Plot Twist In Paradise
by IAmHerEmma

 

 

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Chapter Thirteen: Spy Loafers, Guacamole, and a Brain That Won't Cool Down

 

The path to the beach was warm and shaded, palm fronds cutting the afternoon sun into strips across the sand-dusted walkway.

I'd changed into a navy bikini top and denim shorts after lunch, thrown a towel over my shoulder, grabbed a water bottle I already knew I'd lose within the hour, and headed out before I could sit back down at the desk. The afternoon was waiting and for once I wanted to be in it.

The beach opened up through the last stretch of palm trees and it was, as usual, almost absurdly beautiful. White sand, calm turquoise water, the kind of postcard light that made everything look slightly unreal. Talia and Cass were already set up near the volleyball net — Talia in a bright coral one-piece that made her look like she was about to host a poolside talk show, Cass in a simple black swimsuit and sunglasses, reclining on a towel with the resigned grace of a woman whose afternoon had been volunteered without her consent.

Milo was standing at the net, shirtless, holding a volleyball above his head and squinting at it like it held the secrets of the universe.

"There she is!" Talia waved me over with both hands. "We were about to send a search party."

"I've been gone twenty minutes," I said, dropping my towel next to Cass's setup and kicking off my sandals.

"Twenty minutes is a long time when Milo's been holding that ball like it's an Oscar," Cass said.

Milo lowered the ball with dignity. "I was getting a feel for the equipment. That's what athletes do."

"You played at a barbecue," I reminded him.

"I was adequate at a barbecue. There's range in that word."

Renee appeared on the path behind me, and I only knew because Milo's face did something I was learning to recognize — a flicker of theatrical innocence that meant he was about to be strategic about something. She was wearing a simple white tank over a black bikini, her hair pulled back loose, a towel tucked under one arm. She looked good without looking like she'd tried, and I acknowledged that thought and moved on from it with practiced efficiency.

"Alright," Talia said, clapping her hands and standing. "Teams."

"Finally," Milo said, bouncing the ball against the sand — or trying to. It hit the ground and died. He picked it up like the sand owed him an apology.

"Renee and Ade," Talia said, pointing at us, "you take that side. Me, Milo, and Cass on this side."

I looked at her. Then at Milo. Then back at Talia.

"That's two against three," I said.

"You have Renee," Talia said, like this was a complete and self-evident argument.

"She played in high school. That was — Renee, how long ago was high school?"

"A while," Renee said, with a diplomatic vagueness.

"And I played in college," Talia added, "so it evens out."

"It doesn't even out. You have three people. We have two. That's math, Talia," I said, gesturing between the two sides of the net.

"Ade, Renee played in high school. Talia played in college. That's your ringer against ours," Milo said, tossing the ball from hand to hand. "And our third is Cass, who just told us she'd rather be reading. We're basically two and a hostage."

"Incredibly rude. And accurate, but still rude," Cass said from the towel, not opening her eyes.

"Get up," Talia said. "You're playing."

Cass removed her sunglasses, looked at the net, looked at Talia, and stood up with the energy of someone clocking in for a shift she hadn't volunteered for.

"So we're doing this," I said, still standing on what was apparently my side of the net with Renee.

"We're doing this," Talia confirmed, already bouncing on her toes with a focus that had shifted from casual organizer to someone who genuinely cared about winning a game of beach volleyball.

I turned to Renee. "Any strategy, or are we just hoping for the best?"

Renee was stretching her arms above her head, easy and unhurried. "Don't stand in the same spot. Move after every hit. And try to watch the ball, not the person hitting it."

"That sounds like actual strategy," I said.

Renee shrugged and walked to her position near the back of the court like she still remembered exactly where to stand.

I took my spot at the net and tried to look like someone who had any idea what they were doing. Across from me, Milo was stretching his hamstrings with the intensity of a man preparing for a triathlon, Talia was rolling her neck, and Cass was standing with her hands on her hips, radiating the energy of someone who would play competently and resent every second.

Milo served first. It went left.

Renee returned it cleanly — a smooth, practiced motion that sent the ball sailing back over the net with enough force and placement that Talia had to scramble for it. She got it, sent it to Milo, who launched it back toward our side with a grunt that was wildly disproportionate to the situation.

It came at me. I swung. I missed. The ball hit the sand approximately two feet from where my hand had been.

"Bold strategy," Cass observed from across the net.

"I'm warming up," I said, shaking out my wrists like that was the problem.

"To what?" Milo asked, genuinely curious.

"To being terrible. You can't rush these things." I got back into position, or what I assumed position looked like.

The next few rallies established the dynamic pretty clearly. Talia was competitive in a way that had been hiding behind her cheerful resort energy — she moved with real instinct, called shots, and made at least two saves that involved diving for the ball with a commitment that seemed medically inadvisable on sand. Milo played with maximum effort and moderate skill, celebrating every point their side scored with a fist pump and a "YES" that sent birds scattering from a nearby palm. Cass played like someone filling out a form — correctly, completely, without enthusiasm, and with a baseline competence that was somehow more annoying than if she'd been terrible.

