The boat in question is enormous, with a wide lower deck, a plush indoor area with a bar and grill, and an upper rooftop deck in the full, bright sun. While the rest of the group finds places to stow their bags and get snacks, Ethan and I head straight for the bar, grab drinks, and make our way up the ladder to the empty rooftop. I’m sure the emptiness won’t last, but the tiny reprieve from feeling like we’re performers onstage is awesome.
It’s warm; I take off my cover-up, Ethan takes off his shirt, and then we’re both half-naked together, in broad daylight, drowning in silence.
We look at anything but each other. Suddenly I wish we were surrounded by people.
“Nice boat,” I say.
“Yeah.”
“How’s your drink?”
He shrugs. “Cheap liquor. It’s fine.”
Wind whips my hair into my face, and Ethan holds my vodka tonic while I pull a rubber band out of my bag and tie my hair up. His eyes dart from the horizon to my red bikini and back again.
“I saw that,” I say.
He sips his drink. “Saw what?”
“You checked out my chest.”
“Of course I did. It’s like having two other people up here with us. I don’t want to be rude.”
As if on cue, a head pops up at the top of the ladder—fucking Reject Daryl Dixon, of course, followed closely by Sophie. I swear I can hear Ethan’s soul scream.
They climb onto the deck, holding their own margaritas in plastic cups.
“Hey, guys!” Sophie says, approaching. “Ohmygod. Isn’t it gorge?”
“So gorge,” I agree, ignoring Ethan’s horrified expression. No way he’s judging me any harder than I’m judging myself.
We stand together, the world’s unlikeliest foursome, and I attempt to diffuse the uncomfortable tension between us. “So, Billy. Where did you two meet?”
Billy squints up into the sun. “At the grocery store.”
“Billy is assistant manager at a Cub Foods in St. Paul,” Sophie says. “He was stocking school supplies, and I was buying paper plates across the aisle.”
I wait, assuming there will be more. There isn’t.
The silence stretches on until Ethan comes to the rescue. “The one on Clarence or—?”
“Huh-uh,” she hums around her straw, shaking her head as she swallows. “Arcade.”
“I don’t usually go there,” I say. More silence. “I like the one on University.”
“Good produce department at that one,” Ethan agrees.
Sophie stares at me for a few seconds, and then looks at Ethan. “She looks like Dane’s girlfriend.”
My stomach drops and inside my cranium, my brain takes the shape of Munch’s The Scream. Of course Sophie would have met Ami. Together Ethan and I are above-average intelligent people, so why are we so stupid together?
I send him a barrage of panicked brain waves, but he just nods calmly. “Yeah, they’re twins.”
Billy lets out an impressed “Dude,” but Sophie is clearly less excited by the potential for homemade pornos.
“Isn’t that sort of weird?” she asks.
I want to shout YES—VERY—ALL OF THIS IS VERY WEIRD, but manage to clamp my mouth to my straw and drain about half of my drink. After a long pause of his own, Ethan says, “Not really.”
A seagull flies overhead. The boat rocks as we push through the waves. I reach the bottom of my drink and loudly suck watery air through my straw until Ethan elbows me in the side. This is so painful.
Eventually, Sophie and Billy decide it’s time to sit and make their way to a padded bench directly across the deck from where we’re standing—close enough that we’re very clearly sharing the same general space, but far enough that we no longer have to attempt conversation, or hear whatever disgusting thing Billy is currently whispering in Sophie’s ear.
Ethan clamps an arm around my shoulder in a clunky, robotic sign of We Are Also Affectionate; again, he was so much smoother last night. With ease, I reach up, sliding my hand around his waist. I’d forgotten he was shirtless, and my palm makes contact with his bare skin. Ethan stiffens a little beside me, so I lean in fully, stroking his hip bone with my thumb.
I’d intended to do it to needle him, but actually . . . it’s nice.
His skin is sun-warmed, firm, distracting.
It’s like having a single bite of something delicious; I want to go back for more. The point of contact where my thumb touches his hip is suddenly the hottest part of my body.
With a cheesy growl, Billy pulls Sophie onto his lap, and she kicks her feet up, giggly and petite. After a stretch of silence during which I really should have seen it coming, Ethan sits, too, jerking me down onto his thighs. I fall far less gracefully—far less petite—and let out a burp when I land.
“What are you doing?” I ask under my breath.
“God, I don’t know,” he whispers, pained. “Just go with it.”
“I can feel your penis.”
