Like a cock.
No!
Down, dirty mind!
Then the light flares across his face.
And I stop breathing.
Oh my god.
I know that face.
The lantern’s glow illuminates his features with perfect, damning clarity. The sharp line of his jaw. The close-cropped dark hair at his temples. The small scar cutting through his left eyebrow like someone signed their name there years ago.
No no no.
This cannot be happening.
Corin Saelinger.
The man I walked away from five years ago. The man whose name I haven’t said out loud since. The man I flew eight hundred miles to avoid thinking about because Jess’s New Year’s party would’ve involved too many questions about why I’m still single and too much champagne and too much honesty about the fact that I’ve measured every man against someone I swore I’d forgotten.
He’s here.
On this beach.
Holding my lantern.
He releases it. The lantern lifts from his hands, wobbling slightly before catching the wind. As it rises he turns to me, his mouth already forming words.
“There—”
But he doesn’t finish.
Because his breath catches now as well. Because the light from the ascending lantern would be playing not just across his face, but mine, too.
Recognition flares in his eyes.
Immediate.
Undeniable.
Catastrophic recognition.
Objection. Grounds: this is literally impossible. The Bahamas have how many islands and he’s on MINE?
The universe really hates me.
The lantern climbs higher, its light growing distant. Soon it’s high enough that we’re cast back into darkness, reduced to silhouettes facing each other across three feet of sand that might as well be a chasm.
Neither of us moves.
Neither of us speaks.
The moment stretches. I can hear the ocean. The distant sounds of the resort’s party. My own heartbeat, which has apparently decided now is a great time to audition for a drum solo.
Then without looking away from me, without breaking whatever this moment is, he turns slightly toward the woman behind him.
