Page 66

“Oh,” I say, startled. “We’re not—”

“Tali’s my assistant,” Hayes says smoothly. Why do we sound like we’re lying? Probably because you don’t have a romantic, oceanfront dinner on a Saturday night with your assistant.

“I know what it looks like, but neither of us are married or anything,” I add hastily. “I thought he needed a break from work, so I arranged this, and he doesn’t know how to get his own groceries or coffee, so he made me come with him.” My words come out rushed, nervous.

It still sounds like we’re lying.

“Would you rather swallow ten large spiders or sleep in a bed of rats?” Jacob asks suddenly, filling our glasses.

We look from him to each other. “Spiders,” we both answer simultaneously.

“Okay, you can only bring one person with you to an uninhabited island and you have no way of leaving. Who do you bring?” he asks.

My eyes flicker to Hayes, who’s already looking at me.

“I’d have to bring Tali, obviously,” he says. “I can’t make my morning smoothie on my own.”

I laugh. Only on Hayes’s uninhabited island would there be electricity and a Vitamix.

“Tali?” Barb asks.

I grin at my boss. “That’s a very hard question. I’d have to give it some thought.”

“You know you’d pick me,” Hayes argues. “Who could possibly be more fun?”

I shrug. “My niece is pretty fun.”

“You’d knowingly choose to make a young child suffer on an uninhabited island solely for your amusement?” he scolds. “With no access to health care? An uncertain food supply? And you call me a narcissist.” His eyes sparkle with amusement.

“Only behind your back. And I was under the impression this island somehow had a bounty of organic vegetables and Vitamixes, but you’ve made a good point. I’m more willing to make you suffer.”

We both laugh, and it’s only then I see Barb and Jacob staring at us again, wondering what our deal is.

“Well, if you’re both single, why on earth aren’t you together?” asks Barb. “You’d make the cutest couple.”

I feel as awkward as a twelve-year-old sitting beside her crush. I couldn’t look at Hayes right now if my life depended on it.

“Tali doesn’t trust men,” says Hayes. “And I am wholly untrustworthy. That pretty much sums it up.”

There’s something in his voice that draws my gaze to him, and for a single moment I see hunger on his face, stark and desperate. As if it’s only the presence of others that keeps him from pushing up my skirt and taking me right here on this table.

I would let him.

Jacob starts talking about how poor they were when they got married: all the canned tuna and potatoes they ate, the car door tied shut with a rope. I am barely listening, watching Hayes instead. If he were mine, I would have no recollection at all of tuna, potatoes, or how we kept a car door shut. I’d only remember wanting him closer and closer, until I couldn’t tell where he began and I ended. I’d suffocate to death trying to get more and more of his gloriously smooth skin.

I’m still fantasizing when Barb coughs politely and tells her husband it’s time for them to go. I wonder how obvious my thoughts were.

We stand, and Barb hugs me. “Even if you don’t trust men,” she whispers, “this one’s a keeper.”

She obviously doesn’t know much about Hayes’s careless approach to women. But then again, as he stands there watching me with that look in his eye, he doesn’t appear all that careless to me either.

* * *

We get back to our rental and walk out to sit in the double chaise, where it’s silent but for the crashing waves and the incessant call of crickets. Our night here is ending, and we leave in the morning. I want to dig in my heels and refuse to go.

“In a perfect world, I’d stay in this house and never leave,” I tell him.

I see a flash of his dimple. “Would I be here with you? Before you answer, let me remind you I’m good at buying pie.”