“Good evening, everyone,” he says, winded. “Sorry about the wait. I’m Mason. I’ll be taking care of you ton—”

  “Mason, pleasure. I’ll speed us along here a bit. He’d like to order food to go.” I point to Cole; then I wave between Blaze and myself, even leaning toward him for emphasis. “We will be dining in, together.”

  Mason’s smile turns placid. “Okay . . .”

  Cole hands over his menu without even looking at it. “Hey, Mason, sorry to make it complicated. I’ll take the fillet to go. Medium rare. Have them add on a side of the lobster mac and a Caesar salad. Also, while these two decide what they’d like to eat, would you bring us a bottle of the house cabernet?”

  “What if I prefer white wine?” I interject.

  Cole arches a brow at me. “Do you?”

  “No . . .”

  Blaze laughs awkwardly. “Cabernet is okay with me.”

  Mason nods and scrams, likely in a hurry to get away from me.

  “So, Blaze, where are you from?” I ask, placing my elbow on the table at an angle that has my back turned to Cole, edging him out of the conversation altogether.

  I’ve asked Blaze this question before, but hopefully tonight our wires don’t cross.

  “Los Angeles, and before that, New York.”

  “Big move. Are you happy here so far?”

  “Yeah. I love it. I moved to Los Angeles for love, and it turns out that was a pretty dumb reason to haul my crap across the country. I got dumped a week after moving there.”

  “Yikes. That’s hard. So why Turks and Caicos?”

  He laughs. “It’s actually funny. I thought I’d booked a flight to Turkey.”

  I blink really slowly, trying to process this.

  He thought he . . .

  “Wound up here by accident,” he continues. “I didn’t have enough money to get another flight.” He shrugs and laughs it off. “So here I am. It worked out, though.”

  “I’m sorry.” It’s like my brain is fogged over, keeping me from understanding. “You wanted to go to Turkey, the country?”

  “Yeah, I was supposed to go backpacking across Europe with a group of guys all summer.”

  Slowly, I ask, “And you wound up here by mistake, stayed . . . and got a job?”

  Cole wisely keeps his mouth shut. I don’t dare look at him.

  Blaze laughs, but not hard enough, you know?

  To him, it’s something that could happen to anyone. Like, okay, I meant to go to Paris, France, but I ended up in Portland, Oregon, because they’re both cities that happen to start with P. Whoops. Guess I live here permanently now.

  The wine comes just in time.

  Mason pours me a heaping glass, for which I’m incredibly grateful.

  Blaze pushes back from the table. “Be right back. I need to use the little boy’s room.”

  He leaves, and Cole and I don’t say a word. I’m not sure we breathe. It’s imperative that I don’t look at him right now, or I’ll break. I’m an SNL cast member midskit, trying to stay in character instead of losing it in a fit of giggles. I roll my lips between my teeth, press down, and keep a sharp focus on my wine. Cole clears his throat, only barely succeeding in stifling his laughter. My smile is fighting for its life, but I resist with everything I have.

  “Turkey, huh?” he says, and I have to squeeze my eyes closed and think about sad things. A kitten stuck up in a tree, Bambi’s dead mom, my credit card bill.

  When I think I have my composure, I feign a superior tone and lay it on him. “What you see as a lost idiot stumbling through the world, I see as a free spirit adapting to new environments. How rare!”

  “Imagine if he accidentally booked a flight to Syria. He’d be bartending for ISIS right now . . .”

  A laugh bursts out of me before I can help it. Then I have to turn away and cover my mouth with my hand to keep him from seeing how much I’m struggling here.

  Damn it, Cole.

  Do not be funny right now. Please.

  I sound suddenly weary when I finally manage to speak again. “You’ve made your point. Now leave.”

  “What point is that? I’m just here enjoying the company. Blaze is so . . .”

  He swirls his wine in his glass with a slow taunt, and I nearly yank it out of his hand so I can dump it over his head. It’s more than a little tempting. The sight of that dark-burgundy cabernet slowly dripping down his forehead would keep me satisfied for months to come.

  “Don’t,” I warn.

  “. . . endearing.”

  I shift so I’m fully facing him.

