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We fall back into silence, but we are so close, and across the deck there’s only the wet sounds of Sophie and Billy making out. Ethan and I can’t not talk. “What’s your favorite drink?”
He looks at me with pained patience, growling, “Do we have to do this?”
I nod over toward Ethan’s ex and her new fiancé, who look like they’re only seconds away from dry humping. “Would you rather watch them? Or we could make out.”
“Caipirinhas,” he answers. “You?”
“I’m a margarita girl. But if you like caipirinhas, there’s a place a couple miles from my apartment that makes the best ones I’ve ever had.”
“We should go there,” he says, and it’s clear he’s done it without thinking because we both immediately let out the ha-ha-ha of the Oop, that’s not going to happen! laugh.
“Is it weird that you’re not as unpleasant as I initially thought?” he asks.
I use his monosyllabic tactic against him. “Yes.”
He rolls his eyes.
Over Ethan’s shoulder, the Molokini Crater comes fully into view. It is vibrant green, crescent-shaped, and stunning. Even from here I can see that the clear blue bay is dotted with boats just like ours.
“Look.” I nod to the horizon. “We aren’t lost at sea.”
He lets out a quiet “Wow.” And there, for a single breath, we give in to a really lovely moment of enjoying something together. Until Ethan decides to ruin it: “I hope you don’t drown out there.”
I smile down at him. “If I do, the husband is always a suspect.”
“I take back my ‘unpleasant’ comment.”
Another body joins our awkward foursome on the roof: the Snuba instructor, Nick, a sun-streaked blond guy with overtanned skin and bright white teeth, who calls himself an ‘island boy’ but I am fairly sure was born in Idaho or Missouri.
“Who plans to Snuba, and who plans to snorkel?” he asks us.
I toss a hopeful look across the deck to Sophie and Billy—who have mercifully detached their faces from each other—but they both enthusiastically shout, “Snuba!” so I guess we’re still stuck with them underwater.
We confirm that we’re planning to Snuba, too, and Ethan hauls me up with apparently zero effort, using arms that are remarkably strong. He sets me down an arm’s length away in front of him, standing behind me. It’s a beat before he seems to remember we should stay in newlywed levels of constant contact, so he folds his arms across my chest, jerking my back against his front. I feel the way we’re both already clammy in the heat, and how we immediately suction together.
“Gross,” I groan. “You’re so sweaty.”
His forearm smashes against my boobs.
I step backward, onto his foot. “Oops,” I lie, “sorry.”
He slides his chest against my back, back and forth, intentionally contaminating me with his man sweat.
He is the worst . . . so why am I fighting the urge to laugh?
S
ophie sidles up next to him. “Got your lucky penny?” she asks, and I wish I could explain the tiny jealous monster that rears up inside my chest. She is engaged to someone else. Those little inside jokes and coupley secrets don’t belong to her anymore.
Before I can say anything, Ethan slides his arm down, over my chest and across my front so he’s pressing a flattened hand to my stomach, holding me tight. “Don’t need it anymore. I’ve got her.”
Sophie lets out a highly fake “Aww!” and then looks at me. And wow, it is a loaded, silent exchange. In our heads we are having a dance-off. She is sizing me up, maybe trying to connect the dots from how Ethan went from dating her to marrying me.
I assume that she ended things; otherwise he probably wouldn’t care so much about making a show of having a new wife. And I wonder whether the distaste I read on her face is about Ethan moving on so easily or about him moving on with someone who is nothing like her at all.
I lean back against him in an impulsive show of solidarity, and I wonder if he registers that his hips arch subtly against my back in response: an unconscious thrust. Inside my torso, there is an explosion of traitorous butterflies.
A few seconds have passed since he suggested I’m his good luck charm, and it feels too late to say that it’s really the opposite—that with my luck, I’ll get a sliver on the side of the boat, bleed into the ocean, and attract a school of hungry sharks.
