“It is a beach.” He gestured helplessly at the view past the lobby, where, indeed, there was a beach. On said beach were many people. The people were, as a strong general rule, availing themselves of the clothing-optional option. “It’s a beach with extra honesty and a strong sense of self.”
“Finn,” I growled, unable to pull my gaze from a pair of men walking—and dangling—nearby.
“Mark, I swear on my mother, I never read past the photos. The photos had clothes.”
“Of course the photos had clothes. It was a charity auction. There were nuns.”
“There weredragnuns. That’s different—”
“Checking in?” the clerk repeated with the serene patience of a man who got paid the same whether or not we ever finished this conversation.
It suddenly occurred to me with fresh and terrible clarity that Finn had packed a duffel of T-shirts and tiny trunks for this trip. He’d done it in eightminutes. Some part of me had assumed he was just being Finn.
He hadn’t been just being Finn.
He’d packedcorrectly.
He’d packed for the resort that actually existed, while I’d packed three suitcases for one I’d invented in my head. The gap between his luggage and mine was, I understood now, the whole joke of the situation rendered in canvas and nylon.
I’m a large man, and when I’m upset, I get larger. I watched the realization of exactly how upset I was cross Finn’s face. To his credit, he didn’t back off. He set his jaw and held his ground, all five-foot-eight of him, chin lifted at me like we were the same size, which had been his way since the first week I’d known him.
“We can leave,” he said quietly. “Say the word and I’ll have the van turn around. We’ll find a normal hotel with a continental breakfast, and you can keep every stitch of all three suitcases on for a week. I dropped you in this. I’ll get you out of it.”
There it was.
It was the thing about Finn that made it impossible to stay angry at him, which was that the second he saw he’d actually hurt me, every ounce of mischief drained out and left behind a man who’d genuinely turn a van around in a foreign country to spare myfeelings.
I looked back at the lobby, at the ceiling fans and the tree-sized desk and the impossible water past it. I looked at the man with the piña colada, settling into a poolside lounger with his towel responsibly deployed.
Nobody was looking at me.
That was the thing I hadn’t expected.
Not one person in that whole open-air lobby was paying me the slightest attention. They were on vacation. They were happy. They had, every one of them, let go of the exact thing I’d spent my whole life unable to put down, which was what other people made of my size and my gray and the general looming look of me.
I’d had three months to take this trip. I’d picked the one week the world could spare me. I’d hidden my own laptop, and the prize was worth more than my truck.
I couldn’t let a thing of value go to waste. It went against my very being.
Moreover, I couldn’t disappoint Finn, and the way his lower lip was pooching in that moment made my decision for me.
“Don’t turn the van around,” I said, my voice growing firmer with each word.
“What?” Finn blinked. “You’re sure?”
“This is paid for.” I got a better grip on the three suitcases I would now apparently be living out of like a man who’d fled a house fire. “And I packed enough clothes for the both of us, since you brought a bag of swimming costumes and good intentions.”
The relief that broke across his face was so complete I nearly forgave him on the spot. “Now that’s the spirit. And you’ll be glad of those shirts when I lose half my trunks to the pool. We’ll share. It’ll be beautiful.”
“You’re not wearing my shirts.”
“I’ll be in them by Wednesday, and you know it.”
He turned to the desk before I could argue. “Checking in,” he told the clerk grandly, sliding our confirmation across the wood. “Two rooms, under O’Brien, though the winner’s the big, sad one behind me with the moving truck.”
The clerk, who had clearly decided we were his favorite arrivals of the day, slid two key cards across the tree. “Mr. O’Brien, we have you in one of our garden suites. And may I say, the optional part is genuinely optional. Nobody here will mind whatever you choose.”
“He’s choosing cargo shorts,” Finn said, loudly. “He brought a great many of them.”
