SIXTEEN
Lauren
The week after Damien and Kate’s wedding is the real magic, I discover. It’s mostly due to the Hastings family, a band of hilarious chaos muppets who love to laugh, drink, swim, and live in the moment. As I observe them all throughout the week, I’m both charmed and a little overwhelmed —in a good way — at how much energy they all have.
I also come to understand Max a little more through his family. He’s so obviously the caretaker, the organizer, the oldest son who is trying to keep everyone safe and happy. It’s adorable, really. And a little familiar, too, almost like looking at a mirror of myself.
From the minute I open my eyes Sunday morning, I’m swept up in what feels like a whirlwind, laid-back party train. The dress code is whatever you slept in, the schedule is whatever Remy suggests at noon, and the Hastings family treats the entire resort like their personal summer camp because, technically, it is, at least while they’re renovating.
A pattern among us emerges quickly: coffee on someone's balcony, a loose plan that dissolves within an hour, and all of us — me, Max, Kate, Damien, Tate, Remy, and whoever Natalia brings when she shows up — ending up somewhere unexpectedby sunset. It’s either the picnic area at Paradise Springs, the pool deck at the resort, or one of the bars in town.
I'm on the walking cast now, which the doctor had approved at my follow up appointment and which Natalia had celebrated with margaritas. No surgery needed — the fracture is healing cleanly on its own. Six to eight weeks total, she said, and then I'd be back to normal. She'd also said I could transition to the walking cast, which felt like a promotion.
I do, privately, miss the scooter a little. Still, I can manage the resort grounds slowly and with dignity. I cannot manage the uneven limestone path to the springs, which is a tragedy I've decided not to dwell on. Maybe when I get steadier and stronger.
The pool is a reasonable consolation and everyone loves it there, so that’s where we park ourselves on most afternoons.
“You're not supposed to get the cast wet,” Max calls out from his lounge chair, where he’s hunkered with a laptop.
“I'm fully aware.” I'm sitting on the pool steps with my foot elevated on the edge, the rest of me blissfully submerged to the waist. “I'm not getting it wet. I'm getting everything else wet.”
“That's a fine distinction.”
“I'm a fine person.”
“You are extremely fine.” Max looks at me, smirks, and raises an eyebrow. I laugh in response. Meanwhile, Remy cannonballs in from the far end. The spray catches my cast. I level a look at him as he surfaces.
“Sorry, Lauren. Didn't see you there.”
“You had a running start, Remy.”
“To be fair,” Max says, closing the laptop, “I saw you there too.”
Remy points at him. “Betrayed by my own brother.”
“I'm not your brother right now. I'm a witness.” Max sets the laptop on the table and pulls off his shirt, and I openly ogle him.Goodness, he is gorgeous, a fact that I think about way too often in the deep corners of my mind. “Move over. I'm getting in.”
“Finally,” I say. “I was starting to think you were married to your laptop.”
“I'm in a complicated relationship with it.” He lowers himself into the water next to me.
He's been working for twenty minutes and keeps glancing at his screen with the expression of someone who made a promise to himself and is finding it difficult to keep. He has a meeting early next week — something with a buyer's representative on the mainland — that he's been mentioning often. I've noticed the way his jaw tightens when it comes up.
“Put the laptop away,” I say.
“I'm nearly done.”
“You said that twenty minutes ago.”
“I could splash you,” I say, grinning at him.
He closes the laptop.
Damien surfaces next to Remy, shaking water from his hair, and Kate materializes on the pool deck in her swimsuit with a cooler. She has a handful of days left with her new husband before his California obligation begins. Her mom has given her the week off from the tiki bar, and it occurs to me that Kate and Damien should be on their honeymoon, but instead they’re here.
With all of us.
Watching them together, I feel something I've been feeling all week — this complicated mix of warmth and longing. Kate looks like a person who has been poured into the exact right container. I wonder what that feels like from the inside and debate whether I should ask her.
