Everything After(65)

“Me too,” Ari said. Then after a moment she added, “Where are you staying?”

Emily braced herself for her sister’s disapproval again. “At his villa,” she said. “But in a separate room. With a separate bathroom.” She didn’t tell her sister how she could sense Rob’s presence, even through the closed doors.

“Em,” Ari said. She said it the way she said Emily’s name through their whole lives when Emily made a choice her more-responsible sister wouldn’t have chanced.

“I’ll be fine. It’ll be fine,” Emily said. “He’s sleeping upstairs, and I’m sleeping downstairs.”

“And neither one of you knows how to climb stairs?” Ari said.

“We’re adults,” Emily told her sister, watching the waves crash against the shore.

“I wasn’t questioning your age,” Ari said. “Just your decision.”

Emily knew her sister was trying to look out for her, the way she always did. “I love you,” she told her.

Ari sighed. “I love you, too,” she said. “And if you need me, for any reason, just call. I can get on a flight to Cancun pretty quickly from up here.”

Emily smiled. “Thank you,” she said.

“You ready?” Rob called out.

“One second!” Emily called back.

“I’ve got to go,” she told Ari as she slipped off her clothes, “but I’ll call you soon.”

“Okay,” Ari said. “And really, if you need me, I’ll be there.”

“I know,” Emily answered. “And same goes for you. Always.”

Emily slipped on the green bathing suit she’d gotten in the shopping village and threw on the cover-up and flip-flops she’d found, too. Then she opened the door. “I’m ready,” she said.

Rob was standing there in a pair of short swim trunks and a tight white T-shirt.

He looked at her, his eyes intense, and shook his head. “Not for what I’m ready for,” he replied.

She rolled her eyes at him. “Come on,” she said. “Don’t we have a boat to catch?” But she felt it, too. That outfit, his smile. She felt lighter around him, happier, more alive.

She should go home. But even though she knew it was what she should do, she also knew it was not what she would do. She wanted to see this through. She wanted to play tonight. She wanted to recapture at least a small piece of who she’d been.

“What time do we have to be back to get ready for the show?” she asked, as they walked out the door.

“We’ve got an hour and twenty minutes.” he said.

“Then let’s go!” she said, and took off running across the sand, the breeze in her hair and the salt air in her lungs a balm to her heart, just like she knew the music would be.





54



Soon Emily found herself on a twenty-four-foot bowrider bobbing peacefully in the water. Rob was driving the boat—he had passed on the additional offer of a chartered captain—and had cut the motor and dropped anchor. There was nothing to see but deep blue water lapping at the boat all around them.

Emily walked to the front of the boat, sitting down on one of the padded seats in the bow. The wind whipped through her hair. A seagull cawed over head. She wished Ezra were there with her. And then she didn’t. Her heart kept up its yo-yo.

“Are you sunscreened?” Rob asked, sitting across from her in the bow. He’d taken his shirt off and his chest was more defined than she remembered. He was rubbing sunscreen into his shoulders and down his arms.

She shook her head. “Can I have some?”

“Sure,” he answered. “But would you mind doing my back?”

Emily hesitated, then picked up the bottle of sunscreen from the floor of the boat and squeezed it into her hands. It’d been sitting in the sun, so it was warm to the touch. She walked over to sit behind Rob and started rubbing the lotion into the sun-kissed skin of his back. His muscles rippled underneath her fingers, so different from Ezra’s lean frame. She heard his breath catch, but she ignored it. She ignored her own racing heart.

“All done,” she said, when she rubbed in the last bit of lotion.

“Want me to do you?” he asked.

She hesitated again, but she didn’t want to be sunburned for the performance.

“Thanks,” she said, turning around so her back was facing him, glad for a reason not to look at him.

His guitar-player fingers were strong as they kneaded her back. They moved from the skin below her shoulders to the skin above her waist, where bathing suit fabric started again. As he rubbed in the lotion, Emily felt a shiver run through her. This was the first time anyone other than Ezra had done this for her in years. Rob brought his hands to her sides, rubbing the last bits of lotion down her ribs to her waist. She felt cared for, precious.

He squeezed more sunscreen out of the bottle and leaned back to massage it onto her neck, her shoulders, down her arms, and then, his arms reaching around cradling her, his breath soft on her neck, he gently worked the sunscreen into the backs of her hands and down the length of each finger. She thought to say it was okay, he could stop, she could do this part, but her mouth wouldn’t form the words. She realized she’d closed her eyes, reveling in his touch. She felt lost in time and space.