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Nan eyes her, confused, while Maggie snickers at the joke. It’s confirmation that Nan missed the moment yesterday, luckily, because it was not my finest.
“Then we found mango daiquiris, and we played… what’s that game again, Nancy?”
“Beer pong?”
“Right. Beer pong. But we made it daiquiri pong. Played with some nice boys, maybe a little younger than you.”
“Gram! Tell me you didn’t.”
“She did,” Nan answers. “And we ran out of daiquiri and had to order more, and I told her she should probably slow down a bit. She’s not supposed to drink so much with—” Maggie glares at her, and Nan seems to pivot her statement. “Not with her age. Our age. Because we’re old.” She sighs and shakes her head, sipping her glass of wine. “Things to look forward to, kids.”
We sink into a comfortable quiet, taking in the sounds of the sea, the water pulsing gently against the bar. Finally, Maggie checks her watch. “We should head back to the ship in just over an hour. Why don’t you two go and start cleaning up the cabana? We’ll catch up.”
Gwen gathers her hair to keep it from blowing across her face. She twists it over one shoulder, but stray strands whip in front of her eyes. “Are you sure? We can wait and all go back together.”
“We’re much slower,” Nan adds. “You two go on ahead. We’ll be there in a bit.”
“Actually,” Maggie says, “would you mind just meeting us with our things at those loungers over there? Maybe in forty-five minutes or so? Then we can hop on the tram back to the pier.”
Gwen studies her grandmother, then looks up at me. I shrug, and she nods. “Sure. Forty-five minutes.” She and I return our empty cups to the bar and lower ourselves into the water, then paddle back to the cabana.
“I’ll start gathering some things down here.”
She nods and heads upstairs to the changing room, and I check all the storage areas for various belongings. I have Nan’s tote ready and set aside, which was easy, because the only thing she removed from it was a book that she set down right next to it before we went for drinks.
My things and Gwen’s are upstairs, so I make quick work of tidying Maggie’s belongings, too. She’s brought a clear bag for island toiletries, like sunscreen, bug spray, nail clippers, nail polish, floss picks… the usual. I grab her hand sanitizer from the coffee table and drop it in the clear bag. Something catches my eye as I reach for her tote—an orange bottle with a white cap and (upon further and totally intrusive inspection) a familiar-sounding name that I can’t place. It takes a moment, and I don’t mean to snoop, or to pry, but I realize I’ve seen the same drug name on pill bottles in our house, back when I was younger. They were things Nan couldn’t throw away, no matter how much Mom begged her to.
“Hey, Sawyer?”
I drop the bag into Maggie’s tote and zip everything closed. “Yeah?” I climb the stairs to answer Gwen’s call. She’s in the changing room with the curtain half closed, and she’s clearly struggling.
“Can you help me?”
“Sure. What do you need?”
She peels back the curtain and turns her back to me, pulling her hair to the side again. Long blond waves, stained by the sea, cascade over her shoulder. “Can you unhook me, please? This stupid suit… I can’t tell which way that little loop goes over the plastic hook thing. I can’t see it to figure it out.”
“Um, yeah. Let me try.” In barely three strides I’ve crossed the entirety of the deck, and I clear my throat as I move in behind her. Her skin holds the sun’s heat, even now, when she’s in the shade, and my fingers trace the line where tan and white meet, just under the edge of her swim top. I unfasten it easily, and she holds it in place from the front as the back straps fall to the side. Her whole naked back—from the waist up, of course— is exposed, and my fingers float barely an inch off her spine, longing to follow that line and the soft curves at her waist. Wondering if she’d let me.
“Sawyer.” When I look up, she’s watching me in the mirror in front of us, and embarrassment floods my face.
“Sorry.” I clear my throat and repeat it again. “I, um… I’ll be out here.”
“Sawyer,” she says, and she grabs my wrist before I can leave.
Gwendolyn
Shit. Shit, shit, shit. We’re supposed to be on the ship in less than an hour, I’m a little more than half naked, and I’m holding onto him, bedroom eyes-ing him. Probably deer-in-the-headlights eyes-ing him, because shit, what am I doing?
What happens next makes no sense, even to me, unless you consider that when I feel nervous I turn to humor. And that is why I pull Sawyer’s left hand onto my right breast, look him dead in the eye, and say, “This one felt unloved, after yesterday.”
He looks horrified. Terrible idea. Abort mission, Gwen.
“I’m sorry… I don’t know why I did that,” I confess. I let go of his wrist and his hand falls, but we’re both in this changing room and we’re far too big for the space, especially with this new energy between us. “It’s just that, I dunno, I really enjoyed today, and I thought we had a thing earlier, but I crossed a line and I’m sorry if I misread you.”
Sawyer doesn’t take his eyes off of mine. He licks his lips, and I watch his chest and his Adam’s apple move with two breaths before he asks, “What do you want from me, Gwen?”
I want that hammock moment. That curl-up-against-him-and-feel-safe moment. That laugh-over-a-cocktail moment. And I want this next moment. The one that feels dangerous and adventurous and so unlike me, but so freeing.
