“Did you just hear a word I said?” Alex asked.
“Not really,” I confessed, rubbing my eyes.
“I went to breakfast without you, didn’t want to wake you, and let’s just say that we don’t want to stay here in this hotel any longer. Unless you want to run into Bethany and Paul again. Oh, and by the way, the man we stuffed into the cupboard last night, his name is Dave. He says ‘hi’.”
“What?” I opened my eyes. “Are they all staying here?”
Alex nodded. “Yup. And they were all very hungry this morning at breakfast. And speaking of which, here.” Alex sat down on my bed and put a plate of pastries in front of me. “And I also got our shoes back from Julian,” he said, dropping mine onto the floor.
“Thanks.” I immediately reached for one of the Danishes and started eating. I was starving.
“Oh, and the hotel manager wanted to know why we didn’t come to the yacht on pierthreeeeee.Three. Not four.”
“What did you tell him?” I asked.
“I told him that you had suddenly come down with an acute case of pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis.”
“What’s that?” I asked.
“A cough,” he said casually as he sat on my bed eating. “Was she a good cuddler?” Alex pointed to the other side of the bed. I blushed when I saw what was there.
“I wasn’t . . . I didn’t . . .” I stumbled. “It was just . . . I . . .” I stopped talking and looked at him blankly, not sure what to say in my defense. There was a blow-up sex doll lying next to me on the bed, after all. “She was great,” I finally said, playing along.
Alex laughed. “Well, in that case she can come with us.”
“Where are we going?” I asked, my mouth full of pastry.
“We’re leaving the hotel and getting back onto the list.” He waved the magazine at me. I’d almost forgotten about the list. We’d had such an action-packed day that I hadn’t even thought about it. “But first we are going to hike up a volcano,” he said.
“A what?” I climbed off the bed and stood up this time. “You’ve lost your mind.”
“It’s not erupting. Besides,” he reached into my bedside drawer and pulled out a travel brochure. He flipped it open and held it up to my face. “Hiking the Piton de la Fournaise is one of themust dothings here in Réunion. I found this in my room too.”
“Just because everyone else is climbing volcanoes doesn’t mean we should too. It’s the same principle that applies to things like jumping off cliffs.”
“Well, it’s too late to pull out, I’ve hired us a car, booked us into some other hotels and planned our road trip.” Alex laid a handwritten note down on the bed.
“Road trip? Since when was this decided?”
“Since Bethany looked at me seductively while peeling the skin back on a big banana at breakfast.”
“Eeeww,” I cringed. I looked down at his piece of paper and picked it up. I scanned the words on the page and stopped when I saw it.
“SKYDIVING!” I shouted. “You’ve written skydiving here, which must be a mistake, right?”
“But look.” He grabbed another brochure from the drawer.
“God, I’m kind of wishing that you didn’t have access to brochures, or magazines for that matter,” I said, sitting back down on the bed.
“Extreme Réunion; paragliding, skydiving, microlight. Everyone is doing it.”
“Again,” I pointed out, “just because everyone is doing it, doesn’t mean we should.”
Alex cleared his throat and started reading, “ ‘Number Six. Get The Adrenalin Pumping. Do something that you are completely scared of. Whatever that is; there’s nothing like feeling the rush of adrenalin in your veins to make you forget your ex. Be brave and take that leap, whether it be off the top of a cliff or out of a plane—’ ”
“Now you’re just making that up,” I cut him off.
Alex looked up at me, unimpressed. He then passed the magazine over and folded his arms, waiting. I looked down at the magazine and continued to read.
