“More than meaningless sex?”
“Yes.”
“I think you deserve more too.” He said it with a smile in his voice.
“Oh, you mean like actual good sex. Or at least sex where I don’t have to fake an orgasm just to get them to stop, or dodge a collapsing bed, or sex where I don’t need to performCPR, where I don’t have olives put into my belly button—”
“I can’t believe someone put an olive in your belly button!”
“The guy was Greek and we were eating olives, I guess. But the curse is strong I tell you!”
He pulled me back again, not playfully like before. He rested his head on my shoulder and wrapped his arms round me in a way that felt protective, not sexual. But that was very at odds with what he said next. He brought his lips up to my ear and his next words melted me into a puddle.
“Let’s see if we can’t break that curse once and for all tonight.”
CHAPTER 50
Max
I raced her to the water and we both dove in. It was cool, crystal clear and refreshing after lying on those loungers for so long. We’d rested there with a cocktail and chatted about the people we used to know from school. Where they were now, what rumors we’d heard about them—divorces, love children, a stint in jail for white-collar crime—we reminisced and laughed about moments from school, and then almost fell on the floor laughing when we watched a video of an old classmate who’d become one of those seriously cheesy motivational speakers who used the word “transcend” over ten times in the three-minute video. It had felt just like old times, right up to us playing the silly word-association game we used to lie around playing for ages while screeching with laughter.
Malawi.
Lake.
Fish.
Pink Dolphin.
Not mine.
Liar.
“Have you seen how clear it is underwater? And you can open your eyes because it’s not salty,” Ash said. “Come down here.” Her head disappeared and I took a deep breath and followed her. We found each other’s faces and she started screaming something at me that I couldn’t hear through the bubbles.
“What?” I yelled back. It was just as inaudible.
She screamed something back to me and then the words I’d wanted to say just came out.
“I love you!” I screamed, knowing that she wouldn’t hear them.
We both popped up again.
“What were you saying?” she asked as her head emerged from the water.
“What were you saying?” I asked.
“I was saying, ‘This is amazing.’ You?”
I smiled at her. “I was saying something similar, but not quite the same.”
She laughed. “So mysterious.”
“Would you like to see it again?” I asked, and she nodded.
We both went back under the water together and this time I screamed something a little different. She smiled, and I knew she’d understood. We both popped up again.
“You said I was amazing?” she said, a questioning tone in her voice.
