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The massive bed looms like the Grim Reaper between us.
“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but there’s only one shower,” he says.
“I did, yeah.”
While the second bathroom is simple, with a toilet and small sink, the master bathroom is palatial. The shower is as big as my kitchen back in Minneapolis, and the bathtub should come with a diving board.
I dig through my drawer, praying that, in the mad dash packing post-weddingpocalypse, I remembered pajamas. I really didn’t realize until now how much time I spend in nothing but my underwear at home.
“Do you usually do it at night?” he asks.
I spin around. “Uh, pardon?”
Ethan sighs the deep, weary sigh of a long-suffering ghoul. “Shower, Oscar.”
“Oh.” I press my pajamas to my chest. “Yes. I shower at night.”
“Would you like to go first?”
“Since I have the bedroom,” I say, “why don’t you go first?” Lest this sound too generous, I add, “Then you can get out of my space.”
“Such a caretaker, you.”
He steps around me to the bathroom, closing the door behind him with a solid click. Even with the bedroom’s balcony doors shut, I can hear the sound of the tide coming in, the waves crashing against the shore. But it’s not so loud that I don’t also hear the rustle of fabric as Ethan undresses and drops his clothes onto the bathroom floor, his footsteps as he walks barefoot across the tile, or the soft groan he makes when he moves under the warm spray of water.
Flustered, I jog immediately to the balcony door and step outside until he’s finished. Honestly, I’d only want to listen to that if he was drowning in there.
• • •
I’M SURE ETHAN WOULD LOVE to hear it was a long night for me and I barely slept, but my bed is fucking amazing. Sorry about the couch, dude.
In fact, I’m so rested and rejuvenated that I wake up convinced this running-into-people-from-our-real-life thing isn’t a catastrophe. It’s fine! We’re fine. Sophie and Billy don’t want to see us any more than we want to see them and are probably staying all the way on the other side of the resort anyway. And the Hamiltons are checking out today. We are in the clear.
As luck would have it, we run into the Hamiltons on our way to breakfast. Apparently the friendship was deeply solidified last night: they give us each a tight embrace . . . as well as their personal cell numbers.
“I was serious about that spouses club,” Molly tells Ethan conspiratorially. “We have fun, if you know what I mean.” She winks. “Give us a call when you’re home.”
They turn back to the reception desk, and we wave as we weave through the crowd toward the restaurant. Ethan leans down, muttering in a shaky voice, “I really don’t know what she means by fun.”
“Could be innocent, like a bunch of wives drinking merlot and complaining about their husbands,” I tell him. “Or it could be Fried Green Tomatoes complicated.”
“ ‘Fried Green Tomatoes complicated’?”
I nod somberly. “A group of women looking at their labia with hand mirrors.”
Ethan looks like he is literally fighting the urge to sprint down the curved driveway and into the ocean. “I think you’re enjoying this too much.”
“God, I am the worst, right? Enjoying Maui?”
We come to a stop in front of the hostess stand, give our room number, and follow the woman to a small booth toward the back, near the buffet.
I laugh. “A buffet, honey! Your fave.”
Once we’re seated, Ethan—running on slightly less sleep than I am—glares at the menu, clearly working to burn a hole in it. I wander over to the buffet and fill my plate with giant hunks of tropical fruit and all manner of grilled meats. When I return, Ethan has apparently ordered à la carte and is cradling a large cup of black coffee in his enormous hands. He doesn’t even acknowledge my return.
“Hi.”
He grunts.