  His gaze falls, and his jaw ticks. I look down and realize I’m nearly falling out of the top of this red dress. I’m a Victoria’s Secret model on a casting call. I refuse to care. In fact, I play it up by leaning even more toward Cole as I respond to his needling in a sultry tone.

  “Blaze isn’t endearing. Blaze is just like his name, a raging fire. God, he looks at me and I just get so hot.” I let the word drip from my mouth, and as if it isn’t erotic enough, I bite my lip and run my hand up my thigh like I just need to be touched there. Now. Cole’s impenetrable force field splinters and cracks. His humor has burned away. Now he’s all man. His heady gaze, his shallow breaths. He wants to eat me alive. I should stop, but I’ve never been good at heeding warnings. “Cole, a.k.a. coal, is just a fire that’s gone out. Lukewarm ash . . .”

  There’s an invisible tug between us, a magnet drawing us together.

  My gaze drops to his mouth, stained red from the wine. There’s a little flutter of anticipation; like everything we do, all the teasing and taunting is just one big drawn-out foreplay session. It’s maddening.

  Cole looks like he’s prepared to draw blood. Under the table, his hands must be biting into his thighs to keep from touching me. We’re about to lose our heads. He’ll swipe the contents of the table onto the floor and then hoist me up onto the tablecloth. Forget the fillet. He’ll have me for dinner. I can imagine it. I’ve had his mouth on me before. I know how good it feels. How little I’d resist if he . . .

  Then, plop. Cole’s dinner gets dropped on the other side of the table.

  “Here you go, man. I double-checked, and everything’s in there, nice and warm.”

  Our moment is reduced to rubble.

  Like we’ve been doing nothing beyond idle chitchat, Cole retrieves cash from his wallet and drops it on the table. I fold, then refold, my napkin in my lap, trying to regain my composure. Just before he stands, Cole pauses like he’s mulling something over. I think he might draw us back to the conversation we were having . . . all that delicious tension hovering just on the periphery. Instead, he leans in close, his voice like a soft feather lightly touching my skin, and tells me, “Enjoy your date.”

  Then he walks out of the restaurant with his dinner.

  Bereft doesn’t cut it. I’m a hollowed-out shell as I watch him leave, wishing, for some inexplicable reason, that he was taking me with him.

  Chapter Eleven

  PAIGE

  I don’t have to wait long to see Cole again. He comes to find me the next morning as I’m manning the excursion desk in the main lobby. Of all my weekly tasks, the excursion desk is not the most exciting, but I don’t mind it. I take pride in my position here, more so than anyone else on my team. Not to throw my friends and coworkers under the bus, but most of them are only here as a means to an end. I plan to be at Siesta Playa for the long haul. I’ve found my home here among people I truly care about, and hopefully one day, if I keep my head down and work hard, I’ll get promoted. My friends, meanwhile, enjoy the perks of working in paradise, but they don’t feel the need to go above and beyond for the sake of the resort. I understand where they’re coming from—“Why care about the corporate machine, it doesn’t care about you,” yada yada—but it just so happens that I’m the one weirdo who actually really loves my job. Even this, manning an information desk, isn’t so bad when I get to chat with guests and encourage them to try something new.

  Splayed out in neat rows in front of me are informative pamphlets detailing every excursion we have to offer here at Siesta Playa: kayaking trips, meditation sessions, horseback rides—the list goes on. Guests can come to the desk and get up-to-date information, ask me questions, and reserve their spot for the week’s activities.

  I see Cole approaching out of the corner of my eye, and I make myself busy, straightening each individual pamphlet stack.

  If this were a normal relationship, he’d keep it moving while throwing me a nod on his way to his office.

  Since we’re as far from normal as you can get without being officially labeled “deranged,” he strolls right over and stops in front of the desk, too tall for his own good. I couldn’t see around him if I tried.

  I lay down one stack of pamphlets and grab another. I enjoy the sharp rap of papers as I force them to fall in line.

  He drops something on the desk.

  Coffee.

  And not the burned motor oil they brew from dirt and pencil shavings down in the break room. He’s ordered me something from the fancy resort coffee shop, the one I try to avoid so I don’t get in the habit of spending eight dollars on a latte every morning.

  “What’s this?”

  He nudges it toward me.

