The Paradise Problem (70)

We pull apart and stare at each other.

“That was nice,” I say.

“Nice?” he repeats, feigning offense. “Looks like I have my work cut out for me.”

“I may invade your side of the bed tonight.”

He gusts out a laugh. “For once?”

“Listen, wise guy, tonight I’m warning you.”

“I’ll brace myself.” His grin widens, and we stop moving as the song comes to an end. West leads me off the dance floor to an empty cocktail table. “Want a drink?”

“Would Janet Weston frown at a dirty martini?”

“Please,” he says. “Janet Weston drinks dirty martinis for breakfast.” He kisses me one more time. “Be right back.”

I watch him go and wish the jacket of his tux didn’t cover his ass, because watching West Weston walk away from me is my new favorite art installation.

“Hey, little sis.”

I turn, startled, to find Alex standing, swirling his cocktail, right next to me.

“Hey… big bro.”

“Enjoying the party?”

“It’s amazing.” I struggle to find something more to say, coming in with the brilliant follow-up, “It’s all been amazing.”

He shrugs, lifting his highball glass to gesture to the splendor around us. “Yeah, but come on. I’m sure you’re used to this kind of thing.”

“Yes, totally. Very used to fancy parties.”

“You were the same year as Jake in school, right?” He lifts his glass to his lips, eyes fixed somewhere in the distance.

“That’s right. That’s how I met West.”

“Funny—I’ve only heard his guy friends call him West. Girlfriends called him Liam.”

My smile drips with sugar. “I guess the wife gets to call him both.”

“True, true. So, you’re—what? Twenty-five?”

“That’s right.”

“And medical school at…?”

I scrape my brain for what West told me in a rush of information on the plane. Alex turns to look at me and the pressure to answer rises. Oh, duh. Of course. “Stanford” bursts suspiciously out of me.

He snaps with his free hand. “That’s right,” he says. “Aquarius?”

I turn to look at him. That’s random. “Yeah. January 28. How did you know?”

He shrugs, laughing. “Blaire went through an astrology phase. I thought it was bullshit but sometimes it seems spot-on. I absorbed more than I thought.”

“What’s your sign?”

“Scorpio.”

I wince, and Alex laughs easily. His smile warms his face and I remember what Blaire said, about how he can be fun when he’s not around his dad. Is that what this is? Is he not the actual worst human?

“Did you keep your maiden name?” he asks.

But at this, uneasiness returns. What an odd question.

With relief, I watch West return, our drinks in hand. His expression darkens when he sees Alex at my side. He approaches, handing me a glass and bending in to kiss my jaw.

“You okay?” he asks quietly.

I nod, smiling a smile that means Everything feels weird, let’s skedaddle. West reads it, setting his hand on my bare lower back.

“We’re going to grab some fresh air.”

Alex wordlessly raises his drink to us.

We leave the tent, walking a few minutes down the path, and he stops me at a stand of mangrove trees. “What was that about?”

“He was asking me about what year I graduated UCLA, where I’m doing medical school. At first, I thought maybe he was just making conversation and is generally socially awkward, but then it got kind of weird.”

West takes a sip of his drink, and I want to lick the taste off his mouth. “I don’t like it. Alex doesn’t really do conversation for the sake of conversation.”

The tension ripples through him.

“There’s nothing for you to do about it tonight,” I tell him, taking his hand.

West looks down at our interlocked fingers and then up at me. “You’re right.” Slowly, he backs me into a tree, bending to speak into my neck. “What do you think I should do instead?”





Twenty-Four


LIAM


I’ve traveled to every continent, but I don’t think I’ve ever been somewhere as beautiful as this tiny island in the middle of the vast ocean.

The moon reflects a million overlapping crescents across the rippling surface of the water; the ocean projects deep, cerulean blue up to a night sky so heavily blanketed with stars it’s hard to believe it’s the same sky overhead back home. The beach is sugar-soft, silver in the moonlight, and completely empty, with everyone on the island back at the party.

The path from the tent led us here, and this stretch of beach leads to the wooden path, and the wooden path leads to our bridge, which leads to the bungalow, the bed, and all the possibilities of what comes next flashing like wildfire in my overheated brain. Finally, I can translate everything aflame in my thoughts and it’s all just the complex sequence of wanting someone in a hundred different ways.

But this view pulls us both up short and we stop, hand in hand, to take it all in.

“Do you ever feel completely insignificant?” Anna asks, staring out at the water.