Until I Met You

‘How about you?’ Samantha looked around and spotted Adrian clear across the room chatting with Chris and Jen. Still, she lowered her voice. ‘How are things going with Adrian?’

‘Downhill.’

‘Oh, no!’ Samantha lost her fizzy wine buzz.

‘We’ve decided to shelve any talk of moving until we get home. From here on out, it’s day drinking and dancing. If there’s any drama, it won’t come from me.’

‘Day drinking and dancing sounds great, but I hate that you’re upset.’

‘I’m not. I’m frustrated. Drinking and dancing will take care of it.’ He did a little dance, shaking his hips. ‘Let’s go!’

Frowning, Samantha set her glass down and followed him to the dance floor.

From the day she’d met two of her best friends, Samantha was drawn to Jasmine’s ease and grace and Hugo’s joie de vivre, the authentic kind, not this fake stuff he was serving up now. He was tense beneath the tan and his devilish little grin didn’t quite reach his eyes. Even his dance moves were rote, uninspired. She sensed there was more drama to come.

How was it that they were all leading double lives? They hid so much from each other. Naomi’s secret pregnancy, Jasmine’s feud with her mother, Hugo’s imperfect perfect marriage … all this time they’d chatted nonstop about the shows they watched, the shoes they splurged on, the celebrity couples they obsessed over. They exchanged memes like crazy. No social media scandal went unexamined. Meanwhile their everyday burdens stayed buried.

Who was she to complain, really? Hadn’t she kept her break-up a secret, not revealing it until the last minute? And even then, she’d withheld as many details as she possibly could. Advanced torture techniques couldn’t get her to admit she’d been dumped. This was wrong. It had taken a once-in-a-lifetime reunion on a Caribbean island to get all this stuff out. Going forward, they had to do better.

Jen danced toward her. ‘Get out of your head! Loosen up!’

That was easy for her to say. She got to stay here and unwind while Samantha went through an emotional spin cycle.

The doors flew open and a freshly shaved groom strutted in. ‘I hear there’s a party!’

‘You can’t be here!’ Jen cried, no longer feeling loose. ‘It’s bad luck to see the bride on the wedding day!’

That outburst was a waste of breath. The bride threw herself in her groom’s arms. He picked her up and spun her around to the delight of everyone. Samantha was just as taken by the happy couple as anyone, but she kept her eyes on the door, watching for Roman. After two seconds, she lost patience and asked Anthony outright.

‘He’s not far,’ Anthony replied. ‘One of the caterers stopped him to ask about his grandmother. It was sweet.’

It was sweet. It was also a stark reminder that she hadn’t met Roman’s grandmother and likely never would. Their time was running out. Now that the happy couple’s future was secure, Samantha had to focus on her own happiness.

She slunk out of the party unnoticed. As she hurried down the path, she heard Roman call out her name. She stopped and swivelled around. There he was, heading toward her from the opposite direction, cutting through the grass, clean shaven and fresh as the day. She was slightly resentful that fifteen minutes in a barber’s chair was all it took to complete a man’s glow-up.

‘Where are you sneaking off to?’

‘I was looking for you.’

He had reached her with a few strides. Now he was towering over her as usual. She did that thing where she let her head fall back to gaze up at him. He did that thing where he bent forward and touched the tip of his nose to hers.

‘Don’t you want to stay and party with your friends?’ he asked.

‘If I know Amelia, and I do, she will shut down this party in a few short minutes. When she does, we won’t want to be there.’

‘You’re right. Let’s get out of here.’ He tucked her arm under his and their steps fell in line. ‘I hear there’ll be something of a rehearsal at three and then you’ll be in lockdown until sundown.’

Samantha slapped a palm to her forehead. ‘I can’t deal with all these changes!’

‘But it’s early still,’ he said. ‘That gives us a few hours. What would you like to do?’

She ran down the mental list of all the things they hadn’t had a chance to do. Top of the list was a midnight swim. Would a midday swim make up for it? ‘The pool is likely deserted. We could go there.’

‘I came around that way. Anthony’s nephews have taken it over. But I know somewhere we could go.’

‘You do?’

‘You didn’t think there was just one pool in this entire resort, did you?’