Ryke stares at me for a long moment, and I wonder if he senses my longing for porn too. Then Lo says, “Unless you want to start being in her fantasies.”
Ryke grimaces. “It won’t happen again.”
He slides out of the bathroom, and I return to the couch, and slap Lo lightly on the arm. There’s no way that Ryke would ever fill my fantasies, desperate or not.
Only when my gaze drifts, do I realize that the couch is lower than the chairs that Ryke, Melissa, Connor, and Rose sit on. I can clearly see their legs underneath the table. And while Connor’s knees knock with Rose’s, her ankles are modestly crossed.
Melissa and Ryke are a different story. It’s like the angels on my left side and the devils on the right. I should watch Connor and Rose’s chess tournament. Connor has won two games and Rose has won three. By Rose’s pursed lips, I can tell she’s losing the current round.
But I can’t deny the call of the bad.
Melissa may think she’s stealthy, but her hand runs up Ryke’s leg and towards the inside of his thigh. I even catch her unzipping his jeans. They sit side by side, and I have a worse view of Ryke, but his hands aren’t on the table either, if you know what I mean.
A sudden burst of jealousy infiltrates me. Because she can have sex on the plane. Twice. Or three times. She can even grope her somewhat-boyfriend, and he can run the bases with her.
“Try not to think about it,” Lo says. “And that probably starts with not looking at it.”
I turn to meet him, and he gives me a sympathetic smile. But he looks just as tweaked as me. “How are you doing?” I ask.
“I’d feel better if I knew you were okay.”
“When we land do you think we can…？”
He doesn’t answer me. He just pulls me to his chest and strokes the back of my head, his fingers lost in my hair. He finds the remote and turns the volume up on the television. I take his silence as an answer anyway.
I’ll have to wait.
***
The gold ornate lobby has dark green floors and large Mayan statutes along the tiled walls. Decked out with four pools, more than a dozen restaurants, and even more clubs, the resort is much fancier than I feel.
Melissa waits with me by a totem fountain while the others join the line to the front desks, hoping to check us into our rooms in a reasonable hour. Ryke’s somewhat-girlfriend runs her fingers through her blonde hair again. She wears no makeup, which reminds me a little of my youngest sister. Daisy can pull off that fresh-faced look but still be pretty enough to pose for a magazine. Melissa looks prepared for the cover of Sports Illustrated—perfectly toned arms and clear complexion. Beauty and brawn.
I’m still trying to nail down the beauty bit, and with my chicken legs, I don’t think I’d stand a chance to achieve the brawn part.
“Do you have a brush?” she asks. “My hair always tangles in the humidity.” She flashes an outgoing smile, and I suddenly feel badly for never instigating a single conversation before now.
Lo and I mostly kept to ourselves on the plane. I did cheer on Rose at one point—that was before she lost her chess tournament and knocked over Connor’s king in frustration. Connor tried not to gloat, but even the appearance of a smile irked Rose. She called a Scrabble rematch, which she won. So in Harry Potter’s epic final words, “All was well.”
But even in a tight, cramped space, Lo and I blocked out the rest of the world and whispered to ourselves. We have to work on that. So from this moment on, I make it my goal to be a better friend…or person…whatever you call someone who needs to work on her social skills.
And that starts with a brush—that I don’t have. I cringe. “Sorry, I didn’t pack one.” Has she seen my hair? “I’m sure Rose does.”
Melissa shrugs. “I can wait.” She snaps a blue band off her wrist and ties her hair into a small bun at the base of her neck.
“So…how did you meet Ryke?”
“At the gym. One of the machines wasn’t working, and he helped me.”
“Sounds like Ryke,” I say with a nod. He’s a fixer. “Did he punch the machine into submission too?”
She frowns, and I immediately regret my words. Oh my God. I’m an idiot. “I mean, because he’s kind of aggressive…” I cringe again. What is wrong with me? “Not in like a woman-hitting way. I don’t think he’d ever do that. He just, you know, punches first and asks questions later.” Lily, shut up!
She looks mildly freaked out—which isn’t too bad. She could be horrified to the point of darting away. “We haven’t been going out that long, but I’ve never seen him hit anyone.”