I look over at Alex with a ‘How hilarious is this?’ smile on my face, but he doesn’t smile back. Actually, he looks like he might be about to explode.
“No mistake,” says Emilio, clearly annoyed that his offering isn’t going down as well as he expected it to. “For the very happy couple, yes?”
“No,” I tell him, shaking my head. “No, you don’t understand. We’re not a couple. We’re not on our honeymoon.”
“No, we’re not,” says Alex, speaking up at last. It takes me a second to pick up on the emphasis he’s put on the word ‘we’. “We’renot on our honeymoon,” he says again, standing up with the air of a man who’s about to go storming off again.
“But Iamsupposed to be on mine.”
Twenty-Two
“Alex, wait!”
I catch up with him on the beach, shortly after he storms off from our table, just as I predicted he would.
“Alex!”
I grab hold of the sleeve of his shirt, bracing myself for the reaction I know is coming. When he turns to face me, though, he looks sad rather than angry, and I let his sleeve go, suddenly unsure how to handle this.
“You’remarried?” I say at last, my voice coming out in a surprised squeak, and somehow managing to make the question sound like an accusation.
Alex runs an exasperated hand through his hair, and sighs.
“No, I’m not,” he says, turning to look out at the sea, so he doesn’t have to meet my eyes. “But I should be.”
Then he plunges his hands into his pockets and goes striding off towards the shoreline, as if he’s about to go plunging into the sea.
And he calledmedramatic?
“Alex!” I yell after him. “Wait!”
I try to run after him, but the heels of my sandals sink instantly into the sand, and I have to stop to pull them off first. Then I go stumbling across the beach like a drunk woman, until I reach the line where the water meets the sand, making it feel cold and wet under my bare feet.
“Alex, would you just stop and talk to me?”
He’s standing at the shoreline, staring out at the horizon, and he doesn’t turn around as I reach him.
“I’m not planning to throw myself in, if that’s what you’re thinking,” he says calmly. “I’m trying to indicate with my body language that I don’t particularly want to talk about this. But you don’t seem to be picking up on my handy visual clues. Which is veryyou,if you don’t mind me saying.”
“Oh, no, Iampicking up on them,” I assure him. “I’m just ignoring them, becausethat’svery me, too. And because, unfortunately for you, I think you’re going tohaveto talk about it, whether you want to or not. We can’t just pretend nothing happened back there, can we? That’s a rhetorical question, by the way.”
Alex watches intently as a seagull lands beside us and starts pecking its way across the sand. At this time of night, the beach is quiet, the only sound coming from the waves frothing at our feet, and the distant hum of conversation from the hotel behind us.
“Alex, I was just mistaken for your wife,” I point out when he doesn’t answer me. “Your wife, who you’re presumably supposed to be on honeymoon with, unless the hotel reallydidmake a mistake with the table number, and there’s some totally logical explanation for this? And if there is, don’t you think I deserve to hear it?”
“Not really,” he says, turning to face me. His eyes flash dangerously, but there’s a sadness behind them that tells me to tread carefully.
“I’m sorry you got mistaken for someone else, Summer,” he goes on. “But it doesn’t have anything to do with you. It was a stupidmistake, that’s all. And we just happen to be sharing a table, anyway. Isn’t that what you said? So no, I don’t think I particularly owe you anything; so if you wouldn’t mind leaving me to feel mortified on my own for a bit, that would be great, thanks.”
A lump rises in my throat.
“No,” I say firmly, surprising myself. Alex blinks in confusion, so I guess I surprised him too.
Yay, me.
“No,” I say again. “No, I’m not going to leave you alone. I’m going to stand here beside you until you tell me what’s going on with you. Or until my feet freeze off. Whichever comes first.”
I stare down at the water. A wave washes over my toes, then retreats, pulling the sand out from under me in tiny channels. It’s a sensation I remember from my childhood, and, for some reason, it makes me want to cry.
