“Anyone want to scope the beach?” I ask, looking towards the sandy path that weaves between the condo buildings behind us.
“You go ahead,” Marianne tells me, pulling a magazine outfrom her bag and leaning back into her questionable lounger. “My airplane sandwich had some iffy lettuce and I don’t trust myself more than five minutes away from a bathroom.”
“Roger. And gross. I’ll return with a full report,” I promise.
I leave my sunglasses and ratty towel behind before trotting down the sandy path in search of the ocean. Before I sold my soul to the gods of academia and moved to Chicago, I would spend nearly every evening sketching by the sea. The little Seattle bungalow we grew up in was ancient and most likely harboring lethal amounts of black mold, but it was only a short bus ride away from the Puget Sound. Even though it was far too cold to swim in, there was nothing I loved more than spending an hour watching the waves spray against the craggy coastline.
But what waits at the end of the path is a far cry from the Washington coast. Sprawling before me is a perfect white sand beach that flanks a sea so clear, I have to shield my eyes to look directly at it. I try to remember the last time I’ve seen a beach this beautiful—hell, the last time I’ve seen one at all. Five years? Seven?
These are not the cold pacific waters of my childhood in the Pacific Northwest—ferocious and barnacled and stinging with salt. This is a scene from a screensaver: something Apple might plaster on your computer background to make you forget, just for a second, that you’re trapped in a library in Illinois zoning out over textbooks. A library, I’m reminded with a stab of pain, I might never see again.
I look back to see if anyone’s around to witness my ancient black granny panties before I strip down to my bra and underwear and charge down the expansive beach, white sand erupting around my feet like powder with every footfall. My swimsuit may be buried in the bottom of my bag somewhere, but I didn’t come all this way to sit on a lounger.
The water is even more turquoise up close, and I step in to feel how warm it is against my feet. Walls of crystal clear oceantaller than I am break in the distance and roll out across the shimmering reef. But there’s not a wave in the world that can stop me from getting in this water. I wade out into the break and throw myself into the whitewash like a kid, letting the waves drag me under and pull me out. Even without goggles, I can see the colorful oranges and blues of the reef and tropical fish darting underfoot. I swim farther out, ducking beneath wave after wave until the sea is calm and glistening beneath the Fijian sun.
Suddenly, the water tilts beneath me, and I open my eyes just in time to see the barrel of a massive wave folding over my body. I flail to get free, but it’s too late—the force of it throws me down into the reef. I feel my right foot scrape against the surface of the coral, hard, before I’m spat back out to the surface.
My foot throbs like I’ve sliced it open. Every warning I’ve ever heard about not bleeding in open water flashes through my head as I swim to shore, coughing and spluttering through the tangled hair that’s plastered over my face like seaweed. As soon as I’m close enough to stand, I stop to check the damage. But there’s no blood in the water. It’s not until I step out onto the sand that the real pain begins—a shock of pain that rips through my toe like a knife wound. OfcourseI would hurt myself my first hour of vacation. Maybe this is karma for likening Jules’s future mother-in-law to a freeze-dried toad.
I scan the horizon, wondering if Will and Marianne are close enough to yell to. But the only figure on the sand is a man jogging half way down the beach. Guess I’m heading back solo. This is going to be alongwalk.
I take a step forward and wince. Was I stung by a jellyfish? I grab my foot, trying again to check for blood, but only succeed in tipping over onto my butt. Burning hot sand fills my underwear and sticks to my wet shoulder and legs as I tumble down.
“You alright?” I hear someone call, and I look over to seethat the lone runner is heading in my direction. Not just a runner, I realize—a very hot one. Curly surfer-gold hair falls over his dark sunglasses as he speeds towards me, his tan shoulders glistening with sweat. Beads of it run down the length of his chest to his perfect, caramel abs: the kind of abs Marianne would call “lickable.”Holy shit,I almost say aloud. Is being gorgeous a requirement to live on this island? I look down at my own ratty sports bra and Chicago-pale stomach. Would it have killed me to put on some self-tanner, just once?
“I’m good,” I wince, waving him away. I’m not about to embarrass myself any further in front of GQ’s cover boy, even if I have to die out here in the no-ozone sun.
The runner pulls off his sunglasses, an almost comedic gesture given his Baywatch-level body, to reveal a pair of striking, sea-water blue eyes.
“You sure about that?” he asks as he stops beside me.
I put my injured foot down to stand and let out an involuntary yelp.
“Woah” he says, grabbing my elbow to lift the weight off my foot. His accent isn’t American—Australian? British?
“Sit back down,” he instructs. “Let me have a look at it.”
I let him help me to the ground, where I plop unceremoniously in the sand. I cringe, fully aware that my wild hair and sand-covered limbs give me the overall air of a beached sea creature.Of coursehe has to be hot.Of courseI had to go swimming in my enormous airplane underwear.
“I think I stepped on something.”
I tense as the stranger cups his hands beneath my left ankle.
“I’ll say you did,” he says in his mystery accent. “You’ve got half a dozen urchin spines lodged in there.”
“That sounds bad.” I crane my neck to see what he’s seeing. “Is that bad?”
“Depends if you like the feeling of your foot on fire,” hejokes. New Zealander, I think. “I reckon there are people somewhere on the internet who’d pay big bucks for that.”
“Please don’t make me laugh,” I plead. “It’s hard to be mortified and amused at the same time.”
“Then I’ve accomplished my mission.”
Hot runner smiles, and I can see from the fine lines around his eyes that he’s not as young as I originally guessed. Maybe thirty, give or take a few years.
“Are you here alone?”
I shake my head.
