“Not one.” Marley tilts her head up thoughtfully. “In fact, I don’t even know why I was on there. Boredom, maybe. Boredom can put you in some crazy situations.”
“Situationships,” I correct.
“Right,” Marley giggles. “Exactly that!”
“So, tell me what you have on this itinerary you made.”
“Why do I feel like you’re mocking me?”
“I’m not. I just want to know what you’re doing while we’re on this beautiful island.”
She gives me a dangerous side-eye, and I can’t help noticing how cute she looks when she’s that way. Guarded, coy, and reserved.
“Well,” she begins, wiping her hands on a napkin. “I have a few Pilates classes scheduled. A yoga at sunrise?—”
“Hold on. Wait. At sunrise? Meaning you’re not sleeping in but getting up before the crack of dawn on vacation?”
She cocks her head to the side, attitude written all over her face. “That’s exactly what that means.”
I hold my hands up in defense. “My bad. Please continue.”
Marley clears her throat. “There’s a chocolate farm tour scheduled. And I believe I have a stroll on the Kapalua Coastal Trail booked for Thursday. And that’s only because the dolphin tours are sold out. Everything else is mostly beach or poolside days with a book.”
“Well, that’s not what I was expecting you to say. I thought you were doing cliff diving and jet skis.”
“Me? The Persian Cat?”
My shoulders shake as I laugh.
“Do I look like a cliff diving and jet skis type of girl?” she quips.
I take her in, this beautiful, successful, career-driven woman.
I wonder if she doesn’t know how to be anything but reserved and responsible. She has probably spent most of her life stitching herself together with structure and discipline.
“No, you do not look like the kind of girl.”
“I can barely keep it together on a plane. The last thing I’ll be doing is jumping from a cliff,” she laughs. “But I don’t live in a bubble. I know how to have fun.”
“I’m sure you do.”
“And I definitely don’t think vacations always mean wild and adventurous.”
“You’re right. They don’t. I mean, I wouldn’t exactly call this a vacation for me, anyway.”
Her brows rise as she looks at me over the rim of her third,fourthmargarita? We’ve been testing everything on this menu. And I almost want to tell her to take it easy, but I’m sure she knows how many drinks she can handle. Instead, I grab my glass of water I’d ordered earlier. It’s still ice cold and sweating with perspiration.
“Why wouldn’t a week in paradise be a vacation for you?” she asks.
“Cause I’m going to be around a bunch of people I don’t know. The ones I do know I don’t particularly like right now. I’ll be forcing myself to have a good time, and pretending jokes are funny, and conversations are interesting just to make it through the week.”
“I don’t think it will be so bad.”
“Being in the wedding of two people that betrayed you?” I ask her.
She weighs my question and then nods. “Okay, yeah, I guess that will be a huge hurdle to cross.” And we both laugh. “But you’ve already proven you’re the bigger person by showing up.”
“And that’s not on my own accord,” I remind her.
