Ethan looks at me, smiles, and then turns his head down and pokes at his lunch. It’s an ironically bashful expression for the hot, objectifying pervert who, barely a half hour ago, watched me with the intensity of a predator while I got dressed. When I asked him what he was doing, he said, “Just having a moment.”
“What kind of moment were you having?” I ask now, and Ethan looks back up.
“Moment—what?”
I realize I’m digging for a compliment. He was watching me get dressed with a thirst I didn’t see in his eyes even on mai tai night. But I guess I’m still in that weird fugue where I don’t actually believe that we’re getting along swimmingly, let alone having fun being naked together.
“In the room,” I say. “ ‘Having a moment.’ ”
“Oh,” he says, and winces. “Yeah. About that. Was just freaking out a little over having sex with you.”
I bark out a laugh. I think he’s joking. “Thank you for being so consistently on-brand.”
“No, but really,” he amends with a smile, “I was enjoying watching. I liked seeing you put your clothes back on.”
“One would think the undressing part would be the highlight.”
“It was. Believe me.” He takes a bite, chewing and swallowing while studying me, and something in his expression takes me back an hour, to when he kept whispering, It’s good, so good, in my ear before I fell to pieces beneath him. “But afterward, seeing you put yourself back together was . . .” He glances over my shoulder, searching for the right word, and I’m guessing it’s going to be a great one—sexy, or seductive, or perhaps life-altering—but then his expression turns sour.
I point my fork at him. “That is not a good face for this conversation.”
“Sophie,” he says, both in explanation and greeting as she steps up to the table, cocktail in one hand and Billy’s arm in the other.
Of course. I mean, of course she approaches us right now, wearing a bikini under a tiny, sheer cover-up, looking like she just walked off the set of a Sports Illustrated photo shoot. Meanwhile, my hair is twisted up in a haystack on my head, I have zero makeup on, and am sex-sweaty, wearing running shorts and a T-shirt featuring smiling ketchup and mustard bottles dancing together.
“Hey guys!” Her voice is so high-pitched it’s like having someone blow a whistle next to your head.
I study Ethan from across the table, eternally curious how that relationship worked once upon a time: Ethan with his deep, warm-honey voice; Sophie with her cartoon mouse voice. Ethan with his watchful gaze; Sophie with her eyes that bounce all over a room, searching for the next interesting thing. He’s also so much bigger than she is. For a second I imagine him carrying her around the Twin Cities in a BabyBjörn, and have to swallow back a giant cackle.
We let out a flaccid “Hey,” in unison.
“Catching a late lunch?” she asks.
“Yeah,” he says, and then puts on a plastic expression of marital happiness. If I recognize how forced it is, Sophie—his live-in girlfriend of nearly two years—has got to see through it, too. “Spent the day in.”
“In bed,” I add, too loudly.
Ethan looks at me like I am eternally hopeless. He exhales through his nose in a long, patient stream. For once, I’m not even lying and I still sound like a maniac.
“That was our day yesterday.” Sophie’s eyes slide to Billy. “Fun, right?”
This entire thing is so weird. Who talks to each other like this?
Billy nods, but isn’t looking at us—who can blame him? He doesn’t want to hang out with us any more than we want them here. But his reaction is clearly not enough for her because a cloudy frown sweeps across her face. She glances at Ethan, hungrily, and then away again, like the loneliest woman on the planet. I wonder how he’d feel if he looked up and noticed it—the flat-out yearning in her expression, the Did I make a mistake? expression—but he’s back to obliviously poking at his noodles.
“So,” she says, staring directly at Ethan. It looks like she’s sending him messages with the power of her mind.
They are not penetrating.
Finally, he glances up with a forced blank expression. “Hm?”
“Maybe we can get drinks later. Talk?” She’s clearly asking him, singular, not us, plural. And I assume Billy is also not included in the invitation.
I want to ask her, Now you want to talk? You didn’t when he was yours!
