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“My pleasure,” I tell her as I dig into my own food.
“Are you excited to go back to the states?” She asks me after she’s taken a few bites of her food.
“Not really,” I admit with a sigh.
She watches me but when I don’t elaborate, she lets it go.
“What about you? Excited to go back to the real world?”
“Yeah. I miss Nora and my apartment, but this has been awesome. I have a feeling I’ll be back home for about a minute before I’m wishing I was back here,” she says with a laugh and I smile.
I can’t remember the last time that I had this much fun and I know that I’m going to miss her the second that she leaves tomorrow. She told me that she lives in Los Angeles with her best friend, Nora, and I live in New York, working at my parents’ company. Just the thought of going back there has dread curling in my stomach.
I turn to put my food back in the cooler, standing and stretching out my back and shoulders and that’s when I see it. There’s a little island off in the distance and my eyes scan over it. It must be Isola di Giannutri since it doesn’t look like it’s inhabited.
An idea forms in my head. I know it’s dumb but what if we didn’t have to go home tomorrow. I don’t want to go back to the real world and deal with the company yet and I sure as hell don’t want to say goodbye to Laylin.
Before I can second think my plan, I’m pulling up the anchor and asking Laylin if she wants to go explore it before we head back. She nods, looking up at me with a smile on her lips and trust in her eyes.
FIVE
Laylin
The little islandis beautiful and we spend a few hours walking hand in hand around the perimeter. We’re both in flip flops so trekking through the forest part didn’t seem very smart. I sigh as we watch the sunset over the water. It’s still warm and for a second, I wish that we could stay longer. The wind picks up and I frown when I finally notice the water and how choppy it looks.
“Maybe we should stay a little bit longer,” Rowan says, his eyes on the water as well.
“If you think so,” I tell him. What do I know about boating?
We find a spot near the boat and Rowan pulls some fallen branches over, creating a little shelter. I sit in the sand and watch the boat rock not far off shore.
“I’m going to grab the cooler out of the boat and we can eat while we wait for the water to calm down.”
“Need any help?” I ask, standing and brushing off the sand.
“No, I got it,” he says with a smile and I watch him wade into the water.
I check my phone for texts from Nora and then remember that I don’t have service out here.
Rowan comes back with the cooler, dropping it near the little lean to that he built is.
“Are you hungry now?” He asks and I nod, all that walking around in the sand really worked up an appetite and we sit together in the sand and eat.
He tells me more about growing up in New York and more about his family and how his dad wants him to settle down and start learning how to run the company now that he’s twenty-five. It’s obvious from his tone that he’s not that keen to do it.
He asks me about my childhood and I tell him about my parents and growing up in northern California. I was an only child but I had Nora and when we got out of college we moved in together. We finish our food and stretch out on the sand, watching as the stars start to twinkle above us.
He asks me about my job and I tell him about going to college for marketing while Nora did public relations. We were going to find jobs together but then Nora got an offer from Luca Golding, the biggest name in tech and she couldn’t pass it up. I ask him what he would want to do if he could do anything and he smiles and says he doesn’t know yet. He wouldn’t mind running the company but he doesn’t like how they keep trying to force it on him.
“That makes you sound like a little brat,” I say with a laugh and he turns his head to study me.
“Hmm.”
“No, really! Do you know how many people would kill to run a successful company and you actually want to do it but now you don’t because your daddy is making you?”
“Well when you put it like that…” he says, trailing off and I roll my eyes, looking back up at the stars. He sighs and I turn to look at him.
“The truth is that I don’t want to fail. My dad and grandpa both built Bakeman into a success. What if I take over and everything goes to shit? I just… I don’t want to be the reason the company fails and people lose their jobs. It’s a lot of pressure,” he says, staring out at the water.