He shifts beneath me. “This was so much easier last night.”
“Because you weren’t invested!”
“Why is she up here?” he hisses. “There’s an entire boat!”
“You guys are so cute over there,” Sophie calls, smiling. “So chatty!”
“So chatty,” Ethan repeats, smiling through clenched teeth. “Can’t get enough of each other.”
“Totally,” I add, and make it even worse by giving a double thumbs-up.
Sophie and Billy look so natural at this. We, however, do not. It was one thing in the restaurant last night with Mr. Hamilton, where we had our own chairs and some degree of personal space. But here, my sunscreen-slicked legs slide all over Ethan’s, and he has to adjust me again. I’m sucking in my stomach and my thighs are shaking from the restraint it’s taking to not lean my full weight into him. As if sensing this, he pulls me back into his chest, trying to get me to relax.
“Is this comfortable?” he mumbles.
“No.” I am acutely conscious of every doughnut I’ve ever eaten in my entire life.
“Turn sideways.”
“What?”
“Like . . .” He guides both of my legs to the right, helping me curl into his chest. “Better?”
“I mean . . .” Yes. It is better. “Whatever.”
He stretches his arms across the deck railing and, gamely, I wrap an arm around his neck, trying to look like someone who enjoys frequent sex with him.
When I glance up, he’s just looking up from my chest again.
“Very subtle.”
He looks away, blushes, and an electric zap travels down my neck. “They are pretty great, you know,” he finally admits.
“I know.”
“They do look better in this than in the Skittle dress.”
“Your opinion is so important to me.” I shift, wondering why I’m so flushed. “And I can feel your penis again.”
“Of course you can,” he says, with a tiny wink. “It’d be hard not to.”
“Is that a size joke, or a boner joke?”
“Uh, definitely a size joke, Orville.”
I take a gulp of my drink and then exhale directly into his face so that he winces from the fumes of cheap vodka.
Squinting, he says, “You’re a real seductress.”
“I hear that a lot.”
He coughs, and I swear I see Ethan Thomas battling a genuine smile.
And I get it. As much as I hate him . . . I think I’m starting to like us.
“Have you ever snorkeled?” I ask.
“Yes.”
“Do you like it?”
“Yes.”
“Are you usually better at conversations than you are with me?”
“Yes.”
We fall back into silence, but we are so close, and across the deck there’s only the wet sounds of Sophie and Billy making out. Ethan and I can’t not talk. “What’s your favorite drink?”
He looks at me with pained patience, growling, “Do we have to do this?”
I nod over toward Ethan’s ex and her new fiancé, who look like they’re only seconds away from dry humping. “Would you rather watch them? Or we could make out.”
“Caipirinhas,” he answers. “You?”
“I’m a margarita girl. But if you like caipirinhas, there’s a place a couple miles from my apartment that makes the best ones I’ve ever had.”
“We should go there,” he says, and it’s clear he’s done it without thinking because we both immediately let out the ha-ha-ha of the Oop, that’s not going to happen! laugh.
“Is it weird that you’re not as unpleasant as I initially thought?” he asks.
I use his monosyllabic tactic against him. “Yes.”
He rolls his eyes.
Over Ethan’s shoulder, the Molokini Crater comes fully into view. It is vibrant green, crescent-shaped, and stunning. Even from here I can see that the clear blue bay is dotted with boats just like ours.
“Look.” I nod to the horizon. “We aren’t lost at sea.”
He lets out a quiet “Wow.” And there, for a single breath, we give in to a really lovely moment of enjoying something together. Until Ethan decides to ruin it: “I hope you don’t drown out there.”
I smile down at him. “If I do, the husband is always a suspect.”
“I take back my ‘unpleasant’ comment.”
Another body joins our awkward foursome on the roof: the Snuba instructor, Nick, a sun-streaked blond guy with overtanned skin and bright white teeth, who calls himself an ‘island boy’ but I am fairly sure was born in Idaho or Missouri.
“Who plans to Snuba, and who plans to snorkel?” he asks us.
I toss a hopeful look across the deck to Sophie and Billy—who have mercifully detached their faces from each other—but they both enthusiastically shout, “Snuba!” so I guess we’re still stuck with them underwater.
We confirm that we’re planning to Snuba, too, and Ethan hauls me up with apparently zero effort, using arms that are remarkably strong. He sets me down an arm’s length away in front of him, standing behind me. It’s a beat before he seems to remember we should stay in newlywed levels of constant contact, so he folds his arms across my chest, jerking my back against his front. I feel the way we’re both already clammy in the heat, and how we immediately suction together.