But I refrain. An awkward weight descends, and I look up at Billy to see whether he feels it, too, but he’s pulled his phone out of his pocket and is scrolling through Instagram.
“I’m not . . .” Ethan looks over at me, brows drawn. “I mean, maybe?”
I give him an Are you fucking serious? face, but he misses it.
“Text me?” she asks softly.
He lets out a garbled sound of agreement, and I want to snap a picture of her expression and his to show him later and make him explain what the hell is happening. Does Sophie regret breaking up with Ethan? Or is it only bothering her because he’s “married” and not pining over her anymore?
This dynamic is fascinating . . . and just so, so weird. There’s no other way to explain it.
I let myself imagine this bubbly person in front of me leaving a note that says simply, I don’t think we should get married. Sorry.
And, in fact, I can totally see it. She’s candy-sweet at the surface and probably terrible at communicating negative emotions. Meanwhile, I’m like a sour patch kid on the surface, but will happily detail all the ways I think the world is going to hell.
After lingering for a few more stilted beats, Sophie tugs at Billy’s arm, and they make their way toward the exit. Ethan lets out a long breath aimed at his plate.
“Seriously, why do they insist on socializing with us?” I ask.
He takes his grumpy feelings out on a piece of chicken, harshly stabbing it. “No idea.”
“I think drinks tonight would be a bad idea.”
He nods but doesn’t say anything.
I turn to watch Sophie’s high and firm retreating backside, then look back to Ethan. “You okay?”
I mean, we had sex like an hour ago. Even with his ubiquitous ex wandering around the hotel, the correct answer here is Yes, right?
Ethan nods and gives me what I’ve come to know is a fake smile. “I’m fine.”
“Good, because I was about to flip the table over the way she was staring at you with sad dog eyes.”
He lifts his head. “She what?”
I don’t like how immediately this perked him up. I want to be honest with him, but my words come out forced. “Just—she seemed to want to make eye contact with you.”
“I mean, we made eye contact. She asked to meet us for drinks . . .”
“Yeah, no. She wanted to meet you for drinks.”
Ethan very deliberately tries to look cool about this and does a very bad job at it. He’s fighting a gloating smile.
And I get it. Who hasn’t wanted to wave their shiny new relationship in the face of the person who dumped them? Even the best among us aren’t above that kind of pettiness. And yet, heat rushes to my face. I’m not just wary in this moment, I’m humiliated. A very obvious vacation screw. At the very least, dude, put away your boner for your ex for a good six hours after having sex with someone else.
I stop myself.
This is exactly what I do. I assume the worst. Needing a break, I stand and drop my napkin on the table. “I’m going to head up and shower. Think I want to do some shopping around the hotel shops for souvenirs.”
He stands, too, more out of surprise than courtesy, I think. “Okay. I could—”
“No, it’s okay. I’ll catch up with you later.”
He doesn’t say anything else, and when I look back near the exit, his expression is hidden from me: he’s back in his seat, staring down at his meal.
• • •
RETAIL THERAPY IS REAL AND glorious. I’m able to noodle around the hotel shops and find a few thank-you gifts for Ami, some souvenirs for my parents, and I even buy a T-shirt for Dane. He may be a jerkface, but he did miss his honeymoon.
Although I can lose myself in the mental blankness of perusing overpriced island tchotchkes, in the background, the low hum of irritation with Ethan remains, and is accompanied by the throbbing baseline of stress over whether we made a terrible mistake by sleeping together. It’s possible we did, and if so, we’ve just made the remaining five days here exponentially more awkward than they would be if we still hated each other.
This day has been emotionally draining: waking up with the memory of a kiss, a fight with Ethan, the realization about Dane, reconciliation and sex, and then the predictable daily Sophie run-in that wedged a whole boatload of uncertainty between us. This day has lasted four years.
