“Sorry,” I say. “I know you’re not like your dad. Would your dad have ‘jumped out of the damn boat’?”
Jamie grins. “Not a chance.” He sighs and runs a hand through his hair. “I have been listening to my instincts more these days, instead of my father’s. At least, I’ve been trying to. My family is great, but sometimes I feel like they have a very specific picture of who I’m supposed to be, what my life should look like—where I should live, what I should do for work, even who I should lo—” He cuts himself off, but the unspoken word lingers between us.Even who I should love.Jamie swivels back toward me on his stool. His eyes meet mine, and my pulse quickens. “I just wish—”
“What?” I try to breathe, but the air feels trapped in my lungs. Does he wish what I wish?
Jamie looks at me, fondness and something like regret in his warm brown eyes. “I wish I had started listening to my instincts sooner.” He pauses, his eyes studying my face.
“How come?”
“If I had, we would be married right now, Sybil Rain.”
The directness of it sends a shiver through me. Does this mean he regrets being with Genevieve? Or, is it possible, maybe, somehow, that they reallyarejust colleagues like hesaid? I feel so overwhelmed and confused—and yet, full of want. I want this to be true. I want all of it to be true.
But his words also paint a different picture than the one I’d been remembering. In my mind, Jamie turning me down at the altar was him finally going with his gut and doing what he’d wanted to all along.
Now, however, it almost sounds like he let himself be convinced not to marry me. Like ending things between us was never what he wanted. And just the thought of that being possible nearly topples me out of my seat. I feel a mix of everything all at once. The grief and heartbreak of having lost him hits me like a wave, yet there’s something else stirring within. This crazy spark of hope.
Another moment of silence as Jamie pulls an olive from its toothpick skewer. I give myself one breath to indulge in looking at him the way I used to. At the small scar over his left eyebrow he got from a friend’s lacrosse stick in eighth grade, the single dimple on his right cheek, the faintest ring of green around the brown of his irises. I must look too long, because Jamie’s smile tips down on one side. Then his eyes are sliding away from mine, down to my lips. The way the heat moves through my entire body just at his glance is out of control.
“Can you even imagine it?” I ask him. “Us, being married?”
“Oh, Icanimagine it. And I have.”
I swallow another sip of martini, feeling the burn not just in my throat but all the way down to my belly.
“If I’d listened to my instincts,” he goes on, his voice growing huskier, quieter, so only I can hear, “we’d be here right nowon our one-year anniversary, sharing memories of our romantic honeymoon at this very resort.”
“Oh yeah? What kind of memories exactly?” I say, an eyebrow raised. “Us getting lost on a hike and arguing over which way to go?”
His lips tip up slightly at one side, and he blinks, as if trying to decide whether to go on. “I think we’d be laughing about how we very much got loston purpose.”
“Really,” I say with a smirk, playing along as I lean closer to him and drop my voice. “And what purpose would that have been?”
“Oh, you know, we’d heard of a particularly secluded vista—a spot where you can see the whole valley but no one can seeyou.”
I laugh. The martini glass is slick and cold under my fingers—I have to work to keep it steady. “Sounds dangerous.”
“It was,” he says, his voice still low and unwavering.
I clear my throat, trying not to break into a sweat from the rush of heat that has suddenly overtaken my body. I know we’re just bantering but… “And what else would we be remembering? Did we check out the waterfalls?”
“You could say that. We were grateful to them, anyway.”
“Grateful?” I set down the glass and brush a strand of hair out of my face.
“The roar of the current was loud enough to cover the sound of your voice as you—”
“Jamie!” I slap him lightly on the arm.
“Have I gone too far?” he asks quietly, his head dipped low, eyeing me from the side conspiratorially. It’s almost like he’sasking something else at the same time—like by saying yes, I’m confirming that I’m taken, and by saying no, I’m signaling the truth, which is that the “squid man” I claimed to have brought with me here was in fact a complete fiction.
I cross and uncross my legs, trying to figure out what to say. Because Idon’twant him to stop… but I don’t want him to know that. “Well, it’syourimagination,” I finally respond, as diplomatically as possible. “I suppose you’re just being honest.”
“That’s exactly how I feel,” he says, and something in his eyes is communicating more than just that.
“Okay, so is that all we’d be remembering? It sounds like our honeymoon would have been very outdoorsy.”
He laughs softly, the sound of it like a shiver against my skin. “Oh, no. We would have spent most of the time in our room.”
