“How about this?” he proffered. “You go read, and I’ll put in another hour of work here. Then I’ll come down and hang out for a bit. Assuming that’s okay with you?” he asked.
“Sure.”
“And if you decide to leave instead, no worries.”
“Okay.”
“Cool. Hopefully I’ll see you in a bit, then.”
“Sounds good,” I said. Then, because it would be weird to just keep standing there remembering how it felt to have our fingers entangled on the airplane just hours earlier, I turned around and let him watch me walk away, praying that my ass looked good from the angle of a second floor balcony.
I guess my estrogen overload brought with it some sort of electric force field, because as soon as I sat down in my chair, Mom jostled awake. “Mm,” she said. “Shit. I fell asleep.”
“It’s fine,” I said.
She rolled onto her side to look at me. “What’d I miss?”
“Nothing.”
“Liar,” she mumbled.
“Fine. He saw me from his balcony.”
“Oh, okay. So you were just busy having a reverse Romeo and Juliet moment. I see,” Mom said, pointing her toes and stretching out like a cat. “Romeo, Romeo,” she said, in her best attempt at a Shakespeare imitation. She coughed a few times, a mucousy, infectious-sounding hack. She sat back up and I reached over to pat her between the shoulder blades. Finally, she grabbed a napkin and spit out a wad of thick, pink saliva. “Sorry,” she said. “That’s gross. I guess I shouldn’t drink in the sun.”
“You okay?”
She nodded. “Yeah, I’m good. Better now that I got that out.” She drew in a breath. I could hear a slight wheeze. She continued to catch herbreath and clear her throat. Finally, she took a deep, cleansing breath. “I think it’s mudslide time.”
“Is it?”
“Most definitely. Excuse me, sir?” She flagged down a beach server. “Can we please have two mudslides?”
“Of course, miss. Can I just get your room number, please?”
“401,” I said. “And, can we please have some water as well?” I added.
“Of course,” the server replied. “Be back shortly.”
He left, and I turned to Mom. “You sure it’s a good idea to drink something thick like that?” I asked.
“I’m sure. To be honest, I haven’t been this relaxed in months.”
Our mudslides came, and we toasted. “To a beautiful vacation,” she declared. We drank. I asked her to thin out the drink in her system by sipping some water, and she did. We laughed. She didn’t cough again. Instead, she went back to listening to her AirPods and I returned to my book, happier than I had been in a long time.
Mom had dozed off again by the time Beckett appeared. He was a sight to behold, entirely scrumptious in red board shorts and a faded gray T-shirt that clung to his upper arms for dear life. He was careful not to wake her when he noticed she was asleep, motioning with a nod of his head that maybe we should go for a walk.
“Wow,” he commented when his bare feet touched the water’s edge. “The water’s amazing.”
“Right?”
“Seriously.”
“So, did you get much work done?” I asked, trying to tamp down the butterflies in my belly.
“No,” he admitted. “Not for lack of trying, though.”
“Remind me what your book is about?”
