Stormy Paradise

No. Absolutely not. Jessie deserves to be stranded and so much more. After all I did for him, he left me for a job. A job! And that’s after I had already moved across the country for another one of his jobs. If he has to walk all the way back from that luau, then so be it.

Another car passes and I leap for the window. Nope. Still not him.

By this point, it’s well past midnight. I’m beyond exhausted since I only arrived earlier this afternoon, and ever since I stepped foot on this island, it’s been one drama after another. I never expected to see Jessie again, much less during the vacation I’ve finally managed to take. A vacation that was meant to clear my head and give me space to decide my next step. Because I can’t stay in South Carolina forever, even though I’ve finally started to carve out a little life there. The only reason I ever went there was for Jessie, and without him, I’m having trouble finding any reason to stay.

My plan has been leaning towards returning back to the West Coast, but doing so would feel like coming back home with my tail between my legs. Plenty of my friends told me what a big mistake I was making leaving my job and everything behind for some guy who still hadn’t mentioned marriage or even a proposal after years years of dating.

But I was optimistically naïve. Everything was going to work out in the end. Only it didn’t. And now I’m not sure which way is up.

And I might have just stranded Jessie in Honolulu. Because it’s only now that I wonder to myself if he even remembered to bring his wallet. He was rather tipsy when we left earlier. And he’s always leaving stuff behind. Back when we were dating, it became one of our inside jokes that every time we left the house, we’d have to turn back thirty seconds later to retrieve something he forgot. But what if he can’t pay the bill? Or get a taxi back here? Would they call the cops on someone dining and dashing?

My mind jumps to even wilder conclusions, like what if he gets arrested. Will that affect his job back on Wall Street? Could my practical joke meant as a small taste of karma have gone too far?

I’m up and out the door without a sure plan of what I’m going to do. But I find myself walking across the yard to the rental house where Jessie’s staying. Checking the back door shows that some things never change; not only did he forget to lock the door when he left; he forgot to close it.

Walking inside a strange house with all the lights on sends my body into high alert. I feel like a thief, tiptoeing across the hardwood floor, checking over my shoulder and around corners, slowing every action to reduce the noise it might make.

Jessie always used to leave his wallet and keys on this tiny table beside the front door of our rental house back in South Carolina. And before that, he would leave them on the kitchen counter back in our West Coast apartment. I’m hoping that this habit has carried over to both New York and here, but all of the obvious places are empty. This tells me that he’s either taken his wallet with him or started placing them somewhere else. Which means I still can’t be sure where he is.

There is the chance he managed to slip inside the house without me noticing and has already fallen into bed. Doubtful, for sure, but it’s a possibility that I’ll have to explore if I’m going to get any sleep tonight.

So, walking on the pads of my feet, careful of how the floor creaks under each footstep, I make my way down the hall with only the light of my cellphone to guide me. Now feeling less like a thief and more like the first girl who gets killed in a horror movie, I’m all too aware of how large this house is compared to the little surfer’s hut I accidentally booked. I pass three doors, each open to rooms illuminated only by moonlight. Windows all over the place must be open, because the roar of the ocean surf surrounds me, like the slumbering breath of a monster I must be careful not to wake.

At the end of the hall, I find the master bedroom. And it’s empty. No Jessie. No wallet. Only a suitcase on the floor, throw open with random bits of clothing hanging off the foot of the bed.

It’s at this point, deep in a house I’m not supposed to be in, with all the lights off and my nerves ratcheted up to eleven, that the front door opens. Footsteps ring down the hall, but no lights turn on.

My heart is deafening in my ears. Is it Jessie or a real criminal who’s come up from the beach and latched onto this rare opportunity of a foolish tourist leaving their door open wide?

I’m at the window in an instant. It’s open, but there’s a screen blocking me from getting out. And the footsteps are getting closer. I raise my foot to kick out the thin barrier keeping me inside when the bedroom light clicks on and blinds me just long enough that I squint against the sudden glare. When I open my eyes, fully prepared to fight for my life, I find Jessie standing in the doorway. The bottoms of his pant legs are rolled up and his feet are encrusted in bits of dried-up sand.

At least now I know where he is.

“Feel better?”

I almost ask what he means. My revenge. And while he most definitely deserved it, now that I’m standing opposite the repercussions of what must have been a difficult journey back here, I’m left feeling like the jerk.

So I give him a wan smile that pulls up one corner of my lips. “A little.”

He takes two steps forward, halving the distance between us. “Do you know what I had to go through to get back here? No taxi wanted to come up here. I had to wait for one of the waiters to get off shift, because he happens to live just past here. Didn’t ask for any sort of payment. I guess it’s that island hospitality. Only, I’m pretty sure he was gay, because he blew past this place and took me straight to his.”

“Oh, no,” I say, but I can’t help but smile at the hilarity of his situation.

“Oh, yes,” Jessie replies. “He kept trying to get me to come inside his place. I now know what a girl feels like warding off unwanted advances.”

“How did you get away?” I ask and step closer, which he reciprocates in kind so that we’re standing so close that our breaths intermingle with the other’s.

“I walked,” he says. “Three miles down the beach. Only to find you in my bedroom for some reason.” He leans down and whispers in my ear, an action that sends tingles down my neck. “Were you worried about me?”

The air between us crackles with electricity.

The mood has changed so completely from only seconds before that it’s like waking from a nightmare. My hormone-soaked brain conveniently forgets the ways Jessie hurt me in the past. Maybe because it’s too busy bringing up all the ways we used to fill each other’s curves. The lustful embraces and sweaty adventures we used to have under the sheets, over the blankets, and on just about every other surface we could find.

It’s with this steaming mind that I lean against him so that my breasts push against his chest. Jessie takes this as his cue to finally press his lips against my neck, right under my ear. It’s an erogenous zone he’s used countless times before to get me all riled up.

And it hasn’t lost any of its potency.

Chapter 8