Hooking Up (Shacking Up 2)

“We’re on a tropical island, Amalie. It’s beautiful.”

I dip a toe—one on the foot I didn’t hurt. It’s tepid, like a cooling bath. Perfectly refreshing. My plan is to sit on the edge and ease into the water, but Lex has other ideas. He shoots up out of the water, grabs me around the knees and pulls me in with a shriek that echoes across the empty, silent water.

“Shh. You’re going to wake everyone up and then they’ll know you’re naked,” he murmurs in my ear with a laugh.

I push on his chest in an attempt to get free, but he has me by the waist. It’s barely deep enough for me to tread water. If I stretch, my toes touch the sandy bottom. I stop fighting, because his body is warm against mine, and drape my arms over his shoulders. Clasping my hands behind his neck, I lift my chin and take in the stars. The Milky Way is a thick band of cloudy shimmer streaking across the night sky.

“It’s so beautiful,” I whisper, truly appreciating it for the first time since I arrived here. Although, hot sex has a way of making even the most dreary of environments seem pretty awesome.

“Stunning really,” Lex whispers.

I drop my gaze to find he’s not looking at the stars, but at me. “I’m sure my post-sex hair is amazing right now.”

“You look like you belong in an eighties hair band video.” Lex kisses me on the chin, then releases me from his protective hold. Flipping over onto his back, he spreads his arms. “It’s too bad we have to fly halfway across the world for an experience like this.”

I mirror his position. I suppose outside of the city we could’ve had the same view of the stars, but it wouldn’t be anything like this, with white sand and pale blue water, an inactive volcano rising in the distance. And there wouldn’t be Lex either. I have a sudden moment of panic over what I’ve done and what this means. Is it just tonight? Will things be awkward in the morning? Will he even stay? Do I want him to? I think the answer to that is yes. I like what I know of him, beyond just his ability to make me come. I have no idea what Lex’s usual style is. Armstrong painted him as a playboy, and our introduction, along with his antics at the Halloween soirée last year, lead me to believe it was true. But I’ve been wrong before, so maybe I’m wrong now.

Lex’s fingers skimming the tips of my own startles me. I turn my head toward him.

“Where’d you go?” There’s softness in his eyes, worry maybe. I don’t know what it means.

“To the moon.” I gesture to the sky. “I wonder if this stops being beautiful if you see it every day.”

“I don’t think it stops being beautiful. I think people get used to having that beauty around them all the time, though, and sometimes they just take for granted that it will always be there.”

Maybe that’s what happened with Armstrong; the things that attracted him to me in the first place became commonplace. Or maybe what he saw on the inside made him change his mind about what was on the outside. I think I wanted his inside to be like his outside, but it wasn’t. Is that just how life is? I really hope not. I hope that one day, someone will see me, all of me, and that I’ll be enough. I don’t want to settle but I also don’t want to end up alone and lonely.

“Hey.” Lex grabs my hand and pulls me to him, wrapping me back up in his arms. I shiver, not from cold, but from the intensity and the sudden wave of sadness that passes through me. He tips my chin up. “Wherever you keep going in that head of yours, don’t. Okay? Just be with me, right here, in this moment. Just soak up this beauty and stay with me.”

The sudden knock at the door prevents a response. Lex sighs and drops a quick kiss on my lips. “Be right back.”

He pulls himself out of the water, hopping up onto the deck and grabbing a towel on the way to the door. I don’t like the idea of being in the water alone in the dark, but I can’t very well follow after him otherwise I’ll be flashing the concierge, and with Lex being who he is, that’s definitely not a good idea, so I float over to the ladder and wait for him to close the door before I climb out, careful not to catch my toe on the boards. I wring out my hair and grab a robe.

Lex sets the tray on the coffee table. It’s quite the spread; I don’t even know where to start. I sit on the couch cross-legged and pop a strawberry in my mouth, groaning at the sweet explosion. I could probably inhale almost everything on this platter.

“Sparkling wine or water?” A bottle of San Pellegrino and a sister bottle of sparkling wine accompany the food.

“Both?” I’m not feeling the martinis I drank this evening anymore, or the wine I consumed over the course of the afternoon.

Lex pours a glass of each for me and does the same for himself. He’s still just wearing a towel around his waist, and I’m in the robe, but neither one of us seems to mind. I certainly don’t have a problem looking at his chest.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.” He pops an olive in his mouth.

He’s so easygoing. The exact opposite of Armstrong. We would never eat on the couch, wrapped in towels or bathrobes, fresh from the ocean. He would’ve insisted on a shower, and getting changed, and eating at the table.

“How’d you get those scars on your back?” I go for a piece of cheese next.

“An accident when I was younger. Fucking around, being dumb. I fell and ripped my back open, needed a lot of stitches.”

“How many stitches did you have? That must’ve hurt.”

Lex shrugs and picks at the platter. “Dunno. It didn’t feel good, but I survived, so there’s that.”

Survived? Jesus. “What kind of accident? What did you fall on?”

“Some rocks. We were swimming where we shouldn’t have been.”

“We? Who were you with?”

He hesitates for a few seconds, fingers tapping restlessly on the arm of the couch. “Some buddies. Armstrong was there.”

“He’s not big on swimming.” Part of the reason for the beachfront hut was his dislike of deep water. That we ended up at a beach resort at all is pretty much a miracle.

“No. He’s not.” The finger tapping continues. “We used to spend a lot of time together as kids. We were pretty competitive with each other, sometimes not in a good way. That day we were drinking and things got a little out of hand. He jumped into the river and the current was way too fast.”

“I can’t even imagine Armstrong willingly jumping into a river.” He gets nervous when he’s anywhere near water that’s more than waist deep.

“He wasn’t one to back down from a challenge and the booze gave him some balls. He panicked and I went in after him. He came out with a couple of bruises and I came out with some scars.” He clears his throat. “Anyway, speaking of accidents, how’s that toe feeling? We should probably change the bandage now that you’ve been in the water.”

Obviously he doesn’t want to talk about it anymore, based on the swift change of topic. I still don’t quite understand why they hate each other so much when it seems like Lex saved Armstrong’s life.

“We can look at it when we’re done eating. I’m salty, and I need a shower.”

He leans in and kisses my neck, tongue sweeping across the skin. “You are salty.” He nabs a strawberry and, biting the end, drags it across my lips, sucking on the bottom one. “And sweet.”