How to Honeymoon Alone

“Probably because you picked up, and she wanted to stir up shit,” he says, voice dripping with annoyance. “In her last phone call, she hinted that we could continue as before, too.”

“Oh.”

“Which just means she probably realized how expensive rent is in the area where she wants to live. Eden, none of this has anything to do with you. Or with what just happened.” He inclines his head toward the lounge chair like it’s the scene of a crime.

“No, I know.”

“You do? Then why do you look like you’re about to race out of here like you just found out I’m a convicted mass murderer?”

I laugh, but it’s a bit strained. “It’s just a lot. All of it. Your past, and my own, and what just happened…”

It sinks in, as I look at him, that we’re each other’s rebounds. That this ends in a few short days, and I’ll never see him again, and that probably doesn’t bother him at all. This truly is a vacation fling for him, but it’s starting to feel like something else for me, and I can’t have that. Not again.

“Okay,” he says. “I get it.”

I shift back on my heels and take a step toward the gate. “Thanks for today. Sorry again for the… well. Is it okay if I take a rain check on dinner tonight? I just need some time to think.”

He nods, but his blue eyes are troubled. “You’ve got nothing to apologize for.”

As I close the gate softly behind me, all I can hear is the sound of crashing waves and the rapid beating of my heart.

“Oh my God,” Becky says on the phone. “If you’re making this up, please keep going. I want to live in this fantasy forever.”

I chuckle. “You’re the one living the fantasy.”

“I can’t see my feet anymore,” she says. “I’ve officially lost my feet, Eden, and I won’t find them for another month. If that’s anyone’s fantasy, they’re absolutely off their socks.”

“I mean, they could be,” I say. “How would they be able to tell?”

She giggles. “Tell me again. What did he say when you asked him about it? The fiancée?”

“He said they’re definitely broken up. Like, one hundred percent.”

“Isn’t that great news?”

“Yes,” I say, “but, Becks, he’s only been single for like five weeks.”

“Well, his relationship couldn’t have been that good anyway since he’s on his honeymoon alone and in the process of falling for you.”

That makes me scoff. I shift my phone to the other ear and stick my feet into my sandals. It’s later than I’ve typically been getting up here, and I’ll be cutting my time short with the breakfast buffet, but I needed the extra hours of sleep.

“He’s not falling for me,” I say. “If anything, it’s a rebound fling. We both fly out in two days time.”

“And isn’t that exactly what you need?” she asks. “Exactly what you deserve?”

I make sure to grab my guidebook and key card. Never forgetting that one again. “Yes. I just didn’t expect it to be so complicated.”

“So complicated?”

“Yes,” I say and close the door behind me. “He’s very different from any man I’ve dated before, and well… I think I might have a crush.”

“Oh no,” she says.

“Yeah, I know.”

“Where’s he from again?”

“Chicago. I know, I know, and I was fully prepared for this ending. It’s just that I’m a teeny bit afraid I’ve gotten attached.”

On the other end of the line, I hear her sigh. “I’m sure I would, too. The whole casual thing is hard.”

“Yeah,” I say. Her husband, Patrick, is an accountant with too many dad jokes and a killer instinct when it comes to playing board games. They met six years ago, but even before that, she hadn’t been a big dater. “It’s not like either of us has a lot of experience with it.”

“None,” she agrees. “But maybe it’s good that whatever happens on the island stays there. You can come back home, rejuvenated, having had a rebound, and all ready to get back out there.”

“Thanks for trying to make it sound like a good thing,” I say. I’ll be returning to a half-decorated house, the one I’d been lucky to get on such short notice after my engagement imploded.

It’s a quick drive from the school where I work and fifteen minutes from both my parents’ and Becky’s houses. On paper, it’s perfect, but it doesn’t feel like home yet.

“Eden,” Becky says. “You don’t owe anyone anything. Not Caleb, not Phillip’s ex-fiancée, and not him, either. You do you.”

“Yeah. I know, and you’re right. The whole thing is just taking me by surprise. I feel like it got real somehow, by hearing his ex’s voice.”

“Of course it’s surprising. You expected to spend two weeks sitting with a book on a beach, and what you got was a non-stop flirtation with a hot-as-hell rich dude.”

I laugh in the elevator, and the middle-aged couple beside me gives me a look. I smile apologetically.Text property © Nôvel(D)ra/ma.Org.

“Yeah. Sorry, I’m almost at breakfast. Thanks for the pep talk.”

“Anytime. It’s not like I envy you or anything, of course,” she says. “Having hot makeout sessions in the Caribbean.”

I chuckle again. “Bye, Becky.”

“Bye.”

When I reach the breakfast bar and the overflowing buffet, most tables are empty. The majority of vacationers must have gotten a jump on the day. I have my pick of the place.

I grab a glass of tropical juice, mango this time, and a cup of coffee, and head toward the table that’s become mine.

But it’s not empty.

Phillip sits in the chair opposite mine. He’s reading on a tablet and has a cup of coffee in front of him. His hair looks damp, and it wouldn’t surprise me if he was up early and swum his laps in the hotel pool. What a madman.

“Hi,” I say.

He looks up. “Good morning, Eden.”

I shift from one foot to another, debating setting my glass of juice down on the table.