He cackles as a waiter stops at our table, offloading plates of sushi with the promise to be back with more. If it wasn’t awkward before, it is now, and all of us glance at each other, offering weird smiles as we wait for the food. We all drink our beer and avoid eye contact until all the sushi we ordered is in front of us.
“So…” Gray prompts as we load our plates.
I look to Abby, who is looking at me. We exchange curious glances like…who will answer first and what is the real answer?We haven’t talked about it, so we don’t know.
“There’s not really—I mean, we aren’t, like, back together, if that’s what you’re asking,” Abby says, glancing between Gray and me. She seems just as nervous to be answering as I am to hear her answer.
I give her an approving nod. I would have said something similar if she hadn’t answered first.
“Oh, so a nice little vacation fling and then you’ll go home and find a real man to date, huh?” Gray asks, obviously trying to provoke me. It’s working.
I grip my chopsticks so hard, I practically snap them in two.
The idea of Abby going home and dating anyone has me seeing red. Like I was just some kind of starter for her. The horse she got back on so she could go find another one. My blood boils, and the only reason I’m able to calm myself is that I see the mischief in Gray’s eyes and I know he’s rage-baiting me.
“No, no, nothing like that,” Abby says with a light laugh. Some of the rage in me dissolves.
Gray doesn’t press her for more, seemingly satisfied with rankling me and making Abby blush. He asks her more about her interest in graphic design, something she must have mentioned earlier when I zoned out, offering his company up as a guinea pig if she wanted to practice anything.
Abby is so excited about the prospect that she asks the waiter for a pen and spends the rest of the dinner drawing sample logos on a napkin between bites of sushi. By the time dinner is over, Gray has a pocket full of napkin sketches and Abby has the kind of energy usually reserved for kids who have just eaten too much candy.
When Gray heads back to his room, I offer to take a walk on the beach with Abby. Both of us could probably stand to burn off some energy. She hooks her hand around my bicep and starts following the paved path that leads to the beach.
“You read my mind.”
The sun has long since left the sky, and while the heat of the day is gone, the humidity is not. After sitting in an air-conditioned restaurant, the thick air swarms us, pressing in onall sides. Lines of sweat form along my hairline and down my back already.
Thewhooshof the ocean gets louder as we get closer to it, and all the chatter and clatter from the restaurants start to fade behind us. The path to the beach is well-lit with warm lights embedded along the edges of the sidewalk, but once we’re at the sand, it’s much darker.
We slip off our shoes and I roll up the edges of my pants. Tucking our shoes off to the side of the path, we take to the sand and head toward the water with only the moon to light our way. She’s bright tonight—not full, but close. And with a clear sky, not a cloud in sight, all the stars are out on full display as well. It’s dizzying to look up and see it all, so I focus on traversing the sand and keeping Abby upright. She only had two beers, but I don’t think her food-to-alcohol ratio was enough to keep her completely sober.
Our feet sink into the wet sand, leaving temporary footprints as we walk. The water washes away any evidence of where we’ve been and splashes over our feet and ankles. My knee smarts, but I power through the pinch of pain. With Abby on my arm and the salty spray of the ocean settling on my skin, there isn’t anywhere else I’d choose to be right now. Normally, I like to fill the silence, and while there are things I want to talk about with Abby, if we walked and never said a word to each other the whole time, that would be okay too. I feel content in a way I haven’t in a long time.
“So you bought a house in Rhode Island,” Abby says.
“I did.”
I’m relieved she brought it up, but a low buzz of unease starts in my chest.
“A beach house?”
“It is a beach house.”
The silence that follows my confirmation is heavy with implications and assumptions. I’d rather just clear the air.
“I bought it before I moved to Mexico. We weren’t even—I had no idea I’d ever see you again.”
“I don’t think you bought it because of us, but?—”
“I didn’t. I mean, it crossed my mind. Rhode Island is a good market for a profitable flip and of course I was thinking about you while I was looking at houses. I won’t lie. I wondered what you would like, what it would have been like for us to look at them together. But I wasn’t going to, like…grand gesture you or something. You know, show up on your wedding day and object. I didn’t even know you were engaged.”
“I just wasn’t expecting it. Took me off guard.”
I let the silence acknowledge her words, not knowing the best ones to say next.
“I’m not going to keep it,” I say. “It wouldn’t feel right.”
Not without you.
