Stuck in Paradise with You

Chapter 23

23

LUKE

She cut me out to protect herself.

I’m walking along the beach, cool sand falling between my toes and soft under my feet. There are lights on in the resort – in Carrie’s pod too, though I know she must be gone by now – and security briefly cast a torch light in my direction when I came down here, but my path is mostly illuminated by the blue light of the moon.

I broke her heart?

She cut me off and tore mine to shreds.

I’ve always thought she did it as a reaction to us ending. Not that break-ups tend to be nice but I do appreciate ours was abrupt, and I guess I thought she took it badly and reacted impulsively.

Us ending was hard enough to take, but what was harder was thinking that she didn’t even care enough, had never cared enough, to want to know me afterwards.

I could be bitter, even hateful, because she didn’t care as much for me as I did about her.

Argh , I don’t know. Did I think that? Did I truly believe that all this time?

I’m starting to question everything I’ve always thought and that’s a dangerous place to be.

Carrie is compartmentalized. In the past. I’ve moved on.

I needed to ask one question, to get closure. Now I have it.

So why am I walking up and down this beach, too restless to sleep, feeling like someone is crushing my internal organs?

I sink down onto the sand, bending my knees and wrapping my arms around them as I sit.

Was this all on me? Did I honestly expect her to wait for me? To wait for what? I didn’t even know how things would pan out with Anya.

The moon is beautiful. Big, bright, full, its light dancing on the gentle ebb and flow of the ocean as it teases the shore. It feels implausible that a storm meteorologists are predicting will be the greatest to ever make landfall in the Atlantic is imminent.

Yet as mystifying as the night feels, something about the calm of it makes everything so clear to me.

She loved me.

For seven years, I’ve thought that my feelings were unrequited. That to her, we were a thrill, a rush, a forbidden relationship that was fueled by adrenaline. All the while, I had been in love.

But it wasn’t one-sided at all.

She ghosted me for the same reason I couldn’t bring myself to say goodbye to her in person and end us properly back then.

She was in love with me. I was in love with her.

And we fucking blew it. I blew it.

At some point, in the early hours of the morning, I fell into a restless sleep, tossing and turning between erratic and unreasoned dreams that seemed pertinent in the moment but that now, pulling on my workout clothes, I can’t clearly remember.

It’s around five thirty in the morning, the sky is grey and lightening by the minute. I pull on my sneakers and a black baseball cap, clean my teeth and head in the direction of the terrace.

From my vantage point at the top of the rock, I can easily see the change in the sea. The usual blue hue looks closer to a shade of grey. Last night, it looked like a millpond but this morning, it’s etched by an infinite number of white caps. The chop bears the imminent reality.

I stop on the walkway at a midpoint between my pod and the main house, watching the waves. The air has changed too. It’s denser. The smell has changed. It’s saltier, tinged with the smell of aquatic life.

We need to get to Virgin Gorda and back quickly. Soon, the rough sea will be menacing. The weather bods are predicting waves up to 100 feet when Isabel hits – something like eighteen or nineteen men tall. Wind gusts up to 285 kilometers per hour.

I can admit to myself, I’m apprehensive. This is big .

I will also admit, only to myself, that I’m pleased Carrie left the island last night, even if I never see her again, because I know she’s safe.

Though, as I think that, there’s an unwelcome pressure behind my eyes and I take off my cap to drag a hand through my thick hair.

She was within my grasp, after all the empty time that spanned between us. Now she’s gone, again.

A guttural noise escapes me. The sound of frustration. Maybe anger. At her. At myself.

Not the focus of today , I remind myself.

Today is about preparing this island and Virgin Gorda and the homes of as many family members of Joe’s staff as we can for the hurricane.

When I get to the terrace, Joe, Henry, Jenny, Dave (one of the security guys), Glen (one of the gardeners), Dionne (one of the housemaids), Monique (one of the kitchen staff) and Roy (a handyman) are all sitting around one large table, having pulled a bunch of smaller ones together.

The tables aren’t set as usual with cloths and flowers in vases. Instead, they’re bare carcasses and on top of them are a basket of breads, a bowl filled with what look like hard-boiled eggs, a plate of bacon and sausages, and a board of sliced cheeses. A delicious and wholesome but nonetheless fuss-free breakfast of necessity before a long day.

‘Morning, all,’ I say, making my way into the group and accepting a mug of coffee Monique pours for me from a French press on the table. I tell her she needn’t but she asks me, ‘What else would I do?’

There’s an atmosphere about the place that’s somewhere between anticipation and adrenaline.

It’s really bizarre to think this, so there’s no way in hell I’ll confess it out loud, but I have a strange sense of excited nervousness. Like, I really don’t want a hurricane to hit the islands, or anywhere for that matter, but if it’s coming, I sort of want to see it, feel it, breathe it, live it.