  “Not poison, if that’s what you’re wondering. You have to pay extra for that sort of thing, and I’m short on cash.”

  I take a small sip to cover up my smile.

  The taste of vanilla wraps around me like a warm hug.

  Damn it. It’s good.

  “Thank you,” I mutter with a hefty amount of reluctance.

  Maybe he knows he owes me an apology after last night. Crashing my date? That’s low even for us.

  “So? How was the rest of your night? Did your spreadsheets fall in line?”

  His dimple comes out to play. “They’re getting there. What about you? How was your dinner?”

  “My date? Great, thank you for asking. I’m so used to dealing with difficult people”—my gaze on him hopefully drives home my meaning—“I forgot how pleasant it can be to share polite conversation.”

  He narrows his eyes in assessment of my comment. “Is that right? Yeah, Blaze does seem polite.”

  I nod emphatically. “His little smiling face is probably pasted in the dictionary right underneath the word. Let’s check.”

  His eyebrow quirks cynically. Maybe I’m laying it on too thick. “Tell me one thing you two talked about after I left.”

  Now, this proves difficult. I had quite the job of keeping our conversation rolling last night. I felt like I was working overtime trying to think of topics to discuss.

  “We bonded over our love of steak,” I swoon. “We split one, actually. It was so cute. The kitchen staff split it onto two plates for us, and they must have caught wind that we were on a date because they arranged our mashed potato piles into perfect hearts. I have a picture. Here, I’ll show—”

  He pushes away my phone. “So did Mr. Polite take you for dessert after?”

  “He was too full.”

  Disappointing, I know. I put away my entire meal and had room for ice cream, but that’s no surprise. I have a dinner column and a dessert column. They’re totally separate, only I guess not for Blaze. I understand, though. He’s very interested in keeping up his toned physique, and I can’t blame him! I’m sure it helps him get good tips at the grotto. He didn’t even touch his mashed potatoes. He scrunched his nose and made a comment about all the butter and salt. Meanwhile, my mouth was so full of the fluffy stuff I couldn’t even respond beyond a hum of agreement.

  “But after dinner, he walked me home . . .”

  Well, he walked me to the outside of the restaurant, at which point he broke off to go meet some of his friends, but Cole doesn’t need to know that.

  “He and I, y’know . . .” I circle the pad of my finger on the desk like I’m scrawling Blaze’s name in cursive in a journal.

  Cole’s throat bobs as he takes this in.

  I puff out a breath like I’m still trying to recover.

  “After, I couldn’t wait to call and tell my parents all about him.”

  Well, I’d tried, at least.

  They were out on a boat in the middle of the ocean when I called. The service was pretty spotty.

  “You did what, hon?” my mom asked, shouting into the phone.

  “I went on a date!”

  “You ate a date?”

  Yes, Mom, I’m placing an international call from halfway around the world to let you know that I just finished eating a piece of fruit from a date palm tree. I thought you ought to know.

  I sighed and tried a different tactic. “I went out with a man!”

  “Oh, that’s exciting. Was it Cole?”

  I panicked. “No! Not Cole!”

  Yes, my parents know about Cole, and it was a total accident on my part. When I first moved here, my parents were slightly worried about me adjusting to life on the island, so I fibbed and told them I’d already made a ton of friends. I mentioned Lara and Camila, who were actually my friends already, but for some reason . . . I also told them about Cole. It felt like he should be included! Back then, our plans of mutually assured destruction were already taking up a lot of my time. If I put the same energy I use thinking about Cole toward, say, learning a second language, I’d be fluent ten times over.

  “What was this other man’s name, then?” my mom asked.

  “Blaze.”

  “Blake?”

  “BLAZE.”

  I shrug. “Yeah, anyway, they were really excited for me. They can’t wait to meet him.”

  “Moving pretty fast, no?” Cole asks while reaching for a pen on the desk. He whirls it around casually like it’s a helicopter blade.

  “I guess it’s true what they say: when you know, you know,” I say with a confident smile.

  “So then, it’s settled. Blaze is the man for you.”

  Now he’s squeezing the pen so hard, his knuckles are white.

  “Yes.”

  The word is resolute and emphatic. A nail in a coffin.

  Why does that send a frisson of panic through me?

