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Problem is, is the insanely good sex clouding my judgment?
Or is it the misguided hope of righting old wrongs, the kind that can’t be righted?
After Josie heads to the buffet, I take a quick shower first, with how sweaty and icky I feel. Inside the pretty-tiled shower, I amuse myself with how much I can bend the showerhead around, even if, in my scatterbrained state—I wonder where Emerson was thinking for tonight—I end up spraying myself in the face with the steady spurts of hot water.
Brilliant, Wynona. Just brilliant.
Only once I’ve toweled myself off, slurped out the small remainder of my purple hibiscus-smelling hairstyling mousse and chosen a comfy flowing peach dress that Josie bought me here, which I never thought I’d actually wear, do I feel anything near grounded.
“Okay,” I tell my reflection. “You can do this.”
Even she doesn’t look so sure.
At any rate, I find Emerson where I expect to, at the buffet. Josie’s long gone, her text—gone beach-walking, give Emerson a chance!!! ;)—making me smile and frown too.
Emerson waves me down, and I stop by to tell him, “Tonight works.”
As I turn away, he calls, “Wait.”
I pause.
“That’s it?” he asks, eyeing me and the flows of the peach dress on my body.
Keep your cool, Wyn.
I flick my head to the side. “Just grabbing some food.”
Emerson moves his sun hat off the seat next to him. “I’ve saved you a spot.”
“Thanks, but I’m doing the in-room thing,” I tell him. “See you later.”
I’m a few steps away, heart beating as fast and insistently as a drill, when he says, “Wynona?”
I pause and look over my shoulder at him.
“See you later,” he says, and I smile.
I keep my victory dance until I’m alone in my room again.
With two hash browns stabbed on my fork for a microphone, I sing along and shake my hips to Diana Ross’s I’m Coming Out.
Why?
Because, ladies and gentlemen, Wynona Cowell kept her cool with Emerson Storm.
And it feels damn good.
Maybe this whole thing didn’t start on my terms. But that doesn’t mean it can’t continue on them.
A couple of hours later, Emerson calls and tells me the time and place—6:00 PM at that nice beachside restaurant we passed when boarding the boat. Then I argue with Josie over why Emerson and I should have a double-date with her and Antoine, which she quashes with a simple Neither of us are there yet. That decided, we go over which dress I should wear.
She’s all for the flowy peach one I’m already wearing. “That way, you can eat like food triplets and be A-okay.”
I push for the red- and black-panel bandage dress. “It’s so tight, it’ll allow no food babies, so I won’t overeat, so there’s no chance of getting those stomachaches I get sometimes when I stuff myself.”
Josie just snorts and accuses those stomach pains of being an ‘urban legend’ and an excuse for me to get out of shit I didn’t want to do, and she may have a point, although I legitimately do get them at times.
At any rate, by the time Josie has left for her own date and I’ve sucked my belly and ass in enough to yank over the horrendously tight red and black bandage dress, added some charcoal black-winged liner and deep ruby-red lips, plucked stray eyebrow hairs that seemingly popped up overnight, chosen my second-best pair of black suede heels—the best black patent leather ones having a bad crack in them I hadn’t noticed before—and raced outside, Emerson has been waiting there for at least fifteen minutes.
“I’m sorry,” I start. “I left, then realized I’d forgotten my purse, then—”
Emerson’s hand catches mine, though all he has eyes for is my body, following the lines of the dress as if he were the red and black panels himself. “No worries.”
I grin, biting my lip, then inwardly curse.
Damn it—my lipstick!
Red stains on your teeth do not a sexy vixen make.
“Not even a few?” I quip.
He purses his lips and narrows his eyes, his typical ‘alpha man’ face we used to giggle about back in the day. “We’ll see.”
And then he leads me along, hand in hand, down the beach. “Good day?”
“Relaxing,” I say. “And you?”
He shrugs. “Got to play on my keyboard a bit.”
As we walk, the rich aromas of roast lamb and vegetables are growing stronger, like a welcome banner.
“You really still love it, don’t you?” I ask.
“Yeah. I do.”
“Good,” I say, and I’m surprised I mean it. Back before, with piano being a huge part of what I saw as breaking us up, I hated it, resented it. “I’ve never seen you happier than when you play.”
His sandy eyebrows rise and those blue eyes go to me. “Never?”
“All right.” Boy, can he make me smile. “Almost never.”
“We Storm boys stick to things,” he says, almost to himself.
I’m not sure what to say to that other than the truth, that it makes my heart jump... and then fall with a stutter. So, I don’t say anything.
