The Unhoneymooners(58)

He drags a strawberry through a drizzle of chocolate syrup beside the cheesecake we’re sharing, and holds the fork aloft. “I was thinking we could do Haleakal? at sunrise tomorrow.”

“What’s that?” I steal the fork and eat the perfect bite he’s crafted. He doesn’t even scowl—he smiles—and I try to not let this throw me. Ethan Thomas is totally fine with me eating off his fork. Olive Torres from two weeks ago is floored.

“It’s the highest point on the island,” he explains. “According to Carly at the front desk it’s the best view around, but we have to get there pretty early.”

“Carly at the front desk, eh?”

He laughs. “I had to find someone to talk to while you were off shopping all afternoon.”

Only a week ago I would have made a cutting sarcastic remark in response to this, but my brain is full of nothing but heart-eyes and the urge to kiss him.

So I reach across the table for his hand. He takes mine without any hesitation, like it is the most natural thing in the world.

“So I think,” I say quietly, “that if we’re going to be up for the sunrise, we should probably get to bed soon.”

His lips part, eyes drop to my mouth. Ethan Thomas is quick on the uptake: “I think you’re right.”

? ? ?

ETHAN’S ALARM GOES OFF AT four, and we startle awake, mumble into the darkness, and roll in a naked, sheet-tangled tumble from bed and into our layers of clothing. Although we are on a tropical island, Front Desk Carly told Ethan the predawn temperatures at the peak of the mountain are frequently below freezing.

Despite our best intentions for an early bedtime, the man kept me up for several hours with his hands, and mouth, and a shockingly large vocabulary of dirty words; it feels like a thick sex fog hovers in my brain even when he turns on the lights in the living room. With teeth brushed and kisses given, Ethan brews coffee and I pack a bag with water, fruit, and granola bars.

“Wanna hear my mountain-climbing story?” I ask.

“Is bad luck involved?”

“You know it.”

“Let’s hear it.”

“Summer after sophomore year in college,” I begin, “Ami, Jules, Diego, and I took a trip to Yosemite because Jules was on a fitness kick and wanted to climb Half Dome.”

“Uh-oh.”

“Yes!” I sing. “It’s a terrible story. So, Ami and Jules were in great shape, but Diego and I were, let’s say, more marathon couch potatoes than runners. Of course, the hike itself is insane and I thought I was going to die at least fifty times—which has nothing to do with luck, just laziness—but then we start the final vertical ascent up the subdome. No one told me to watch out where I put my hands. I reached into a crevice to get a grip and grabbed a rattlesnake.”

“What!”

“Yeah, bit by a fucking rattlesnake, and fell like fifteen feet.”

Ethan gapes at me. “What did you do?”

“Well, Diego wasn’t going to climb that last stretch, so he was there standing over me, acting like his plan was to pee on my hand. Thankfully the ranger came over and had some antivenin, and it was okay.”

“See?” Ethan says. “That’s lucky.”

“To be bitten? To fall?”

He laughs incredulously. “Lucky that they had the antivenin. You didn’t die on Half Dome.”

I shrug, dropping a couple of bananas in the backpack. “I see what you’re saying.”

I can feel him still watching me.

“You don’t really believe this, though, right?” Off my look, he adds, “That you have some sort of chronically bad luck?”

“Absolutely. I’ve already shared a couple of winners, but just to keep it recent: I lost my job the day after my roommate moved out. In June, I got some car repairs done and a ticket when a hit-and-run shoved my brand-new car into a no-parking zone. And this summer an old woman fell asleep on my shoulder on the bus, and I only realized she was dead, and not actually asleep, after I’d missed my stop.”

His eyes go wide.

“I’m kidding about that last one. I don’t even take the bus.”

Ethan bends, cupping his hands over his knees. “I don’t know what I would actually do if someone died on me.”

“I think the odds are pretty slim.” Even half-asleep, I grin as I pour our coffee into two paper cups and slide one in front of Ethan.

Straightening, he says, “I guess I’m suggesting that you give the idea of luck too much power.”

“You mean how positivity breeds positivity? Please don’t tell me you think you’re the first one to mention this to me. I realize part of it is outlook, but honestly—it’s luck, too.”

“Okay, but . . . my lucky penny is just a coin. It doesn’t have any great power, it’s not magic, it’s just something I found before a bunch of awesome things happened. So now I associate it with those awesome things.” He lifts his chin to me. “I had my penny the night we ran into Sophie. Logically, if everything was about luck, that wouldn’t have happened.”

“Unless my bad luck countered your good luck.”

His arms come around my waist, and he pulls me into the heat of his chest. I’m still so unaccustomed to the ease of his affection that thrill passes in a shiver down my spine.