With This Fling (Summersweet Island 5)

“Jesus, Murphy,” I mutter with another roll of my eyes, even though he can’t see them.

“Did this guy die?” He turns his head and looks back at me.

“Of course not.”

“Then it’s not too late to fix things.” He shrugs, like it’s that easy.

“I’ve only known him for a week.”

The excuse sounds lame even to my ears, and Murphy picks right up on it, chuckling as he takes another sip of his coffee.

“I met my wife on Tuesday, married her on Friday, and we were happily married for twenty-five years,” Murphy tells me, my mouth dropping open when he tells me this.

I knew he was married and became a widower far too young, but he never seems to like talking about his wife very much. I’ve never pried or pushed him, letting him drop random comments here and there over the years when he felt comfortable. I knew her name was Elise, they met in line for a ride at an amusement park, honeymooned here on Summersweet Island, and she always talked about wanting to come back some day, and she died suddenly from a massive heart attack. That’s about all I knew. I had no idea everything happened that quickly.

“There’s no timeframe for having a connection with someone, and just knowing in an instant they were made for you, and there’s nowhere else you’d rather be than wherever they are. Don’t be dumb. It’s giving me heartburn.”

Murphy’s rare, sweet words are of course punctuated with his usual insult and irritability. It’s nice to know that at least one thing never changes around here.

“And yet, you’ve been perfectly fine being alone all this time since then. You haven’t needed anyone, just like me. I’ve been perfectly fine being alone….”

Until now.

“Did you fall and hit your head this morning?” Murphy questions me with a frustrated grunt as he sits back up and turns to face me on the stairs. “Do you think I like being alone? Do you think I prefer hanging out with someone as annoying as you, with your equally annoying daughters and their annoying friends all these years, instead of someone who will make my dinner and wash my jockey shorts?”

“Hey, I’ve made you plenty of dinners. Stop being a chauvinistic pig,” I finally scold him, not even taking offense to what he’s saying, because I know damn well Murphy Swallow doesn’t do anything he doesn’t want to do.

“You’re all still annoying,” he grumbles before continuing. “I’ve been alone all this time, because I was already with the best. And you can’t mess with perfection, so why even try? You’ve been with nothing but shit lords. They were not the best.”

“Shit lords?” I chuckle softly, sniffling with my unshed tears.

“Eh, that moron Bodhi said it the other day. Thought I’d try it out. Doesn’t really roll off the tongue like I thought it would,” he muses, quickly changing subjects and firing a question at me. “This Dean guy… is he the best?”

I don’t even have to think about the answer. All I can do is nod as the lump in my throat that hasn’t gone away since I woke up starts to get bigger. He is the absolute best, and I know I will never meet anyone else who makes me feel the way he does. Or drives me insane as much as he does, or makes me as happy as he does, or fits into my family and my life so seamlessly as he does, or takes care of me so effortlessly like he does.

“Then what the hell are you doing, sitting here next to me?” Murphy scoffs.

“What if he says no?” My voice cracks on the words, and the same fear that kept me from saying anything to Dean last night makes my heart start beating faster, and panic flutters in my stomach.

“Fuck that. What if he says yes?”

Murphy’s question, one that I haven’t even allowed myself to think about because I’ve been so sure of what Dean would say, makes me feel like the biggest fool in the world. I’ve been so busy worrying about what would happen if I asked him to stay and he said no that I’ve stopped myself from thinking about the opposite happening as soon as it would enter my mind.

But I let it happen now. I take my time, and I imagine what it would be like if he said yes, and I see it so clearly in my mind it almost feels like it’s already happened. Dean sitting at the table with all of us for a family dinner, the two of us snuggled up on the couch, watching a movie, arguing that we bought too many Christmas presents for everyone and who should have to wrap them all, him popping by the stand to bring me a coffee just because he wanted a kiss, both of us taking care of each other, and loving each other, and spending the rest of our lives proving just how much.

“I think I need to go,” I mutter, jumping up from the stairs, my heart pounding and my stomach flopping with excitement instead of nerves and misery.

“Tell that yahoo he owes me a new putter!” Murphy shouts after me as I race up the stairs and across my deck. “I got a dent in mine when I chucked it at his head, and it skidded across the driveway!”

I don’t even bother wasting time putting on a bra or real pants. I fly through my sliding glass door and into my house, grabbing a Dip and Twist hoodie I tossed over the back of one of my kitchen chairs and throwing it on over my T-shirt and cotton pajama shorts as I go. I only stop long enough to slide my feet into a pair of flip-flops by the door, hoping and praying Dean’s boots will be sitting there by the end of the day.

And that his socks will be balled up on my living room floor, and the smell of his cologne will be on my sheets, and his toothbrush will be on my bathroom sink, and his motorcycle will be parked in my driveway, and everything else that goes along with asking someone to stay with you and having them say yes.

I make it to the Summersweet Island Hotel in record time, since half the island is still asleep and there aren’t that many people out on the streets yet, the tires of my golf cart squealing into a parking space right in front of the building. I jump out of the cart, waving to one of the landscapers as he waters the shrubs, and race inside the lobby with my hair flying out behind me, my flip-flops smacking against the floor, and a nervous and excited smile on my face.

“Hi, LaVon. Bye, LaVon!” I shout with a wave and a laugh as she emerges from the office behind the front desk when I go racing by, and she hears me hoofing it through the lobby toward the elevators.

“Laura, wait!” she shouts after me, making my feet slip on the freshly-waxed floor as I quickly try to stop.