On our side, Renee was good. Not "I played in high school" good. Actually good. She moved with the kind of fluid economy that meant her body remembered this even if it had been years, anticipated where the ball was going before it got there, and positioned herself to cover the gaps my incompetence kept creating. When she hit the ball, it went where she wanted it to go. When she set it up for me, she put it exactly where I needed it to be, which was generous given that I needed it approximately three inches from my hand and traveling at the speed of a gentle breeze.

"Nice one!" she said when I managed to return a serve that, in fairness, a reasonably coordinated child could have handled.

"I touched the ball and it went over the net. Is that really 'nice'?"

"For you? That's outstanding."

"I'm being patronized by my own teammate."

"You're being encouraged," Renee said, and she was smiling when she said it, and I hit the next ball into the net because apparently I couldn't receive a compliment and perform basic motor functions at the same time.

They were beating us, obviously. Talia was keeping a running score that she announced after every point, which Cass told her was unnecessary, which Talia ignored. Renee was returning serves I wouldn't have gotten near, covering ground with the kind of instinct that made "I played in high school" sound increasingly like the understatement of the century.

"Switch sides!" Talia called after a run of points that had put them firmly in the lead.

"Why?" I asked.

"Because the sun's in your eyes and I want a fair game," Talia said, already moving to the other side.

"Since when do you want a fair game?" I called after her. "You put two of us against three."

"The sun is a factor, Ade. Accept the courtesy."

We switched. Renee passed close to me on the rotation and said, low enough that only I could hear, "She doesn't care about the sun. She wants to serve from that side."

"Of course she does," I muttered, still catching my breath from the last few points I'd contributed nothing to.

"Watch. Her first serve from over there is going to have pace on it."

She'd given me three words of advice at the start and walked to her position like none of this mattered. Now she was reading Talia's strategy in real time. "You're enjoying this."

"A little," Renee said, already setting up on the new side.

What followed could only loosely be called volleyball. Talia disputed a line call with the conviction of someone who had studied the replay. Milo spiked the ball directly into the sand on his own side and then argued that the wind was responsible. Cass, in a moment that shocked everyone including herself, dove for a save, got it, rolled onto her back in the sand, and stayed there looking at the sky with an expression of profound disbelief.

"I just did that," Cass said, still on her back.

"You just did that!" Talia was already pulling her up, brushing sand off her back, kissing her on the cheek. "That was incredible."

"That was involuntary. My body did that without my consent."

"Your body is a hero, babe."

"My body is filing a complaint."

Renee and I were losing, but the gap was narrowing, mostly because Renee had figured out exactly how to set every ball for me so that all I had to do was make contact, and I was starting to actually make contact with something approaching regularity. At one point I returned a serve from Talia — a real one, with pace on it — and sent it back into an open patch of sand that nobody reached.

I stood there for a second, genuinely surprised.

"That counted, right?" I said, turning to Renee. "That was a real point?"

"That was a real point," Renee confirmed, and something in her expression — amusement, warmth, maybe even a little pride — made me feel like I'd just done something considerably more significant than hitting a volleyball.

"Okay, I need water," Milo announced, dropping to the sand and spreading out flat on his back. "I need water and I need someone to acknowledge that I gave everything out there."

"You gave everything," Talia said, dropping beside him. "I'll give you that."

"Thank you. That's all I ask." Milo lifted one hand from the sand in a solemn gesture. "Acknowledgment."

"You also served into the net four times," Renee said from our side, in the tone of someone providing a stat nobody had requested.

Milo lifted his head. "You were counting?"

"It was hard not to."

"You were counting my mistakes while we were playing. That's cold, Renee."

"You were on the other team, slugger."

"Betrayal," Milo said, putting his head back down. "Cold, calculated betrayal from a woman I've known for three days."

Cass was already back on her towel, sunglasses on, book out — she'd returned to her default state so fast it was like the volleyball had been a hallucination. Talia was chugging water. I dropped onto the sand next to Milo and tipped my head back. Everything hurt. My arms, my legs, muscles I was fairly certain hadn't existed an hour ago and would now be making themselves known for the rest of the trip. I was also smiling, which felt like a personal betrayal of everything I'd ever believed about physical activity.

Renee dropped down near us, pulled her hair loose, and finished half a water bottle in one go — somehow looking less wrecked than the rest of us.

"We should cool off," Talia said, standing up and brushing sand off her legs. "Come on, we're getting in the water."

"I just sat down," Milo protested.

"You can sit down in the ocean." She was already heading toward the water, not waiting for agreement. Cass sighed, set her book down, and followed — the eternal rhythm of that marriage.

Milo hauled himself up with a groan that belonged to a man twice his age and jogged after them, immediately yelping about the water temperature the second it touched his ankles. "It's freezing! Why is it freezing? It's a hundred degrees out here!"

"It's not freezing Milo,," Cass said, already waist-deep and looking unmoved.

"My body is in shock."

"Your body was in shock from the volleyball. Now it's in shock from the water. Your body has a flair for the dramatic."

"Thank you. I've been saying that for years."