“Gross,” I groan. “You’re so sweaty.”
His forearm smashes against my boobs.
I step backward, onto his foot. “Oops,” I lie, “sorry.”
He slides his chest against my back, back and forth, intentionally contaminating me with his man sweat.
He is the worst . . . so why am I fighting the urge to laugh?
Sophie sidles up next to him. “Got your lucky penny?” she asks, and I wish I could explain the tiny jealous monster that rears up inside my chest. She is engaged to someone else. Those little inside jokes and coupley secrets don’t belong to her anymore.
Before I can say anything, Ethan slides his arm down, over my chest and across my front so he’s pressing a flattened hand to my stomach, holding me tight. “Don’t need it anymore. I’ve got her.”
Sophie lets out a highly fake “Aww!” and then looks at me. And wow, it is a loaded, silent exchange. In our heads we are having a dance-off. She is sizing me up, maybe trying to connect the dots from how Ethan went from dating her to marrying me.
I assume that she ended things; otherwise he probably wouldn’t care so much about making a show of having a new wife. And I wonder whether the distaste I read on her face is about Ethan moving on so easily or about him moving on with someone who is nothing like her at all.
I lean back against him in an impulsive show of solidarity, and I wonder if he registers that his hips arch subtly against my back in response: an unconscious thrust. Inside my torso, there is an explosion of traitorous butterflies.
A few seconds have passed since he suggested I’m his good luck charm, and it feels too late to say that it’s really the opposite—that with my luck, I’ll get a sliver on the side of the boat, bleed into the ocean, and attract a school of hungry sharks.
“You all ready to have some fun?” Nick asks, breaking into my frozen silence.
Sophie lets out a sorority girl “Hell yeah!” and high-fives Billy. I expect a forced fist bump from Ethan in response, so am surprised when I feel his lips come in for a soft landing on my cheek.
“Hell yeah!” he whispers into my ear, laughing quietly.
• • •
NICK GETS US SUITED UP and fitted with flippers and face masks. The masks only cover our eyes and noses; because we’ll be going deeper than with regular snorkeling, we’re also given mouthpieces we can breathe through that are attached via a long tube to an oxygen tank on a small raft that we’ll pull along the surface above us as we swim. Each tank-raft combination can support two divers, so of course Ethan and I are paired up—which also means we are essentially tethered together.
When we slide into the water and reach for our oxygen nozzles, I can see Ethan investigating the mouthpiece, trying to estimate how many people have slobbered on it and how reliably it’s been cleaned between clients. After glancing at me and registering my complete lack of sympathy for his hygiene crisis, he takes a deep breath and shoves it in, giving Nick an ambivalent thumbs-up.
We take hold of the raft that carries our shared oxygen tank. With a final glance at each other over the top, we duck down, disoriented for a beat of breathing through the respirator and seeing through the mask—and, true to habit, we try to swim in opposite directions. Ethan’s head pops up above the water’s surface again and he jerks his head behind him impatiently, indicating which way he wants to go.
I give in, letting him lead. Under water, I am immediately consumed with everything around us. The black, yellow, and white kihikihi dart by. Cornet fish slice through our field of vision, sleek and silver. The closer we get to the reef, the more unreal it becomes. With eyes wide behind his mask, Ethan points to a brilliant school of reddish soldierfish as it passes another large mass of exuberant yellow tang. Bubbles erupt from his respirator like confetti.
I don’t know how it happens, but one minute I’m struggling to swim faster and the next Ethan’s hand is around mine, helping me move toward a small cluster of gray-dotted o’ili. It’s so quiet down here; I’ve honestly never felt this sort of weightless, silent calm, and certainly never in his presence. Soon, Ethan and I are swimming completely in sync, our feet kicking lazily behind us. He points to things he sees; I do the same. There are no words, no verbal jabs. There is no desire to smack him or poke his eyes out—there is only the confusing truth that holding his hand down here isn’t just tolerable, it’s nice.
• • •
BACK NEAR THE BOAT, WE emerge soggy and breathless. Adrenaline dances through me—I want to tell Ethan we should do this every single day of the vacation. But as soon as our masks are pulled up and we are helped from the water, reality returns. Our eyes meet and whatever he was planning to say dies a similar death in his throat.
“That was fun,” I say, simply.
