“Exactly. Practice on your tree trunk will get me there. That means we need more practice.”
“Yes, but not today. Let’s go.”
“My birthday was days ago,” he pouts. “Stop giving me gifts.”
“I wasn’t able to make this happenonyour birthday for reasons which will become clearer when we get there, so this is a belated gift.”
“You’ve already given me three!”
“Two,” I correct.
“Your ass counts as a gift,” he argues. Entirely seriously.
I shake my head. To be young and obsessively horny again. Sweet, sweet Lie. Then again, being with Lie has definitely made my libido far more active than it had been months ago.
We head down the road toward the docks. I’d love to hold his hand right now, but there are eyes everywhere, and on an island where everyone knows everyone, that shit spreads like a virus.
Soon,I tell myself. Secrecy isn’t forever.
Speaking of secrecy… “Did you subtly drop your alibi for tonight?” I ask.
Lie nods. “I’m meeting Cash and we’re double dating on Anapos.”
“Does Cash have a secret boyfriend, too?”
By the way Lie smirks and shrugs, I think that there’s definitely something more to that than I’m hearing. Good for Cash. With the nastiness that is his brother, he needs something good in his life. Especially since I’m taking up so much of Lie’s time.
“You?” Lie asks.
“Working. I might have mentioned needing to check on a few different establishments, so if Nason happens to pop into Hinky Dinky, it won’t be suspicious if I’m not there.”
“The life of a manager. Is that going well?”
“There are far more meetings than I anticipated,” I say. “Which I know sounds dumb because every manager complains about the number of meetings they have. I’m not sure why Ithought it’d be different for me. I miss just being behind the bar.”
“Isn’t a manager’s job to delegate? Maybe you can hire a secretary stand-in to attend your meetings.”
I laugh. “That would be awesome, but I don’t think that’s how it works.”
“At least Taylor isn’t there every day, right?”
“Small victories.”
Our conversation continues circling around work while we’re surrounded by other residents of Kala on the ferry. We stay on until we’re dropped off at Anapos. Lie doesn’t stop his chatter until he realizes I’m leading us along the docks instead of somewhere inland.
“What’re we doing?”
“You’ll see when we get there.”
“Or you can tell me, and I’ll still act surprised.”
“Or you can be patient.”
“It’s like you don’t know me at all,” Lie laments.
I chuckle. “Fortunately for you, we don’t have far to go. Let’s go, pouty.”
We turn down a dock toward one of the single couple tour boats. Cash is waiting for us with a big smile. Lie beams. He leaves my side and runs to Cash, wrapping him in a hug as if they haven’t seen each other in months.
