The Unhoneymooners(47)

“Ready?” he asks, and my attention rockets to his face.

“Ready,” I say in my best aggressive robot voice. Definitely not caught swooning. I hold out my hand, beckoning, and for a hilarious beat, Ethan clearly thinks I want to hold his hand. He stares at it, bewildered.

“Keys,” I remind him. “If you’re getting drunk, I’m driving.”

After he sees the logic here, he tosses them over to me, and given that I am the least athletic person alive, I manage to nearly catch them but ultimately slap them into a pile of gravel near the tire.

Ethan laughs as I jog to retrieve them, and when I pass as he holds the bar door open for me, my elbow slips and digs into his stomach. Oops.

He barely winces. “That all you got?”

“God, I hate you.”

His voice is a growl behind me: “No, you don’t.”

The inside of the restaurant is over-the-top and kitschy and so positively magical that I pull up short. Ethan collides with my back, nearly sending me sprawling. “What the hell, Olive?”

“Look at this place,” I tell him. There is a life-size shark coming out of the wall, a pirate complete with pirate ship mural in the corner, a crab wearing a life preserver suspended in a net overhead.

Ethan whistles in response. “It’s something else.”

“We’re having such a good day not murdering each other that I’m going to be polite and suggest that we can go somewhere a little more hifalutin’ if you’d prefer, but I don’t see a buffet anywhere, so . . .”

“Stop acting like I’m such a snob. I like this place.” He sits down and picks up a sticky menu, perusing it.

A waiter in a Cheeseburger Maui T-shirt stops at our table and fills our water glasses. “You guys want food, or just drinks?”

I can tell Ethan is about to say just drinks, but I jump in first. “If we’re in this for the long haul, you’re going to need food.”

“I just had tacos,” he argues.

“You’re like six foot four and weigh two hundred pounds. I’ve seen you eat, and those tacos aren’t going to sustain you for long.”

The waiter mm-hmms appreciatively beside me, and I look up at him. “We’ll check out the menu.”

We order drinks, and then Ethan leans his elbows on the table, studying me. “Are you having fun?”

I pretend to focus on the menu and not the curl of unease I feel at the sincere tenor to his words. “Shh. I’m reading.”

“Come on. Can’t we have a conversation?”

I put on my best confused face. “A what?”

“The exchange of words. Without banter.” He exhales patiently. “I’ll ask you something. You’ll answer, then ask me something.”

Groaning, I say, “Fine.”

Ethan stares at me.

“God, what?” I ask. “Ask me a question, then!”

“I asked you whether you’re having fun. That was my question.”

I take a sip of my water, roll my neck, and give him what he wants. “Fine. Yes. I’m having fun.”

He continues to watch me, expectantly.

“Are you having fun?” I ask obediently.

“I am,” he answers easily, leaning back in his chair. “I expected this to be a hellmouth on a tropical island, and am pleasantly surprised that I only feel like poisoning your meals about half the time.”

“Progress.” I lift my water glass and clink his.

“So when was your last boyfriend?” he asks, and I nearly choke on a piece of ice.

“Wowza, that escalated quickly.”

He laughs and gives a wince I find so adorable I want to spill his water into his lap. “I didn’t mean that to be creepy. We were just talking about Sophie yesterday, and I realize I didn’t ask anything about you.”

“That’s okay,” I assure him with a casual wave. “I’m fine not talking about my dating life.”

“Yeah, but I want to know. We’re sort of friends now, right?” Blue eyes twinkle when he smiles, the dimple makes an appearance, and I look away, noticing that others are noticing his smile, too. “I mean, I did rub your butt yesterday.”

“Stop reminding me.”

“Come on. You liked it.”

I did. I really did. Taking a deep breath, I tell him, “My last boyfriend was a guy named Carl, and—”

“I’m sorry. Carl?”

“Look, they can’t all be sexy Sophie names,” I say, and immediately regret it because it makes him frown, even when the waiter places a giant, alcohol-soaked, fruit-filled drink in front of him. “So, his name was Carl, and he worked at 3M, and—God, it’s so dumb.”

“What’s dumb?”

“I broke up with him because when the whole thing with 3M and the water pollution went down, he defended the company and I just could not handle it. It felt so corporate and gross.”

Ethan shrugs. “That sounds like a pretty reasonable reason to break up to me.”

I meet his high-five without thinking, and then mentally log how awesome it is that he chose that moment to high-five me. “Anyway, so that was . . . a while ago, and here we are.” He’s already put away about half of his mai tai, so I turn it back to him. “Has there been anyone since Sophie?”