“So, do you think I should make these assholes a festive towel sculpture shaped like a cock?” I call out to her. “I know a swan is the normal thing, but given their tastes—”
Behind me, someone clears their throat, and I straighten to see two people standing in the foyer, a man wearing a Hawaiian shirt in violent shades of red and green, a woman in a matching dress. They’re holding mai tais, their faces bright with embarrassment or sunburn or both, and I offer a weak smile.
“Aloha?”
An hour later, I’m standing in the parking lot of the Haleakala, in my cutoff shorts and T-shirt, my uniform and name tag back in the hands of my boss—well, former boss now—Mr. Chen, and while I should be freaking the fuck out, I tip my face up to the sun and smile.
No more sheets. No more towels. No more stray fingers “accidentally” brushing my ass. I’ve wanted to quit for over a month now, but there’s something freeing about having the choice taken out of my hands. It’s not my fault the Sandersons walked in when they did. Not my fault they’d left all that stuff on their bed in the first place.
Not my fault that I don’t have a job anymore.
Now, I just have to tell Nico.
TWO
“Gotta say, losing my job because of a dildo is a first.”
Since I’m officially unemployed, I can meet Nico at his favorite lunch counter on the island. He sits across from me, smelling like salt water and engine grease, but still so handsome I can feel it in the pit of my stomach, my knees. He’s got a red bandana holding his sandy hair back from his face, and his skin is tanned and smooth, a tattoo curling around his bicep.
If I’m honest, the tattoo is more than a little douchey. Typical white dude tribal shit that doesn’t actually mean anything to him, but three days after we met, he added a curling L to one edge of the tattoo for me. That was sweet, at least.
He was sweet.
He still is, of course, but it was different when I first met him. When our relationship was heady and new, the calm he radiated was a welcome balm after years of dealing with Mom’s cancer: the hospitals, the chemo side effects, the screaming fights with my dad over the phone.
Nico is the kind of guy who can say something like, “Don’t pick up what you don’t need to carry,” and you actually believe it—that he’s figured out some better, more enlightened way of living—and you don’t even want to punch him.
Well, you don’t always want to punch him.
Now he just slurps his soda and nods at me. “Job was bullshit anyway.”
“Such bullshit.”
“And you can have another one, like, tomorrow,” he goes on, pointing at me with his cup.
I stab at a noodle and shrug. “Why don’t we look at how much we’ve saved up? Maybe we can finally get the Susannah fixed?”
He doesn’t answer that, just rolls his head from side to side in this gesture that I’ve seen a thousand times from him. It basically signals a mix of “eh” and “we can talk later,” and frustration suddenly shoots through me.
There’s no getting away from the fact that Nico is happy here. He says that he wants to keep traveling like we’d planned, but the more time passes, the more I can see him settling in, putting down roots. He likes his job at the marina, and working with boats. He makes friends everywhere because he’s that kind of guy, so all his coworkers love him （hence us having a free place to stay）。 If anyone can “bloom where they’re planted,” it’s Nico.
I’m not sure I’ve ever bloomed anywhere. Sometimes I wonder if I even can. Maybe that’s why the idea of never being planted in the first place is so appealing to me.
Or maybe I’m just sick of cleaning up other people’s shit, sometimes literally.
I poke at my food and glance toward the counter, where the line has finally thinned. It’s nearly two, which means they’ll close soon, and Nico will go back to the marina while I’ll go … back to the house, I guess? Sit on the couch, wait for Nico to come home?
That’s almost more depressing than cleaning hotel rooms, and I suddenly have the tiniest pang of regret for what happened today. Maybe I should’ve really apologized to the Sandersons, groveled even. Begged Mr. Chen for another chance.
But I can’t let myself go down that road, because if I start regretting one thing, there will be a thousand other decisions to second-guess. Quitting school, the way things went down with my dad, those lost years of partying with friends who weren’t actually my friends. The aimless way I’d drifted through life—until I’d met Nico.