My first go-to whenever I’m upset has always been my sister. I pull out my phone and focus on the swaying palm trees overhead in its reflection. I want to ask if she’s okay. I want to ask if Dane is around, to see what he’s been doing, and with who. I really want her advice about Ethan, but know that I can’t get into any of that without explaining all the details that led up to it first.
I can’t do that over the phone. I certainly can’t do it over text with her. So, needing some anchor to home, I text Diego instead.
What’s the latest in the frozen tundra?
I had a date last night.
Oooh, was it good?
He reached forward to retrieve a piece of food from my teeth without warning.
So . . . no, then?
I’m guessing you and Ethan haven’t murdered each other yet?
Close, but no.
Now is definitely not the time to break the news that Ethan and I did The Deed, and Diego is definitely not the one to tell—I’ll lose all aspects of message control.
Well I’m sure you’re managing to somehow suffer through a dream vacation.
No, it’s amazing. Even I can’t complain. How is Ami?
Emaciated, bored, married to a bro.
And mom/dad?
Rumor has it your dad brought her flowers and she pulled off every petal and used them to spell PUTA in the snow.
Wow. That’s. Wow.
So, all is the same here.
I sigh. That’s exactly what I worried about.
OK. I’ll see you in a few days.
Miss you, mami.
Miss you, too.
I return to the room with my bags, expecting—maybe hoping—that Ethan is out so that I can use the calm of my post-shopping brain to figure out how I’m going to handle him.
But of course he’s there, showered, dressed, and sitting on the balcony with a book. He hears me come in, and stands, stepping inside.
“Hey.”
Just a glance at him and I’m remembering what happened only a few hours ago, and how he looked down at me, eyes heavy, mouth slack with pleasure. I drop the bags onto a chair in the living room and busy myself by digging through them to pretend to look for something. “Hey,” I say, faux-distracted.
“Did you want to grab dinner?” he asks.
My stomach rumbles but I lie: “Um . . . not super hungry.”
“Oh. I was just waiting to see—” He cuts the words short, rubbing his chin with mild aggravation.
My response to this is completely unrelated, but it’s what my brain decides to throw out into the room: “I thought you might be having drinks with Sophie.”
He has the nerve to look confused. “I . . . no?”
“You could have gone to dinner without me, you know.” I don’t have anything to do with my hands, so I aggressively roll my plastic shopping bag closed and shove it deeper on the chair. “We don’t have to eat every meal together.”
“What if I wanted to go with you?” he asks, studying me, clearly vexed. “Would that break your new, confusing rules?”
I bark out a laugh. “Rules? What are rules?”
“What are you talking about?”
“You sleep with me and then have an emotional brain fart with me in front of your ex. I would say that’s breaking a pretty big rule.”
He frowns immediately. “Wait. This is about Sophie? Is this another cheese curd misreading of the situation?”
“No, Ethan, it isn’t. I don’t give a crap about Sophie. This is about me. You were more focused on her reaction to you than you were on what I was feeling in the moment. I don’t often put myself in situations where I’m a rebound or a distraction, and so you can probably understand that it was awkward for me to see her, too. But you had zero awareness of it. And obviously that’s to be expected if you don’t have feelings for me, but . . .” I trail off lamely. “Anyway. It’s not about Sophie.”
Ethan pauses, mouth open like he wants to speak but isn’t sure what to say. Finally, he manages, “What makes you think I don’t have feelings for you?”
It’s my turn to hesitate. “You didn’t say you did.”
“I didn’t say I didn’t, either.”
I am tempted to continue this ridiculousness just to be a brat, but someone has to be an adult here. “Please don’t pretend you don’t understand why I’m pissed.”
“Olive, we’ve barely had a conversation since we had sex. What do you have to be pissed about?”
“You were totally freaking out at lunch!”
“You’re freaking out now!”
I realize that he’s not denying anything I’ve said. “Of course I’m going to be annoyed watching you quietly soak up Sophie’s jealousy after you just had sex with me.”
