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A sharp call nearby makes not-thinking impossible. “It’s happening! The first turtles are emerging!”
Excited whoops reach us from the other end of the beach.
“Keep a look out, everyone! No dogs! No mongooses!”
“Mongeese,” I whisper against Phillip’s lips.
He chuckles quietly and leans back, his eyes meeting mine. The look in them makes my throat dry. “Yeah. It’s showtime, Eden.”
I get up on shaky legs. He follows suit, standing tall beside me. But he’s not as unbothered as he looks. He clears his throat and runs a hand through his hair before he joins me by the closest nest.
A turtle breaks through the percolating sand surface. It’s a tiny thing, a perfect miniature replica of the large turtles we’d seen at sea just a few days ago.
A new life begins.
There were a lot of things I hoped or expected to do on my non-honeymoon. Seeing baby turtles hatch and make their way to the ocean was definitely one of them. But kiss a fellow tourist beneath the stars?
Well, kiss a fellow tourist anywhere, let alone on a moonlit beach. In the three months since Caleb and I broke up, I’ve not given dating a single thought.
Well, maybeonethought, but never two, because it inevitably reminded me of terrible first dates and the dating apps that people use. Life was so much simpler when I reconnected with Caleb over a summer vacation from college.
Not that Phillip and I are dating or anything, or even close to it.
All we’ve done is kissed. Once.
It had been a hell of a kiss, too. The kind that reminded me why humans kiss at all, why this odd ritual so unique to our species is a thing. Objectively weird and subjectively amazing.
We’d said goodbye back at the hotel, well after midnight. Phillip brushed my hair back, and I stood very, very still, and then we’d gone our separate ways. Me toward the elevators and him toward his private bungalow.
It's the next morning now, and I’m buzzing at the breakfast table. Hummingbirds are native to Barbados, but right now, it feels like all of them are in my stomach, their wings beating rapidly.
He rarely shows, but hesometimesdoes, just to grab a cup of coffee. Maybe today will be the day.
I have my notepad open beside me on the table, my character notes and the plot ideas there to be worked on, but I don’t write a single word.
Phillip might behave as if never happened. I don’t know how I’ll react to that. But there’s an even worse alternative, and that is he mightnot,and I really don’t know what I’ll do, then.
It’s not like I’m… ready. Definitely not ready to date anyone. That’s not even in the cards here because we’re both leaving in a week. But I’m not sure I’m ready to have a wild holiday fling, either.
Becky would be cheering me on to do just that.Let me live vicariously through you!
Maybe that’s why I don’t text her about the last night’s kiss on the beach. It exists in its own separate universe, beneath a starlit sky and to the sound of waves. In a place where two people became something very unlike themselves for a glorious few minutes.
I head down to the beach after breakfast. Surprisingly, it’s another warm, sunny day, and I can’t believe I’ve already been here for over a week.
I bathe myself in sun lotion and grab a lounge chair that has an umbrella, just to be safe. Then, I googlesurfing lessons Barbadosandbest hiking tripsto avoid giving my brain any time at all to linger on the events of the previous night.
Distraction is a great tactic.
I’d employed it heavily right after Caleb and Cindy, where, if I just kept having podcasts playing in my headphones at all times, I could almost drown out the sound of my heart breaking.
Almost.
After a swim, I return to the plot I’m trying to figure out for this resort murder mystery. Why are the main characters so hard for me to find? They’re not like side characters. I can’t just look around me and get inspired, not when there needs to be great depth to them.
But I know this is the process. It had been the same way when I wrote my first book… the one I actually found a publisher for. It had started out as the best thing that had ever happened to me, which is probably why the fall felt so much harder.
My very first book. My debut. The one I’d written throughout college, the one I’d rewritten, and rewritten again,and againuntil I knew the words of it better than my own name.
