He checks his watch. “This wedding has been a bit much. I’m not used to this lifestyle. Now I see why you hid from it a lot.”
“It’s not for everybody. But you look like you’ve been keeping up with it rather well.”
“Shit, I don’t think so,” he laughs. “I needed a breather, had to come out here and get run in. Release some of this tension.”
“Weddings are stressful.”
“Yeah, they are.” He looks me over, studying me. “What about you? Any plans to put a ring on the ole girl?”
“Who? Marley?”
Gavin bursts out laughing. “Yeah,Marley. Who the fuck else? You doing it like that now?”
“Nah, never been a player. Never will be.”
My mind replays everything that happened last night. “It’s pretty fresh. Still early.”
“That early, and she got you wrapped up like that already?”
“Yo, chill. What are you talking about?” But I can’t help the smile on my face cause I know damn well what he’s talking about.
Gavin wraps a sweaty arm around my neck, and together, we start the long walk back toward the resort, nearly two miles away.
“You light up when you’re around her. Never saw you that way with anyone. Not even Carina.”
His comment doesn’t even bother me, because I know he’s right.
“I know it’s been a minute, but you can still trust me.”
Gavin’s arm drops from around my neck, and we continue our walk beside the oceanfront. My guard comes down because I have missed talking shit and catching up with my cousin. Missed talking to someone who knew me before the fame of my books.
He catches me up on everything going on in his life. I tell him about how I met Marley months ago. How our interaction was short but memorable, and how she stayed in my mind ever since. I leave out the fake-dating part, letting him believe that things between us have been building naturally since the first day we met.
“That’s amazing, really,” Gavin says when I’m done telling him what I want him to know. “I can tell you really like her. I’ve never seen you talk about anyone like this before.”
The morning sun fully stretches across the sky. And the way it beams and shines through the clouds makes me think of Mimi. About how strange it is that after years of silence, Gavin and I somehow ended up crossing paths on the same beach, during the same morning run, at the same time. Like maybe she had a hand in it somehow. Like she refused to let us leave this island broken.
32
temporary bubble
MARLEY
My cellphone rings,pulling me from the blissful memories of last night. Still half asleep, I answer without bothering to check the caller ID.
“Well, goodness. You’re alive. Why haven’t you called me?” Her voice squawks by way of greeting.
“Ma?” I groan.
“You’re still in bed?”
I check the time on the phone. It’s almost ten in the morning. The fact that Othello had the energy to get up and run after the night we had is mind-boggling. He’d put me through the mattress four times in a row and once in the shower. I am still in bed naked as the day I was born.
“I am, Mom. How are you?”
“I’m good. I suppose you’re having so much fun in Maui, you forgot to call me.”
“I let you know that I made it.”
