The Unhoneymooners(35)

And I think I really like it.

Which makes me incredibly uneasy.

“I still hate you,” I tell him, pushing a dark curl of hair off his forehead.

He nods. “I know you do.”





chapter nine

Once we’re back on solid ground, most of his color returns, but rather than push our luck—or risk having to dine with Sophie and Billy—we decide to turn in early and order room service.

Although he takes his dinner in the living room, and I take mine in the bedroom, it occurs to me somewhere between my first bite of ravioli and my fourth episode of GLOW that I could have sent Ethan back to the hotel and gone out myself. I could have done a hundred different things without even leaving the hotel grounds, and yet here I am, back in the room at night because Ethan had a rough day. At least now I’m only a room away if he needs someone.

Needs someone . . . like me? I want to point at and tease myself and this new tenderness for thinking Ethan would seek me out as a source of comfort at any time other than when we’re trapped on a boat. He wouldn’t, and that’s not what we’re here for anyway!

But as soon as I start shadowboxing myself into a mental froth about needing to enjoy my vacation and not slide into liking this guy who has only been quasi-friendly to me in paradise but never in real life—I remember what it felt like underwater at the crater, how his front felt all along my back up on the deck of the boat, how it felt to run my fingers through his hair. My heartbeat goes all haywire thinking about how his breathing started to sync with the pace of my nails scratching lightly over his scalp.

And then I burst out laughing remembering our naked Twister in the Bathroom of Doom.

“Are you laughing about the bathroom?” he calls from the other room.

“I will be laughing about the bathroom until the end of time.”

“Same.”

I find myself smiling in the direction of the living room, and realize that staying firmly on Team I Hate Ethan Thomas is going to be more work than it may be worth.

? ? ?

MORNING COMES TO THE ISLAND in a slow, blurry brightening of the sky. Yesterday morning, the cool overnight humidity was gradually burned off by sunshine, but not today. Today, it rains.

It’s chilly as I shuffle out of the bedroom in search of coffee. The suite is still pretty dark, but Ethan is awake. He’s stretched along the full length of the sofa bed with a thick book open in front of him. He wisely leaves me alone until the caffeine has had time to work its way into my system.

Eventually, I make my way into the living room. “What are your plans today?” I’m still in my pajamas but feeling much more human.

“You’re looking at it.” He closes the book, resting it on his chest. The image is immediately filed in my braincyclopedia as an Ethan Posture, and subcategorized as Surprisingly Hot. “But preferably at the pool with an alcoholic beverage in my hand.”

In unison, we frown at the window. Fat drops shake the palm fronds outside, and rain runs softly down the balcony door.

“I wanted to paddleboard . . .” I wilt.

He picks the book back up. “Doesn’t look like that’ll happen.”

My knee-jerk instinct is to glare at him, but he’s not even looking at me anymore. I grab the hotel guidebook from the TV stand. There has to be something I can do in the rain; Ethan and I are capable of spending time together outside, but there would be bloodshed if we both hung around in this suite all day.

I pull the phone closer and open the directory in front of me. Ethan moves to my side and reads the list of activities over my shoulder. His presence is already—suddenly—like an enormous cast of heat moving around the room and now he’s standing shoulder to shoulder with me. My voice grows wavery as I read down the list.

“Zip-lining . . . helicopter . . . hike . . . submarine . . . kayaking . . . off-roading . . . bike ride . . .”

He stops me before I can get to the next one. “Ooh. Paintball.”

I look at him blankly. Paintball always struck me as something that gun-obsessed, testosterone-fueled frat boys did. Ethan doesn’t really seem the type. “You’ve played paintball?”

“No,” he says, “but it looks fun. How hard can it be?”

“That feels like a dangerous taunt to the universe, Ethan.”

“The universe doesn’t care about my paintball game, Olive.”

“My dad gave me a flare gun once when I took a road trip in college with a boyfriend. It went off in the trunk and set our luggage on fire while we were swimming in a river. We had to go to a local Walmart to buy clothes—keep in mind, all we had were our wet bathing suits—and it was this tiny town, like seriously just populated by the creepy people from Deliverance. I have never felt more like someone’s future dinner than I did walking through the aisles trying to find new underwear.”

He studies me for several long seconds. “You have a lot of stories like this, don’t you?”

“You have no idea.” I glance at the window again. “But seriously. If it’s been raining all night, won’t it be all muddy?”

He leans against the counter. “So you’d only want to be covered in paint, but definitely not mud?”

“I think the goal is to not get covered in paint.”

“You are incapable of not arguing with me,” he says, “and it is so aggravating.”