“ ‘Quietly soak up—’?” He stops, shaking his head. Ethan holds up his hands in a request for a temporary cease-fire. “Can we just get dinner? I am starving and have no idea what’s going on here.”
• • •
PERHAPS UNSURPRISINGLY, DINNER IS TENSE and silent. Ethan orders a salad, I order a salad—clearly we do not want to have to wait long for our food to arrive. We both avoid alcohol, too, but I could honestly use a few margaritas.
Once the waitress leaves, I pull out my phone and pretend to be incredibly busy, but really I’m just playing poker.
Obviously, I was right: the sex was a huge mistake, and now we have five days left together. Should I suck it up, pull out the credit card, and get a room for myself? It would be a huge expense, but it might allow the vacation to continue to be . . . fun. I could do all the activities left on my bucket list, and even if it’s 30 percent as fun as doing it with Ethan, it’s still 100 percent more fun than I’d be having at home. But the idea that I may be done with the particular brand of Ethan-hassling fun I’ve been enjoying so far is a bummer.
“Olive.”
I look up in surprise when he says it, but he doesn’t immediately continue. “Yeah?”
He opens his napkin, sets it on his lap, and leans on his forearms, meeting my eyes directly. “I’m sorry.”
I can’t tell if it’s an apology for lunch, for the sex, or for about a hundred other things he could probably stand to apologize for. “About . . . ? ”
“About lunch,” he says gently. “I should have focused only on you.” He pauses and runs a finger over a dark brow. “I wasn’t at all interested in having drinks with Sophie. If I was withdrawn, it was because I was hungry and tired of running into her.”
“Oh.” Everything in my head seems to come to a standstill, words momentarily on hiatus. That was so much easier than getting a new hotel room. “Okay.”
He smiles. “I don’t want things to be weird with us.”
Frowning, I ask, “Wait. Are you apologizing so you can have sex with me again?”
Ethan looks like he can’t decide if he wants to laugh or throw his fork at me. “I think I’m apologizing because my emotions tell me I need to?”
“You have emotions besides irritation?”
Now he laughs. “I don’t think I registered that I seemed to be quietly enjoying her jealousy. I won’t lie and say that it doesn’t bring me some pleasure that she’s jealous, but that’s independent of how I feel about you. I didn’t mean to seem preoccupied with Sophie after we’d just been together.”
Wow. Did some woman text him that apology? That was fantastic.
“She texted me earlier, and I replied,” he says, and turns his phone around so I can read it. The text says simply, Gonna pass on drinks. Have a nice trip. “Before you got back to the room. Look at the time stamp,” he says, and points, grinning. “You can’t even say that I did it because you were mad, because I had no idea you were mad. Finally, my cluelessness comes in handy.”
Our waitress slides our salads down in front of us, and now that things are better between us, I regret not getting a burger. Forking a piece of lettuce, I say, “Okay, cool.”
“ ‘Okay, cool,’ ” he repeats slowly. “That’s it?”
I look up at him. “I mean it: that was an impressive apology. We can go back to being rude to each other for fun now.”
“What if I felt like being nice to each other for fun now?” he asks, and then flags down the waitress.
I narrow my eyes at him. “I’m trying to imagine ‘nice’ on you.”
“You were pretty nice on me earlier,” he says in a quiet growl.
“See? I knew you apologized just to have sex with me again.”
At the side of the table, a throat clears. We both look up to see that the waitress has returned.
“Oh. Hi. That was timely.” I wave to her, and Ethan laughs.
“Can we get a bottle of the Bergstrom Cumberland pinot?” he asks her.
She leaves and he shakes his head at me.
“You’re going to loosen me up with alcohol now?” I ask, grinning. “That’s one of my favorite wines.”
“I know.” He reaches across the table, taking my hand, and my insides turn warm and wavy. “And no, I’m going to loosen you up by refusing to fight with you.”
“You won’t be able to resist.”
Bending, he kisses my knuckles. “Wanna bet?”
