The light is just creeping out from behind the volcano as we take our seats, but I’m already starting to shiver in the early morning air. My soaking wet sports bra is now pressed to my skin, growing icier by the moment. If there were no witnesses, I’d just remove it. Instead, I wrap my arms around myself. He glances over and frowns.
“Why do you never bring sufficient clothing?” he asks. “You were cold the other night too.”
My eyes roll. I should have known that even the viewing of a sunrise would involve a little criticism. “Was I supposed to run carrying a sweater and change of clothes?”
He unfolds himself from the chair, lean and graceful for his size. I’m not sure how he’s in such good shape, living where he does. I doubt there’s a SoulCycle. “You could have left a sweatshirt at the front desk,” he gripes. “Hang on.”
Once he’s gone, I slide my wet bra off underneath my shirt—a complicated maneuver, and one for which I feel not enough credit is given—but he returns just as I’m pulling it through the top of my tank.
His gaze flickers below my neck before it comes back up.
“I was cold,” I argue.
His gaze drops to my chest and jerks away nearly as fast. “Yes. I noticed.”
“Maybe you should look at my breasts a little less.”
He blows out a breath, staring at Diamond Head. “Asking a man not to look at your breasts is like asking him not to watch volcanoes explode. The human race would die off if we were capable of ignoring that kind of thing.”
The feminist in me wants to tell him how wrong that statement is, but I feel a tiny fist in my core clench with the kind of desire I’d almost forgotten existed. I should be uncomfortable with the idea of Josh looking at my chest, but strangely, it’s the opposite. I could create a lot of fantasies about this weird exchange if I were going to allow myself to do it. Part of it is his size—I picture feeling overwhelmed by him in bed, overcome. And part of it is just him, and that thing boiling inside him, just below the surface. I’d like to see what happens when the lid is removed at last.
A waitress approaches with a tray and a pile of towels. She hands Josh the towels, which he then hands to me. While I cover myself up, head to toe, like a mummy, she sets two cappuccinos on the table between us. I thank her and wrap my hands around one, savoring the warmth while he signs the check.
I’m now perfectly happy and toasty and the sun is finally breaking through the clouds to the east. “This is perfect,” I say with a sigh. “Even the stupid sunrise part.”
“So glad the pop princess is finally impressed. I was scared I’d disappoint you.”
I grin at him. “Are you sure it’s not too much happiness? Too much American excess? Shouldn’t you suffer a little more to better serve all your starving Somalians?”
He sighs wearily. “You really hold a grudge, don’t you?”
I laugh unhappily. He doesn’t know the half of it.
The Baileys are going golfing today, and then on to Pearl Harbor. The only way they could make this sound less appealing is if they were throwing a trip to church or a seminar on microfinance in the middle, so I politely bow out to get a hot stone massage and lie out by the pool.
I’ve just reclined in a lounge chair when my phone rings and I see Six’s name, calling by video. He must finally be out of jail.
“Babe,” he groans, running a hand over his handsome and deeply-in-need-of-a-shave face. “I’m so sorry.”
Bringing drugs almost anywhere in Asia is a rookie error and he should have known better, but it’s hard to get mad at him when he’s just spent over a day in jail, is missing the trip, and looks so miserable. “I’ll probably forgive you,” I reply, pushing my sunglasses on top of my head. “Was it bad?”
He shrugs. “Mostly it was boring. So what am I missing?”
I turn the camera, showing him the pool with the sea behind it. “It’s amazing.”
“Cool. Now let me see the better view,” he says. “Let me look at you.”
I smile reluctantly, turning the camera back to face me.
“You’re wearing an awful lot of clothes,” he suggests.
I roll my eyes. “I’m only in a bikini. I’m also in public.”
“Go to the room and remove it for me,” he says. “I just spent a day in foreign prison. Don’t I deserve a reward?”
I wait until the waiter passes before I answer. “A reward for ditching me on a trip with your family? No. And as I recall, we had a deal about this trip: no sex, remember?”
It’s the one rule I made while giving in so easily otherwise. And I’m not sure if that extends to phone sex, but it seems like a slippery slope.
He shakes his head. “Lower the camera, at least. Let me see my second favorite things in the world.”
“What’s the first?” I reply. “I assume it’s my brain.”
“Of course not,” he says, smirking. “Not until I figure out how to get my penis in there, anyway.”
I snort laugh. That’s always been the issue with Six. He’s too damn charming to stay mad at, even when he’s, you know, awaiting trial.
And this is why he’s perfect for me: he’s just enough fun without ever being someone I might let myself trust.
9
JOSH
January 24th
I wake the next morning on the couch, realizing I’ve just heard the slam of her door. She’s so loud normally I can’t imagine how she made it that far without waking me. There’s always a thud or a squeak or a muted Oh, fuck from her room if she’s up, which I find both amusing and irritating. I dress and brush my teeth, planning to catch up with her on the road, which isn’t exactly difficult. She’s ridiculously slow.
I get downstairs and find, to my surprise, that she’s still here, stretching against a pillar near the lobby.
“Were you waiting for me?” I ask.
She jumps in shock and I place a palm on her bicep to steady her.
“Of course I wasn’t waiting,” she sniffs. She turns back to the pillar and continues to stretch. “Sometimes I like to warm up.”
She’s full of shit. She was totally waiting for me. I hate that I’m pleased by that. I’m doing this out of duty and nothing more, and she’s putting up with it because I won’t give her another option. It’s not as if we are going to be friends when this trip is over.
We run the same route as before, down past the shops and the park and on toward Diamond Head. I know she ran farther and faster the first day just to spite me, but she’s got to be the only female I know who would just keep doing it, day after day.
When we’re done, we go to the chairs by the pool again. I have no idea why she’s coming along, but hopefully she can refrain from discussing sex robots, which I’d never heard of and now can’t stop picturing.
I get her warm towels because she’s incapable of remembering to bring a sweatshirt, and soon she’s wrapped up, sipping a cappuccino and watching the sunrise beside me.
“Do you think anyone lives up there?” she asks, nodding at Diamond Head. “There’s probably palms, a pineapple tree. You could build yourself some kind of hut, live off fruit.”