LILY
Do you know these people?
I TEXT my best friend a link to Tara and Tate’s most recent travel vlog.
AVERY
OMG! Yes. They did an episode in Malaysia while Ollie was on-site.
Why do you ask?
LILY
I’m having breakfast with them today
AVERY
Friends of Nicos?
LILY
Beware of the next text, I promise this is still me typing
My fingers hesitate over the send button. Why am I involving Avery in my uncharacteristic behavior?
LILY
I’m actually nervous
Regret hits me. I want to unsend, delete, and obliterate the message altogether.
I don’t get nervous about men.
The last time I was even a semblance of nervous was when I got fingered on a ski lift in Aspen. The fear of frostbite had swarmed with the cluster of butterflies in my stomach.
Well…then and probably with Nico at the bonfire a few weeks ago. And maybe even when I gave him head in the shower.
There was also a strange moment on the beach yesterday after he tricked me into tandem surfing with him. It was as if the world had stopped spinning just for us.
I don’t know. I wanted to tell him something. Something I haven’t told anyone in a long time. No. There’s absolutely no way.
I glance down at my phone.
AVERY
You’re nervous to meet Nico’s friends? You sure you’re not hooking up?
LILY
Am I supposed to sit at the hotel while he hangs out with them???? Even weirder
After his ridiculous questioning at dinner a few days ago, I’ve been keeping a very close eye on him. My carelessness with my laptop ended that night. I logged out of all my accounts and decided to post on the blog only when Nico is away.
No more working on books this summer.
I don’t think Nico is capable of snooping through my stuff and invading my privacy, but I won’t make it any easier.
A message chimes.
AVERY
Haven’t you been meeting people all summer?
LILY
Those were strangers to both of us tho
AVERY
Lil, don’t lie to me. You’ve been around each other nonstop for a month. Now you’re NERVOUS to meet his friends???
COME ON!
Something’s going on, isn’t it? Nico’s like catnip. The hottie of the Navarro family.
LILY
I’m more of a dog person
Also, get your facts straight…Oscar Navarro is the hottie of their family
Let’s just say that if Nico and Luca take after their father, old age will be very, very kind to them.
AVERY
100%
But if you and Nico get together, we’ll be sisters-in-law in the hottest family on the East and West coast.
LILY
lol
AVERY
Just be yourself today, you being you is your best quality.
She’s always been too wise for her own good.
LILY
You’re right
AVERY
London next?
LILY
We fly out tomorrow. Can’t wait to see you in the Azores 🙂
AVERY
Me to Lil <3 Love you!!!
LILY
<3 you, talk later
 |
FOR THE PAST HOUR, Tara, Tate, Nico, and I have been sipping on fruity brunch cocktails. The famous travel vloggers have been regaling us with stories of their recent adventures.
Tate pulls off his hat, brushing his fingers through short coils of dense hair as he tells us about a recent diving calamity that almost cost him a ten-
thousand-dollar camera.
This entire morning has felt like a trembling canister of pressure ready to explode. Whether you’re sleeping with them—like when the guy I was seeing needed me to take a candid photo of him every five seconds—or sharing a spread of pastries on a weekday morning, meeting quasi-famous people is strange.
They’re obviously normal people. The kind of ordinary people whose lives you can map out with a diagram.
Tate proposing to Tara on the Amalfi Coast, April 27.
Vlog Titled: TARA’S HILARIOUS CRYING FACE.
Tara learning to speak Russian, Summer 2010.
Playlist Titled: МЕНЯ ЗОВУТ ТАРА.
Do my own readers want to know me that personally? Would they even care about what my day-to-day life looks like outside of Zoe Mona?
I did receive an interview request from Ever Printing’s management team a few days ago. Apparently, some independent magazines wanted to cover my writing journey and how Coastal Fling earned such a spotlight.
There’s no way I could open myself up to publicity like that.
Surrendering my identity would only cause a mess of problems.
The thoughts inflate in my mind like a bouncy castle, and I hop around in my daydreams. Everyone else at the table we snagged at Parque Lage remains captivated by Tate’s face-off with death. I feel kinda bad for spacing out, but I already heard about this on their latest vlog.
“I’m so sorry, but I have to ask, you guys really aren’t knocking boots?” Tara serves the question to our side of the table, snapping me out of my thoughts. There’s a tinge of pink beneath her tawny skin, which is as drenched with sweat as mine is from sitting in the sun.
I feel like I’m under the lens of a microscope. It can’t be that obvious we’re hooking up.
“No, we’re just friends,” I clarify, not giving Nico a chance to open his mouth. He rolls his eyes and takes another bite of his kiwi.
“Huh.” Tara widens her eyes with skepticism, but my answer seems to be enough to satisfy the probing for the time being.
“When did you guys see each other last?” I try to change the subject, stretching my legs under the table.
“Oh yes. Nico, why don’t you tell us?” Tate’s voice practically erupts with glee as he shoots a narrowed gaze toward my friend. “When was the
last time we saw each other?”
Strange.
I turn to Nico, waiting for his response.
“Can you let it go?” Nico readjusts himself in his seat, and his arms fold into their defensive posture. Tense forearms, veins at the ready, and the briefest curl of his fingers. “It’s not my fault I got the dates mixed up. It said three-dash-two. It was meant to be March second, not February third.”
An honest mistake.
“We called you the same week to confirm.” Tara raises one of her perfectly plucked brows at him. That’s the look of someone who’s been burned by Nico’s bad planning patterns.
“I thought you were being overly cautious.” He tries to brush it off, but I can tell Nico is uncomfortable from the bounce of his feet.
I roll my neck, trying to stretch away the worry nagging at my vertebrae.
