He takes both of my hands in his, gazing down at me with his beautiful eyes. “I’ve been wanting to kiss you since I saw you this morning.” He sighs. “Ever since UCLA, I’ve wondered what happened with us. I’ve always wanted to reach out to you, but I wasn’t sure if you wanted to talk to me—I mean, what happened back then?”
My stomach twists. “It’s hard to explain.”
“I know. I got the feeling, especially when I found out you never told your mom about us.”
I cringe. It must’ve been quite a blow to discover that your girlfriend of three years never told her family about you. And for him to find out today, of all days . . . I am such a shit. “I’m sorry, I—it’s complicated.”
The dimples appear again. “I get it. Families often are. Honestly, I thought I’d be more upset about it, but seeing you after all these years . . .”
Relief surges through my chest. He’s not upset about it! God, how is he this amazing? “I know.”
“I—”
“Hey!” someone shouts from afar.
We break apart as if we’re guilty teenagers. A middle-aged man with the world’s bushiest mustache is climbing up the hill toward the resort. Halfway up, he pauses for breath, fanning himself with a piece of paper. When he finally gets to us, his face is tomato red.
“You—” he gasps.
“Hi, Sheriff,” Nathan says. “Can I help you with something?”
Sheriff? I freeze. My insides have turned to stone.
“You can’t—can’t do this here!” the sheriff says.
“Do what?”
The sheriff straightens up, still catching his breath. “This large brouhaha the hotel is holding. Do you have the right permit for it? I doubt you do, because I sure as hell didn’t sign one. And there’s a storm coming, supposed to hit us later today. I don’t think you should let this party go on.”
Despite the weirdness of the situation, Nathan seems completely at ease. “Come on, Sheriff McConnell. It’s a wedding, and I’ve got permits from the mainland to hold large functions here. It’s all legit. I’ll have someone come by and show you the papers. And yes, we’re prepared for the storm if it does hit us. We’ll get everyone inside. It’ll all be okay.”
“Mainland,” the sheriff spits. “You mainland people think you’re better than the rest of us. I’ll be back, just you wait. You and your mainland permits.” He strides away, muttering angrily to himself. I release my breath.
Nathan must have noticed how pale I look because he says, “Are you okay?”
I’m about to reply when Fourth Aunt calls out, “Oh, you kids are still here!”
“Done with the pictures?” Nathan says, cheerily.
“Yep.” Fourth Aunt whispers to Nathan when she reaches us, “I think Mr. Sutopo is pretty tired. Might wanna get him to his room now.”
Nathan nods and hurries back to where Mr. and Mrs. Sutopo are standing. Halfway there, he pauses and says, “I’ll call a buggy down for you. That cooler’s heavy.”
“Don’t worry about us,” I babble, “we’ll be fine. You go.”
Nathan nods at me and gives me one last smile before going. We stand there, waving at them as they drive away. I turn to see Fourth Aunt smiling slyly at me.
“Um. Everything okay?”
“I don’t know, you tell me,” she says.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
She nudges me playfully with her elbow. “I saw that kiss.”
My breath comes out in a heavy whoosh. Damn it. The last thing I need is one of my aunts finding out about my love life. “Please don’t tell the others.”
Fourth Aunt grins. “You have my word. Oho, I do so love knowing something your mother doesn’t! She doesn’t know about this, right?”
I shake my head. “Anyway, we need to focus on this.” I nod at the cooler. “What do we do with it?”
“I give up trying to carry that thing all the way down to the pier,” Fourth Aunt says. She wiggles her fingers at me. “I’ll ruin my nails.”
“Yeah, I don’t think we can carry it that far either. Let’s take it back to the fridge, and we can all carry it down together when the others are free? That’ll be more manageable.”
“Okay.”
We struggle to push the cooler off the path, but once it’s back on the smooth marble floor, it’s pretty easy to wheel it all the way back to the kitchen.