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A sharp voice cuts through my peaceful podcast. Someone’s on the phone. Because I’m nosy, I lower my volume to better eavesdrop and crane my neck.
It’s Phillip’s voice. He’s walking along the shoreline again, wearing a pair of swim trunks, no shirt, and Bluetooth headphones in his ears. The sharp features of his face are drawn. He’s arguing with someone.
He walks the length of the beach once. Then twice. And then, one final time, turning so his back is to the ocean. His arms are crossed over his chest.
I lift my hand and give a little wave.
His eyes land on me. For a moment, I don’t know if he’ll even acknowledge me. But then, he nods—a sharp jerk of his chin, so different from the looseness I’d observed in him on the catamaran deck.
I raise the volume on my podcast and lie back. My bikini is navy with little white dots today. Perfectly decent. And I have a bit more of a tan than the other day, courtesy of the cruise.
A shadow falls over me, and I look up.
“Hey,” Phillip says, his headphones gone.
I straighten on the lounge chair. “Hello,” I say. “Um, want to have a seat?”
He looks down at the free lounger next to mine like it offends him. But then, he sighs and sits down. “Yeah.”
“Is everything all right?”
“Yes,” he says and puts his phone face down on the chair with more force than necessary.
I decide to tempt fate and use a tried-and-tested method. It’s calmed down many people. They were mainly kindergarteners and not grown men with more money than sense, but I’ll try it anyway.
“I get the sense that you’re not feeling like your best self,” I say. “If you want to talk about it, I’m a good listener. But it’s perfectly all right if you don’t want to.”
Phillip stares at me for so long that I get uncomfortable. There’s only sternness on his face, like I’m an opponent across the negotiating table. Do attorneys even negotiate? I admit, I get most of my ideas about their work from television shows.
Then, his lip curls. “You’re using your teacher’s voice on me, aren’t you?”
“Yes. Did it work?”
“No. But it was impressive.”
“Darn,” I say. “If only you were five years old.”
He snorts and runs a hand over the back of his neck. “You could have given me a pair of scissors and I’d be happy again.”
“I do usually carry a pair on me,” I say, and it’s the absolute truth. “Sometimes, I also have a glue gun or glitter. I’m pretty sure you won’t believe me, but there are very few problems a bit of glitter can’tsolve.”
There’s a light in his dark-blue eyes. “I’ll have to think about that if I go to court any time soon.”
My smile widens. “The judge would be so impressed.”
He runs a hand along his jaw. “Add some stickers to the evidence reports.”
“I’ve found that gold stars can be very motivating.”
“I’ll bear that in mind,” he says. The tightness around his eyes is gone, but the smile from yesterday isn’t quite back. He nods to the book lying beside my lounge chair. “Is that your infamous guidebook?”
“Yeah,” I say. He reaches to take it while a protest is born and dies on my tongue. I take my headphones out instead and watch in silence as he flips through the pages.
“Wow,” he finally says.
“I know how it looks.”
“There’s no glitter, at least.” He flips a heavily annotated page. “No gold stars, either. But look, you’ve used a highlighter. I didn’t know it worked on these sorts of pages.”
