“I’d miss you too,” I tell her. “So much. But you can’t hesitate about big opportunities just because you’re worried about me.”
“You’re right. I know you’re right. But like, we’ve been two peas in a pod forever. It would be weird not to be in the same place.”
“You have to go for it, my love,” I say. “You’re meant for big things.”
“You are too,” she says. “I mean that from the bottom of my heart.”
“Love you,” I tell her.
“I love you too, Hopie,” she says. “I would hug you if I weren’t buried in twenty pounds of sand.”
The spa ladies come back and exhume us, then lead us to a steam shower where they scour us with sea sponges native to the Caribbean. We emerge pink and tingly, wrapped in fluffy robes, and are escorted to a room facing the ocean, where we lay on massage tables and have our faces daubed in serums and then wrapped in actual kelp.
“We’re gonna smell like sushi,” Lauren says when the facialists leave us alone to absorb chlorophyll. “And then how will we inveigle our suitors?”
“I thought my suitor was off limits,” I said.
“Changed my mind on that. I’m just being overprotective. Maybe a good ol’ fashioned makeout is just what the doctor ordered.” She pauses. “If youguard your heart.”
“I will,” I promise. “If you swear you’ll stop guarding yours.”
Felix
So-called days at sea have a very strong resemblance to rehab. Gentle exercise, fresh air, board games, art classes. The only thing missing is the group therapy and twelve-step meetings.
I amuse myself with a long workout in the gym, a Codenames tournament with my family, and a very frustrating painting lesson my mother drags me to. We’re supposed to capture the horizon over the sea, but my attempt turns into a sodden blue rectangle with a watery yellow line across the middle.
“Hmm,” Mum says, inspecting my work. “Were you attempting a Roth-ko?”
“You know I don’t excel at the arts.”
“That’s not true. You’re fabulous at drawing.”
This is not fully accurate, but I can sketch passably. I designed all my tattoos.
“And,” Mum adds, “you were always so good at the tuba.”
“Oh God, don’t remind me.” I was assigned the instrument at school, where we were all required to participate in the orchestra. It didn’t take. Thank Christ it was an all-boys school, as my red-faced attempts would certainly not have helped with the ladies.
“Have you seen Hope today?” she asks, unnaturally casual. It’s clear she’s now invested in my four-day-old relationship. There’s nothing like trying to get to know someone while under the constant surveillance of your immediate family.
“I saw her this morning,” I say. “I might ask her to have supper, if you can survive one without me.”
“I think we’ll manage.”
I pull out my phone and open my text chain with Hope.
Felix:How’s the health?
Hope:Feeling *much* better.
Hope:Just left the spa.
Hope:Got my whole face wrapped in kelp.
Felix:Hot.
Hope:As I made clear, I’m trying to seduce you.
