Take Me To Paradise

I’d never taken a vacation alone before. Either I’d gone with a boyfriend, or a group of girlfriends, but never entirely on my own. It was an unfamiliar though, not an unwelcome experience. The people on the flight—drink order spectacle, notwithstanding—had been so friendly and chatty. By the time we landed, I didn’t feel alone at all. I had at least a handful of people I’d planned to meet up with later once we got in our cabanas. Hedonistic curiosity aside, it was those over the ocean cabanas that sealed it for me. I’d combed through too many travel magazines over the years with so many resorts offering them. When everything I wanted converged on this one tiny Bahamian island, I couldn’t pass it up.

People wasted absolutely no time getting down to business at Temptations. I casually looked towards the pool while waiting at reception, only to play voyeur to a group in the hot tub, kissing, sucking, and rubbing one another. I tried to avert my eyes, but it was like witnessing a car accident while stuck in stop-and-go traffic.

“Eventually you’ll get so used to it, it will become white noise.”

A deep rumble of a voice came from behind me. Whatever megahertz, the guy’s voice charted; it coaxed a shiver out of me that shook all the way to the marrow of my bones. I can’t tell you what I was expecting to see when I turned around, but it definitely was not a human equivalent to a descendant of Legolas from The Lord of the Rings.

“I come once a year,” he gestured to the lobby we stood in, with his passport and check in documents, “and it always takes me a few hours to re-acclimate.”

He was like a beam of sunlight that I couldn’t stare at too long. High cheekbones, a proud, perfectly proportioned nose, and a set of luscious, pouty lips that I would gladly take a ride on if he asked me to hop aboard.

“Just wait until you get to the other side of the resort.” He chuckled, slapping his paperwork against his hand, “this side is pretty P.G. especially while the sun is still up. The other side is,” he took a deep breath, his eyes going wide as he gestured with his hands the universal sign for mind-blowing. “Just be prepared.”

“Advice noted.” I laughed, scooting up another spot in line.

“Fraser.” He extended his hands towards me.

“Okay, I’ve got to ask. Am I missing something here? I’ve met an Atlas, a Lindsea, a Destiny, a Leo, and our airport bus driver, introduced himself as Keanu. Is there some kind of secret pretend name code no one filled me in on? Am I supposed to be like Gracie Lou Freebush?”

Fraserdropped his Ray Bans down the bridge of his nose. His eyes were the color of ice. They were so white, blue he could have easily been mistaken for some kind of anti-hero from one of those science fiction movies. Having his eyes on me, unimpeded by his sunglasses, felt like cool tendrils skating along my pulse point. A shiver sang through me unabated.

“Given you’re at a resort that caters to kinky sex fantasies, I approve of any name that has free bush in it.”

He waggled his eyebrows at me and laughed, ignoring the blush that flashed in out of nowhere like a stoplight in the middle of a freeway.

“Fraser is actually my last name. It’s what people have been calling me since high school. And its fits better than Nathan, I think anyway.” He shrugged a shoulder, smiling at me. “But you have to give major props to the bus driver. You’d have to be of a certain age to truly appreciate that joke. Or your parallel joke, given his costar.”

“Alright Rae, we have you in bungalow nine. If you take the stairs down and turn to your right, there is a shuttle waiting to take you to your room. And Fraser, nice to see you again. Here are your keys—same room as always.”