She stopped at the garden she had clocked the day before and took her time moving through it. I stood back and let her work.
Skye picked up a stem, held it against another, and put one back. She kept going like that, deciding what belonged and what didn’t, building an arrangement out of whatever was in front of her.
I thought about what she’d told me yesterday. Some part of me had always known we’d have to fight to keep what we had. Skye had already lost too much at a young age: her parents, her whole sense of home. I shook it off before it could pull me all the way under and looked back at her.
My jaw tightened thinking about her sitting through that Christmas dinner with her mind already made up, carrying it alone. There was a lot I still didn’t have words for. I’d save it for my run. My mind did its best processing when I ran. Right now, Skye had all of me. The whole week was hers.
She looked up from her arrangement and found me watching her.
“What?” she asked, hiding the sun from her face with a smile.
“Nothing.” I pushed off the wall. “You ready?”
She looked at the bouquet in her hands, adjusted one stem, and held it up for my opinion.
“Perfect.”
She grinned, and we kept moving.
“Have you ever had such a perfect morning? Well, since you lost me, of course?”
I laughed, sliding my arm around her shoulder and pulling her close. “Skye, I can assure you I’ve been living in misery. Down bad. Dick in the dirt.”
“Good, that’s what I like to hear,” she laughed with a wink. I shook my head.
We continued the short walk back to the resort. She headed toward her villa, and I fell into step beside her. A sadness washed over me at the thought of us separating after such an amazing time together. There was no way I was going to be able to sleep without her tonight.
As if she could read my mind, she turned and stopped at her open door with her key in hand. “Actually.” She paused. “Can you have my things moved to your villa?”
I stepped up behind her and wrapped my arms around her waist. She leaned back into me without hesitating.
“Done,” I said into her hair. “Anything else?”
“Don’t make it a whole thing. I’m just trying to save you some money in this economy. Just say thank you.”
“Yeah, okay, thank you so much,” I joked, tapping her on the ass.
She turned her head to speak, but I kissed her neck before she got the words out. I felt her exhaling, the words getting stuck in her throat.
“What’s gotten into you?” I asked.
She shrugged.
“This is moving forward. That’s what we want.” She paused. “You haven’t changed your mind, have you?”
I kissed her neck again, lower this time.
“Never.”
She stood there for another second just breathing, and I held her until she straightened up and put her key away.
“Go on,” she said, pushing me toward the door. “I need to get dressed, and I can’t do that with you looking at me like that.”
I kissed her temple and let her go.
Outside her door, I pulled out my phone and called Lola.
“Need you to get the resort to move Skye’s things to my villa. All of it. Today.”