I know, when I look at Joe, that he’s feeling the same. It’s like standing at the top of the hardest, fastest black slope and knowing that, no matter how treacherous the run is, you’re skiing down it and you’re going to feel the buzz of danger.

‘I appreciate it, thank you,’ I tell Monique, accepting the mug of coffee but not taking one of the spare seats at the table. Instead, I walk around to grab my own plate of food, which I set down at my spot between Joe and Jenny. I still don’t sit. I can’t. I’m fidgety.

I take a bite of sourdough bread and stand by the table, coffee in hand, waiting for it to cool enough so that I can take a much-needed hit of caffeine.

There’s not much conversation at the table besides some discussions of which boat we’re taking to the island and how many tools and chip boards we can bring with us. Then there are dead moments, where you could literally hear a pin drop. Even the dogs are lying under the table quietly, not begging for food or wanting to play.

It’s in one of these long silences that I get the shock of my life.

‘Good morning,’ Carrie says.

I think I’ve heard a ghost but when I turn around, she’s here, she’s real and she’s standing right behind me.

I jump, startled, and splash scalding hot coffee over my hand, which in turn makes me drop the mug, and the boiling hot liquid spills onto the crotch of my shorts.

‘Jesus, shit, bastard and mother-fucking fuck!’ I jump on the spot, legs wide and gangly, pulling on the material of my shorts, trying to fan the burning of my cock.

‘Oh my God!’ Carrie shouts.

I’m still dancing and holding the bridge of my nose when Carrie grabs a jug of ice-water, pulls out the waistband of my shorts, and pours the water – cubes and all – down my crotch.

As the last ice cubes drop – one, pop , then two, pop – from my shorts onto the decking, I look up to Carrie and ask, ‘Are you effing kidding me?’

‘It didn’t help?’ she says sweetly. But I know that look. It’s not innocent at all.

‘Enjoy that, did you?’ I ask.

Someone at the table sniggers, someone else snorts, then all the tension of the morning fades into raucous laughter from everyone except me – I’m livid and worried how many blisters I’m going to get on my dick – and Carrie, who looks really damn pleased with herself.

‘I didn’t not enjoy it.’ She shrugs. Shrugs . Lieutenant Chalmers may have been caused irreparable damage and Carrie shrugs .

As I’m scowling at her, she swings her hips, making her firm butt cheeks look outrageously attractive in her blue yoga leggings.

Eyes up, Luke, she’s not a piece of meat.

Only as she bends across the table to pick up food – I’m fairly certain she folds forward, hips high for my further torture – do I realize…

‘What are you still doing here?’

Everyone has calmed again and Carrie shifts to face me, food in hand. ‘The airport is closed, so it looks like I’m staying.’

My head shoots to Joe. ‘She’s stuck here?’ I’m irrationally livid with him. The storm isn’t Joe’s fault but the very last place on earth I want Carrie to be right now is the Caribbean. Not because her presence is like a slow torture to me – except when it’s a boiling hot drink, or dangerous sea creature, or kick to the face kind of pain – because… ‘There’s a cat five hurricane coming, Joe!’ I state the obvious.

Give him his due, Joe looks needlessly apologetic, but I don’t know who else to take this out on. Any fear that I’ve been harboring internally just increased a million-fold.

‘We’re all aware, matey,’ he says calmly. ‘I tried my best but the military has commandeered the ports.’

‘But—’ I stop myself as I consider the space, all the faces at the table whose families and friends will be here too. Joe’s family and friends.

‘I want to be here,’ Carrie says, and if she’s lying, it doesn’t show. ‘I’m glad I can help.’

‘Sorry. It’s a shit situation for everyone,’ I say to the group rather than anyone in particular. To Carrie, I add, ‘You’re right. More bodies will make faster work.’ I try to sound airy but I stuff my hands in my now soggy pockets and clench my fists.

‘On that note.’ Joe stands and drains the coffee that’s left in his mug. ‘We should load up the boat and get going.’

Everyone moves on Joe’s instruction – not that he meant it as an order, but this is Joe; he has silent control of, well, everything .

I hang back a beat, feeling the muscles in my cheeks twitch with the tension in my jaw.

I don’t want Carrie to be here. For one thing, she’s a gigantic pain in my ass – correction, burnt crotch. But I also don’t want her anywhere near this storm.

And the reason my jaw is stiff and my fists are clenched in frustration is because despite both those things, I do want her here.

I’m so damn thrilled she hasn’t gone, that last night isn’t how it ended between us.

Because something has shifted in me. I’m not sure how or what, but when I saw her on the terrace, it was as if she sent a surge of energy through my entire body. I can still feel a tingling under my skin from her presence.

I’m drawn to her like a moth to a flame, knowing the ending could be fatal. Unable to deny that I haven’t felt anything like this electricity in my veins before or since her .