Winter in Paradise (Paradise #1)(52)

Chinese at 420: Their old ritual. 420 to Center is a dive bar next to Slim’s parking lot where everyone in the service industry goes after his or her shift. It’s owned by two guys from Boston; “420 to Center” is some reference to Fenway Park. They do whip up remarkably good Chinese food late-night. Time was, not so long ago, that Mick and Ayers were the king and queen of 420 to Center. But that time has passed. Ayers hasn’t been to 420 once this season. She avoided it because she assumed Mick went there with her successor.

Speaking of which.

“Where’s Brigid?” Ayers asks.

Mick shrugs.

“Trouble in paradise?” she says.

“It was never paradise.”

Ayers thinks about this for a moment. Ayers would have called what she and Mick had paradise. Yes, she would have. They were in love in St. John, they had good jobs and the same days off, and they knew everyone; when they went out, it was hard to pay for a drink. They both loved the beach, the sun, sex, hiking, drinking tequila, and Mick’s dog, Gordon. What could Ayers assume when Mick left but that Brigid—young, alluring Brigid—offered something even more sublime. To discover that this maybe wasn’t true, that life with Brigid had somehow not lived up to expectations, is, of course, enormously satisfying. But only for a fleeting moment. Mick is here, she realizes, not to see how Ayers is “holding up.” No, it’s not about Ayers’s emotional state, but rather, about Mick’s. He wants her company or he wants sex—probably the latter—but Ayers doesn’t have time for it.

“Oh, well,” she says, and she turns back to Cash, who has consumed his water and seems reinvigorated, like the herbs in Ayers’s garden after a rain. “You feeling better?”

“Yes,” Cash says. “Do you know what time it is?”

“Nearly ten,” she says. She can feel Mick at her back, watching her, and probably sizing up Cash. When they were a couple, Mick had been fiendishly jealous of every single one of Ayers’s male customers—single or married, in the restaurant or on the boat—and yet, in the end, it was he who had put his head up someone else’s skirt. “Are you calling it a night?”

“I wish,” Cash says. “I can’t go home for another hour. My mother has a guest for dinner and she wants privacy.”

“Your mother,” Ayers says. “Did she meet someone here? Or… do you know people?”

“Met someone,” Cash says. “Apparently.”

“So your parents are divorced?” Ayers asks.

“Divorced?” Cash says. He takes what seems like a long time to consider the question. “No. No.” Another pause, during which Ayers hears Mick and Skip talking about a supposed surfable swell in Reef Bay. It was Ayers’s least favorite thing about Mick: he professed to be a “surfer,” and he used all the lingo, but the one time Ayers had watched him “surf,” he’d fallen off the board and broken his collarbone. He’d blamed his accident on the waves. “My father is dead.”

Because she’s distracted thinking about the five hours she and Mick had spent in the waiting room at Myrah Keating, with Mick moaning and groaning while she smoothed his hair and brought water to his lips like a dutiful girlfriend, it takes her a moment to process this statement.

“Dead?” she says. “I’m sorry. Recently?”

Cash nods. “Really recently. That’s kind of why we’re down here.”

Down here. Family reunion, maybe the first vacation since the father died, which is why the mother came along.

“You’re still here?” a voice says.

Ayers turns around to see Baker standing behind her and also, of course, behind Mick. Baker is as big, tall, and broad as a tree. He’s staring down his brother.

“Mom said stay out until eleven,” Cash says. “Where else was I supposed to go?”

“Yeah, I don’t know,” Baker says. “But Ayers and I are going out and you’re not invited.” His tone is strong, nearly bullying, and Ayers feels bad for Cash. She understands now that both Cash and Baker are interested in her, and she wished they’d sorted this out at home to save her from being stuck in the middle, although a small part of her is gloating, because what better situation for Mick to witness than two men fighting over her?

“Where are you guys going?” Cash asks.

“None of your business,” Baker says, so harshly that Ayers winces, but then he softens and says, “Listen, just give us an hour, okay, man? I’ll be back to pick you up at eleven. I promise.”

“But where are you going?” Cash asks.

“De’ Coal Pot,” Ayers says. “It’s Caribbean food. You’re welcome to…”

Cash holds up a hand. “You guys go. I ate.”

“De’ Coal Pot?” Mick says. “I could go for some oxtail stew myself.”

Not happening, Ayers thinks. This is not happening. She is smacked by a wave of devastating sorrow. The person she needs by her side right now isn’t Mick or Baker or Cash. It’s Rosie.

Can you see this? Ayers asks Rosie in her mind. Please tell me you are somewhere you can see this.

Baker swings around. “Who are you?” he asks Mick.

Mick, wisely, holds up his hands. “No one,” he says. “I’m no one.”