“What do you think?” Rob asked.
Emily took the bikini and looked at the price tag. “I think this is a little more than I want to spend . . .” she said.
“My treat,” Rob said. “The outfit, too.”
“I couldn’t—” Emily started.
“Why don’t you try it on first?” Rob said. “We can figure out who pays afterward.”
* * *
—
Emily walked into the dressing room with the bikini and the green one-piece.
She put the bikini on and looked in the mirror. The suit was a bit more revealing than the ones Emily had at home in New York, but it was beautiful. She turned around. Maybe she could get used to this.
“So?” Rob asked, though the door. “Do you need me to help you tie anything in there?”
Emily blushed, imagining him imagining her in the suit. Imagining him imagining her out of the suit. That wasn’t why she was here.
“It fits,” she said. “But I think I’m going to go with the one-piece.”
As she took off the swimsuit, her heart felt like a yo-yo, going back and forth between enjoying her time here with Rob and feeling bad about her fight with Ezra, feeling like maybe she shouldn’t be here. It was as if she’d forgotten, for a moment, what had happened, what she and Ezra said to each other in New York, and in that moment of forgetting, happiness and joy snuck in, but then she’d remembered again and the space for joy disappeared.
The song she’d worked on during the plane ride morphed in her head:
There’s love in your heart
For everyone but me
You row across the water
While I drown in the sea
When I reach for you You just don’t see
Because there’s love in your heart
For everyone but me
And they say you’re kind
And they say you’re good
And I know it’s true
Because they say the same
About me to you
When you look for me
Have I already flown?
When you want me there
Are you all on your own?
When you reach for me
Can I just not see?
Is there love in your heart
That is there for me?
“Hey,” Rob called from the other side of the door, “how are you going to wear your hair for the show?”
Emily hadn’t thought about that yet. “It’s a surprise,” she called back, as she buttoned her jeans. “I’ll show all y’all tonight.”
Rob’s laughter on the other side of the door made her smile. The yo-yo was still spinning, still flying up and down and up and down. She wondered if it would ever stop.
53
“You said it’s just two shows here?” Emily asked Rob as he unlocked the hotel’s private villa.
“That’s right,” he said, holding the door open for her. “Show tonight, show tomorrow night, then I’m off to Miami for three more shows after that. Then home for a couple of days to see my girls.”
Emily walked into the villa and looked around. “Wow,” she said, taking in the plush carpeting, the gauzy drapes, the view of the ocean, and the plunge pool just outside.
“Not bad for a kid who grew up on the wrong side of the tracks in Austin, huh?” Rob was looking around as if he still couldn’t quite believe it.
“Not bad for anyone,” Emily said seriously, pausing in front of the window leading out to the pool. “I hope you really understand what you made happen—with your music, with your talent.”
“With your inspiration,” Rob said, coming up behind her. “I’ll never be able to thank you enough.”
Emily shook her head, embarrassed, and put her bag of new clothing down on the floor. “My inspiration was breaking your heart,” she said. “That doesn’t quite seem like something I deserve thanks for.”
Rob stepped closer, both of them looking out the window at the ocean, so close their cheeks were nearly touching. “You deserve thanks for loving me in the first place. For showing me what love was, for teaching me about desire and what it means to feel connected to someone else so profoundly. I mean it. Even if I never saw you again, even if you never wanted to speak to me again, I would be grateful that you made me feel that way.”
Emily turned toward him.
Then he turned, too, the air between them electric. But Emily remembered how she’d fallen apart last time their lips met. How guilty she’d felt. It seemed he remembered it, too.
“Want to go for a boat ride?” he asked, his breath warm on her cheek. “We have about an hour and a half to kill.”