“Yeah.” He peels off the wetsuit vest, handing it to Nick, and then steps forward when he sees I’m struggling with my zipper. I’m shaking because it’s chilly, so I let him unzip me, and work very hard to not notice how big his hands are and how capably he works the stuck zipper free.
“Thanks.” I bend, rummaging in my bag for my dry clothes. I am not charmed by him. I am not. “Where should I change?”
Nick winces. “We only have one bathroom, and it tends to get pretty crowded when we start to turn back and everyone’s cocktails are hitting their bladder. I’d suggest heading down there soon—but you two are welcome to go in together.”
“To . . . gether?” I ask. I look down toward the narrow steps to the bathroom and notice that people are already starting to gather their things to go use it themselves.
“Nothing you haven’t seen before!” Ethan says with a wicked grin.
I send a militia of harmful thoughts at him.
He soon regrets being so cavalier. The bathroom is the size of a broom closet. A very small broom closet with a very slippery floor. We crowd into the soggy space, clutching our clothes to our chest. Down here, it feels like the boat is in the middle of a storm; we are victims of every tiny lurch and lean.
“You first,” he says.
“Why me first? You go first.”
“We can both change and get this over with,” he says. “You face the door, I’ll face the wall.”
I hear the wet splat of his board shorts just as I’m working my bikini bottom down my shivering legs, and am highly aware that Ethan’s butt is probably only inches away from mine. I experience a moment of pure terror when I imagine how mortifying it would be for our cold, wet butt cheeks to touch.
A little panicky, I scramble for my towel and slip, my right foot coming out from under me in a shallow pool of water near the sink. My foot hooks on something, Ethan shouts in surprise, and I realize that something was Ethan’s shin. After his hand slaps loudly against the wall, he loses his balance, too.
My back hits the floor, and with a splat, Ethan lands on top of me. If there’s pain, I am too distracted by the chaos to register it, and there is a horrified beat of silence where we both realize what’s happened: we are completely naked, wet, and clammy, and a tangle of naked arms and legs and parts in the most mortifying game of Twister anyone has ever experienced.
“Oh my God, get off me!” I shriek.
“What the fuck, Olive? You knocked me over!”
He attempts to stand, but the floor is slippery and in motion, which means he keeps falling back down on me as he scrambles to find footing. Once we’re up, it’s clear we both want to die of mortification. We give up on the facing the door or facing the wall in favor of speed; there is no way for us to do this without flashes of butt and boobs and all manner of dangly things, but at this point, we don’t care.
Ethan scrambles to pull up a clean pair of shorts, but it takes me about four times as long to stutter-pull my clothing up over my wet body. Thankfully, he’s dressed relatively quickly and turns away, pressing his forehead against the wall, eyes closed as I wrestle with my bra and shirt.
“I want you to know,” I tell him as I tug it down my torso, “and I’m sure you hear this a lot, but that was by far the worst sexual experience of my life.”
“I feel like we should have used protection.”
I turn to confirm what I’ve heard in his voice—repressed laughter again—and catch him smiling, still facing the wall.
“You can turn around now,” I say. “I’m decent.”
“Are you ever really, though?” he asks, turning and blushing and grinning at me. It’s a lot to take in.
I wait for the annoyed reaction, but it doesn’t arrive. Instead, I realize with surprise that seeing his real smile aimed my way feels like getting a paycheck. “You make a good point.”
He seems equally surprised that I haven’t snarked back at him, and reaches past me to unlock the door. “I’m feeling queasy. Let’s get out of here.”
We emerge, red faced for reasons that are immediately misinterpreted, and Ethan gets a high-five from a couple of men we’ve never met. He follows me to the bar, where I order a margarita and he orders a ginger drink to help his stomach.
One glance at him tells me that he wasn’t kidding about feeling queasy—he looks green. We find seats inside, out of the sun but near a window, and he leans forward, pressing his head to the pane, trying to breathe.
I blame this moment right here, because it creates a tiny fracture in his role as nemesis. A true nemesis doesn’t show weakness, and for sure, when I reach out to rub his back, a true nemesis wouldn’t lean into it, moaning in quiet relief. He wouldn’t shift so that I could reach him more easily, and he certainly wouldn’t scoot down the bench and rest his head in my lap, staring up at me in gratitude when I gently rake my fingers through his hair, soothing.
Ethan and I are starting to build more of these good moments than bad; it sends the balance swinging into an unfamiliar direction.
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.”