Did I forgive him too quickly?
“Whatever, no need to recount,” Tate says as he pats his wife on her back. “Plus, honey, remember he upgraded our suite as an apology for the entire month of our trip.”
Is this the norm? Nico fucks up and throws money at hurt feelings in the hope they’ll disappear?
The tropical cocktail in my stomach starts to curdle. I’ve let him do exactly that.
But maybe I shouldn’t get ahead of myself. Nico’s made a massive effort since his apology. He’s not perfect, but it truly looks like he’s attempting to be a better friend to me.
Tara sits back in her seat, brushing away the rows of thick braids from her shoulder. “So, Lily, what do you do?”
I know how easy it is to fall into old stories with friends, and I feel a brief rush of appreciation for her trying to include me in the conversation.
As she blinks at me expectantly, I realize I don’t have a clear answer. “Still figuring it out,” I manage to say, avoiding the long list of
nonsense I could offer instead.
I’m unemployed. I have a ten-year-old secret. My novella is floating around a bestseller list. The same novella I may or may not have written last summer about a certain disorganized…
No.
It wasn’t about him.
There were a lot of hot guys I hooked up with last summer, plenty of whom were tall and rather handsome.
Oh, there’s also the fact I’m a twenty-seven-year-old undergraduate student who can’t seem to graduate.
Nico’s warm hand finds its way to my leg, and his thumb runs along the inside of my knee. A touch so simple, yet so kind.
“I’m going to need another coffee. Tate, want to come?” Nico shimmies out of his seat and stands.
“Yes, let’s go.” Tate joins him. “Ladies, would you like anything?” Tara turns her wide brown eyes over to me. “More mimosas?” “Sure, why not?” I shrug.
The last month has flown by, and our last day in Brazil calls for a bit of celebration. Maybe Nico’s finally rubbing off on me, and I should let him.
When the guys are out of earshot, Tara grabs my wrist, almost pulling me across the table.
“You have to tell me everything. I have been dying for some girl talk.” Her voice drops as if we’re being observed by the paparazzi. “How did you start traveling with Nico?”
“Oh, it’s a long story.”
I don’t want to talk about my and Nico’s s*x life right now. Especially not when I’m starstruck and totally out of my element.
“We have time,” she says.
I check the line at the cafe; a few people stand ahead of Nico and Tate. Tara grins from ear to ear and leans forward on the glass tabletop,
waiting for my response.
There’s no escape.
“We were both at my best friend’s wedding, where she married Nico’s older brother, Luca. Turns out Nico had an extra ticket to Brazil when one of his friends bailed on the trip at the last minute, so he transferred that ticket to me. Against my own will.” I laugh. “I wasn’t going to go at all, but my flight home from the wedding got canceled, and I recently got fired and failed one of my classes. So I thought, fuck it, what’s the worst thing that can happen if I don’t go back to New York?”
Wow, I must’ve been primed to unload the recent whirlwind of my life if I willingly voiced all that to a stranger.
A stranger who could very easily upload a vlog tomorrow titled WEIRDEST PEOPLE WE MET ON VACAY, where I’ll be the starring joke.
I take a healthy sip of my water. No, she wouldn’t. “Huh, he transferred the extra ticket to you?” Tara asks. Out of my entire overshare, that’s what she grasps onto?
“Yeah, he said it would be a waste otherwise. I don’t know.”
Tara watches me for a moment, her full lips curling at the edges. “Airplane tickets are non-transferable.”
“What do you mean?”
“They’re not like concert tickets.” She reorganizes her silverware. “You can’t trade them.”
“Oh.”
Did Nico buy my plane ticket to Brazil?
No. That wouldn’t make any sense. Nico told me about his friend canceling a week before the wedding. Why on earth would he buy me a flight? The same night he had a date?
No way.
“Mhmm.” Tara gives me a wide smile.
“Well, Nico knows the inner workings of travel tech. I mean, he works on apps and, uh, stuff like that all the time. I’m sure he would’ve figured out some kind of loophole.”
My flip-flop bounces on the gravel.
“You’re right. There must be a simple explanation.” Tara crosses one of her legs over the other, reclining back in her chair. “He’s different, though. Have you noticed?”
Anticipation cramps my stomach.
I finish off my water before settling the glass on the table. “How so?”
“I’ve known Nico for eight years, and he’s never traveled with another woman. Honestly, I think he only traveled with Keith before, and it’s ’cause they were working together.”
So, I’m the first.
My cheeks raise a hair at her confession.
I nod. “I don’t know what to say. We’re just friends, so—”
“Huh, I guess I don’t think he’s ever had any friends who make his face light up the way you do.”
I know she only has Nico’s best interests in mind, but I’m sweating under the spotlight. The nerves I managed to bury come back in full force. Much, much worse than getting fingered on the darn ski lift.
“We have rules we’ve agreed to. It’s simple.” I hear the words come out of my mouth, but feel as unconvinced as Tara looks.
Why am I telling a stranger more details of my personal life than I’ve told my best friend?
The guilt sweeps in, and I do what I can to brush it away.
“I’ve never had rules for any of my friends.” Tara eyes me as if I’m meant to break and share a secret with her. “I suppose the only person I do have rules with is my husband.”
“What are you guys talking about?” Nico asks. He and Tate carry a new bottle of champagne and a carafe of coffee toward us.
The sound of his voice causes relief to wash through me.
My eyes dart nervously to Tara. She raises her eyebrow at me, letting me take the floor.
“How bad of a flier you are.” I pull Nico’s chair out, and he sits beside me. “You take up both of the armrests.”
“Middle row gets both armrests. Better remember that for our flight tomorrow.”
