered it was Nick who hated to wait in lines and it was James who got impatient when he had to repeat himself. She had to transition from Nick’s incessant need for her attention to James’s tendency to keep her at arm’s length. It wasn’t easy for her either.
But James never acknowledged that. Because he was the married one. The one who’d stood at the beach, the wind whipping through his hair as he’d said his vows, the one who shared a checking account with someone else, the one who had a mortgage with another person’s name on it. He’d never said that to Dylan, exactly, but she could tell he thought his stakes were higher.
Dylan decided to let James have his space and watched as he closed his eyes and nodded off to sleep. She pulled out a magazine and started flipping through the pages. She didn’t want to hear about their argument anyway. She wanted to get to Maui and erase the rest of the world. To lie on the beach and daydream about what it would be like if James weren’t married, or if she were the most important woman in his life—something she thought about often, but was reluctant to bring up to James in any serious way. Sure, they’d talk in ifs. If Dylan ever came to James’s workplace, what would she think of his boss? Or the inappropriately short skirts the receptionist wore? Or if Dylan’s father ever met James, would he accept him? Or would he reject him, like he had with Nick?
(She’d never told Nick, but her dad had used the word slick to describe him after they’d met for the first and only time at that dinner. Dylan had shrugged it off, knowing why her dad had felt that way. Nick hadn’t been himself at all; usually not one to splurge, always saving his money to buy things he wanted, like a new part for his motorcycle, he had taken over the meal, ordering the most expensive dishes on the menu, including an overpriced bottle of wine. And Dylan had cringed inwardly when the bill came and the waitress handed it to her father—Nick reaching out and grabbing it as her father’s cheeks reddened in embarrassment.)
That was the thing—she knew what it was like to be in a relationship with Nick. She knew he’d flinch if she lost her temper but that he’d always offer to rub her feet after she’d had a tough shift, taking great care to stroke the tension out of each toe. But it was the what-ifs that excited her about James—there was still so much to know, so much to explore.
Four hours later, James woke and spiraled a short strand of Dylan’s hair around his finger. “I’m sorry,” he said, his mouth so close to hers that she could see how much his stubble had already grown.
“It’s okay,” Dylan said, kissing him, happy not to have to look over her shoulder before doing so. They’d already determined neither of them knew anyone on the flight. When they’d arrived at the gate, they’d played the same game they did when they went to a restaurant or a movie or anywhere—no matter how far out of the way: they acted as if they didn’t know each other as they surveyed the crowd, both of them praying they wouldn’t see a familiar face.
But still, they had played it cool until they boarded the flight and took their seats in first class. James had bought her ticket and used miles for his, saying he had to be squished back in coach so often with assholes reclining into him that he was going to splurge so they could have big seats, extra leg room, and complimentary cocktails. He’d put them on separate reservations, then schmoozed the gate agent so they could sit next to each other. She had watched from afar as the woman, at first flustered and standoffish, had begun to defrost as James leaned in closely. Dylan couldn’t see his face, but she knew exactly what smile he was charming her with. It was the same one he’d had when he waited for her after her shift and opened the door to something more. Like Dylan, the gate agent wasn’t able to resist.
“I’m so excited to have four full days with you,” James said, nodding at the flight attendant and ordering a mimosa for him and a plain orange juice for Dylan.
“To Maui,” James said, after the flight attendant handed them their drinks.
“To Maui,” Dylan repeated, just as the captain announced their descent.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
JACKS—AFTER
Nick pulls the Jeep we rented up to the front of the hotel, and I step out, the air warm against my skin. (Despite the gorgeous drive from the airport, and the second Prozac I’d slipped under my tongue, I’d still clenched the “oh-shit bar” the entire time.)
“Aloha!” A man, wearing a nametag that says Akoni and a tan shirt with white flowers and the Westin Ka‘anapali logo stitched on the front, welcomes us. He smiles and motions for us to bow our heads. Nick and I pause, glancing at each other awkwardly before we outstretch our necks to accept his offering—a strand of simple white seashells.
Akoni points us in the direction of two glass jugs filled with orange-and-lemon-infused water, and I walk toward it, fill my plastic cup, and take a sip, picturing Dylan pressing one to her own lips. As Nick and I are ushered toward reception, I imagine James and Dylan making these same steps. Had James taken her small hand in his and guided her inside, stopping to marvel at the waterfalls spilling down a wall of rocks into a koi pond occupied by a gaggle of salmon-pink flamingos? Did they try to get Bob, the brilliant blue-and-yellow macaw that lives in the bamboo cage, to mimic them?
The property, at first glance, is stunning: palm trees bending overhead as if trying to talk to each other, the sound of babbling streams and birds filling the air, tables and chairs set up by the ponds to watch the swans swim by, the koi fighting for the scraps of food a group of children are throwing haphazardly their way.
A ripple of jealous anger passes through me as I think of James taking the time to research and book this hotel—something that had always been left to me. I wonder again if our trip to Maui—our honeymoon—came to mind as he planned theirs. How did he do that—separate his life with me from the relationship he had with her? Did he talk about me? Confide all my biggest weaknesses and failures? Or did my name never pass his lips—as if he put me in a box in the back of his mind, like the clothes you once loved, but had outgrown and forgotten about? I couldn’t decide which option was worse.
“Hey, I checked us in. They put us both in the ocean tower, but we’re on different floors. And not that we care, but they upgraded us both to an ocean view!” Nick says as he hands me my driver’s license, credit card, and room key, then frowns. “You okay?”
“It’s just so strange—to be here.” I watch a flamingo dip his beak into the water, wondering how long he can stand on one foot. Hours? Days?
“Surreal,” Nick says as we both notice a little boy pointing to an enormous crab sunning himself on a rock.
I ask Nick the question on my mind as I look around. “It doesn’t seem like the kind of place you bring someone you’re just having a fling with, does it?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never had a fling.”
I trail my eyes to the floor and try not to blink, to not let the tears fall. I don’t want Nick to see me cry.
“Hey.” Nick lightly touches my upper arm. “We don’t know anything yet. Let’s save the tears for when or if we need them.”