Reckless Girls(2)

I was supposed to be in the third group, but after six months, I’m worried I’m sliding into the second one.

I’d come to Hawaii for a guy—which, I realize, sounds stupid—but I feel like any woman who’d had Nico Johannsen ask her to meet him in Maui would’ve bought a plane ticket on the spot.

And besides, it hadn’t just been the guy himself—it had been what the guy was offering. A chance to travel, to sail around the world, to finally have some experiences.

An adventure.

“Livin’ the dream,” I mutter, surveying the bed, unsure how to proceed. Should I lay all of the toys out on a towel on the bathroom counter, the way we do makeup brushes?

Suddenly, all I want to do is leave. Tear off this uniform, abandon my cleaning cart, walk out of the resort, and go back home.

But where even is that now?

Technically, I live in a tiny ranch house on the south side of the island, a place Nico and I share with two dudes he works with at the marina, plus their girlfriends. Except we don’t even have a room there—we sleep on a mattress they put out in the living room at night. The whole place constantly smells like salt and sunscreen, and the sheets always feel a little damp and gritty. The six of us share two bathrooms, with wet swimsuits dripping from the shower rod, and towels with little dots of mildew because nothing in that place ever seems to stay dry.

Home was supposed to be Nico’s boat, the Susannah.

Even thinking about it hurts, imagining it in its dry dock, with a big fucking hole in the hull. Nico had sailed her down from San Diego after we’d met, and I’d flown to meet him here. One-way ticket, my entire life packed into one roller bag and a backpack.

But when I’d gotten to Wailuku, I’d learned that not only had the Susannah’s engine busted on the trip over, but when Nico had it moved to the marina where it could be fixed, an accident getting it off the trailer had pierced the hull, a repair Nico didn’t have the funds for.

Correction, Nico wouldn’t ask for the funds to repair it. His family has more money than God—they run this massive law firm, personal injury, litigation, shit like that—but Nico wants to make his own way in the world on his own terms.

It’s a really admirable quality, when it isn’t also wrecking our plan and keeping me stuck here, cleaning up strangers’ sex toys.

Maybe the boat is cursed, I’d said to him just the other night, whispering against the warm, salty skin of his neck as we huddled on our mattress, rain pattering on the tin roof.

Maybe it’s you, he’d murmured back. Letting a woman on board a ship was thought to be bad luck back in the day.

Maybe you’re an asshole, had been my reply, he’d only laughed and kissed me, and then our tiny, sandy mattress hadn’t seemed so bad. Nico was good at that, distracting me, his unflagging optimism bringing me out of those spirals of worry and doubt and what the fuck now? Nico didn’t worry about the future—and if an uncharitable voice in the back of my mind occasionally hissed that Nico didn’t have to worry about that kind of shit because I was always doing it for him—I ignored it.

Or, I tried to.

Anyway, before the Susannah and Hawaii, I’d been in California, but that had never felt like home to me, not really. I’d moved there with my mom from Nebraska when I was twelve, and when she’d died eleven years later, I’d just stayed in San Diego because I couldn’t think of where else to go.

Now, at twenty-five, all of it is starting to feel like a series of wrong turns and missed chances. Heading left when I should’ve gone right. Zigging when I should’ve zagged.

I strip the bed and shove the sheets in the bottom of my cart. I hear the door to the suite open as Maia goes into the hall to get more towels or shampoo that smells like bananas and hibiscus.

“So, do you think I should make these assholes a festive towel sculpture shaped like a cock?” I call out to her. “I know a swan is the normal thing, but given their tastes—”

Behind me, someone clears their throat, and I straighten to see two people standing in the foyer, a man wearing a Hawaiian shirt in violent shades of red and green, a woman in a matching dress. They’re holding mai tais, their faces bright with embarrassment or sunburn or both, and I offer a weak smile.

“Aloha?”

An hour later, I’m standing in the parking lot of the Haleakala, in my cutoff shorts and T-shirt, my uniform and name tag back in the hands of my boss—well, former boss now—Mr. Chen, and while I should be freaking the fuck out, I tip my face up to the sun and smile.

No more sheets. No more towels. No more stray fingers “accidentally” brushing my ass. I’ve wanted to quit for over a month now, but there’s something freeing about having the choice taken out of my hands. It’s not my fault the Sandersons walked in when they did. Not my fault they’d left all that stuff on their bed in the first place.

Not my fault that I don’t have a job anymore.

Now, I just have to tell Nico.





TWO





“Gotta say, losing my job because of a dildo is a first.”

Since I’m officially unemployed, I can meet Nico at his favorite lunch counter on the island. He sits across from me, smelling like salt water and engine grease, but still so handsome I can feel it in the pit of my stomach, my knees. He’s got a red bandana holding his sandy hair back from his face, and his skin is tanned and smooth, a tattoo curling around his bicep.