  He drops the pen, and it clatters to the desk. I frown, staring down at it as Cole starts to walk away. His name spills out of me before I can help it.

  “Cole—”

  I lean forward, suddenly desperate. A million possibilities could spring forth out of me.

  . . . maybe you aren’t so bad.

  . . . maybe I owe you an apology.

  . . . maybe this thing between us has gone too far.

  . . . maybe I’m sick of pretending I hate you.

  All the truths wage war with each other, lodging in my throat, so that all I manage is a weak “Thanks for the coffee.”

  Chapter Twelve

  PAIGE

  It’s today! Today! It’s happening!

  The Nifty after Sixty crowd has vacated the hotel. They packed up their CPAP machines, dentures, knee braces, and hearing aids. They hobbled back onto the mainland just in time to have their rooms scrubbed clean and filled by a group of people so entertaining it feels like Christmas morning.

  I don’t even bother with a full breakfast. I grab some buttered toast from the cafeteria and scarf it down as I walk-run to the hotel’s main lobby, practically elbowing people out of my way in an attempt to get there even faster. Oof! Sorry! Sorry! But between you and me, I’m not sorry. I would tackle and trample over people to get to the lobby. My shift doesn’t start for two hours; I could be off in dreamland right now, but I purposely set my alarm early. In fact, I regret not camping out here all night.

  The doomsday preppers convention is actually titled the Survival Preparedness convention, but these people aren’t fooling anyone. Almost as soon as I come to a screeching halt in the lobby, I see a camo-clad enthusiast spare the use of his tactical laser-sighted “hatchet knife” and instead tear into his freeze-dried meal pack with his teeth.

  “Hoo-rah!” he shouts, to no one person in particular, before eagerly sniffing the powdery contents. “Ooh, goody, corned beef hash.”

  For reference, it’s 7:30 a.m. He’s just been presented with a complimentary fruit cup and a mimosa. He’s in no need of survival food.

  “What did I miss? What did I miss?!” Camila asks, rushing through the side doors of the lobby. She’s in a hurry this morning as well. She’s in uniform, but her hair isn’t done. She’s still working through a cup of yogurt, and her eye makeup is smeared. Her shoe is only half on her right foot.

  “Nothing!” I assure her with giddy anticipation. “Nothing!”

  Now, the thing I love most about this convention is the pageantry of it all. You cannot say these men (and handful of women) don’t put their heart and soul into this hobby. Yes, hobby. Don’t get it twisted. The army fatigues, the eye black, the night vision goggles—none of it is serving a purpose here. What is that man going to do with his three-in-one Antarctic-approved parka on a tropical island in August? Who cares?! I love it!

  Another important thing to mention is that most, if not all, of these “survival” items are brand new. The guy currently stuck in the turnstile entrance—“Help! Someone help!”—still has the tags hanging off his desert-op jacket.

  I catch wind of a conversation taking place beside me. A man who looks like he’s currently on the run from raiders in a zombie apocalypse has unzipped his oversize military-issue pack (because none of these people would be caught dead traveling with a normal suitcase) so he can show off his new gear to his friend. “Yup. These are my ice-assault socks. These ones? Rock-infiltrator socks. And of course, I’ve got my sand-raid socks.”

  Across the lobby, I hear, “Damn it! I forgot my sleeveless holster shirt.”

  Then, at the front desk, a man asks, “Now, do the rooms come with down pillows? Because I’m allergic to most synthetic alternatives.”

  I’m immersed in my viewing experience—a veritable fly on the wall—when Cole walks up and falls in line with Camila and me. Without a word, he joins us in surveying the scene. He’s sipping coffee slowly. I’ll bet it’s his second or third cup. Not that it matters. Slightly more caffeine won’t suddenly make these people make sense. I want to look up at him and crack a joke. I know he finds this as silly as I do. We’d never admit it, but we share the same sense of humor. I’ve been in group meetings and conference rooms where something funny happens—a tab is left open on Todd’s computer with the search “hair plug Groupon”; Todd has a disastrous Freudian slip in which he introduces Alicia, the busty new accountant, to us all as our new accountit. I’ll search frantically around the room for someone to share the moment with, and then I’ll see Cole, with his head down, smiling to himself, completely in on the same joke I am.