Renee stood up, pulled her tank off over her head, and headed for the water. I watched her for a second, then got up and followed — denim shorts and all.

The water was perfect — warm at the surface, cooler underneath, the kind of temperature that made your whole body exhale. Talia and Cass were further out, Talia floating on her back while Cass treaded water beside her. Milo had adjusted to the temperature and was now fully committed, bobbing up to his chest.

"There's something down there," Milo said, peering into the water. "I think it's a jellyfish."

"It's seaweed," Cass called without looking.

"You didn't even look," Milo said, still peering into the water.

"I don't need to," Cass said from further out.

"That's exactly the attitude that gets people stung by jellyfish."

I waded in until the water was around my waist and stood there, letting the tension from the game dissolve into the gentle pull of the current. Renee was a few feet to my left, about the same depth, her shoulders just above the waterline.

A wave came in — bigger than the ones before, the kind that announces itself with a surge and then shoves. It caught me mid-stance and my footing went sideways on the sandy bottom, and for a graceless second I was tilting, arms pinwheeling, about to go under in the least dignified way possible.

Renee's hand caught my arm. Firm, quick, steadying me before I'd fully committed to the fall. Her grip was warm against my wet skin and she was close — closer than I'd registered, close enough that I could see the salt water beading along her collarbone and the way her hair had gone dark and heavy where the water had reached it.

"The ocean's also too much for you, apparently," she said, and she grinned — full and unguarded, her eyes crinkling at the edges, wide and easy and aimed directly at me.

My brain, which normally had a rebuttal queued up before the other person finished their sentence, produced nothing. Just a blank space where the words were supposed to go. Renee's hand was still on my arm. Her hair was wet and dark against her neck and she was close — close enough that the grin hadn't faded and the sun was making it impossible to think about anything else. I was suddenly conscious of my own skin, of exactly where her fingers met my forearm and the warm salt water between us that wasn't doing anything useful like creating distance.

I should have said something. Anything. Instead, what came out was: "I had it under control."

Renee let go of my arm, still grinning. "You were going down."

"I was recalibrating."

"You were drowning in three feet of water."

"I was doing it with intention."

She laughed and turned back toward the deeper water. Milo was shouting something at Cass from further out. The afternoon was still happening all around me and I was standing in waist-deep water with the ghost of her hand on my arm and no idea what to do with any of it.

The volleyball. The sun. The dehydration. There were explanations, and I was going to pick one and commit to it fully, and I was never going to think about the way she'd grinned at me like it was nothing or the way my pulse was doing something unhelpful behind my ears.

"Ade!" Milo shouted from further out. "Did you just almost drown?"

"No," I called back.

"She almost drowned," Renee said, loud enough for the whole group, not turning around.

"I did not almost drown." I waded deeper, mostly to have something to do with my legs. "I lost my balance for one second."

"In three feet of water," Renee added, and I could hear the smile in her voice even though she was facing away from me now, and I realized I was in trouble in a way that had absolutely nothing to do with the ocean.

We stayed in the water until the sun shifted and the afternoon went golden and lazy around us. When we finally waded back to shore, nobody was in a hurry to do anything about it.

"I'm starving," Milo announced, lying face-down on his towel.

"We had lunch," Cass said.

"That was ages ago. I've been through a war since then."

"You hit a ball around and went swimming."

"Exactly. A war."

"We should go to the bar," Talia said, already sitting up and toweling off her hair. "Get some food and drinks. They do snacks and light plates in the afternoon."

"The bar?" Milo lifted his head from the towel with the speed of a man who'd just heard a very specific word. His face was doing the thing it always did when the bar came up — a rapid internal calculation of whether Nico would be working, followed by an attempt to look like he wasn't making that calculation, followed by a complete failure to look like anything other than exactly what he was.

"The bar," Talia confirmed, and her smile was so casual and so perfectly calibrated that I almost admired the craft of it. "We can grab something to eat, have some drinks, enjoy the afternoon."

"Give Milo another shot at talking to Nico," I said, because someone had to.

"That is not why I—" Milo started.

"It is exactly why you're already sitting up."

Milo was, in fact, already sitting up. He looked down at his own body with what appeared to be genuine surprise, as though it had betrayed him by acting on information he hadn't officially released. "I'm sitting up because I'm hungry. Nico's presence at the bar is incidental."

"Incidental," Cass repeated, and somehow loaded enough skepticism into four syllables as if performing a cross examination..

We gathered our things and headed up the path. Milo pulled a fresh shirt from his bag and put it on somewhere between the beach and the bar — a linen button-down that had no business being in the same bag as a towel and sunscreen. Some things are best left unexamined.

The bar was quiet in the afternoon — a handful of guests reading or nursing drinks at the far end, the tables half-empty, the whole place running at a different speed than it did at night. And behind the bar, exactly where Milo had known he would be and would never admit he'd hoped, Nico was working.

He was doing the same thing he always seemed to be doing — moving between bottles and glasses with that practised, unhurried economy that made everything look like it had been choreographed. He looked up when we came in. His eyes tracked the group, paused on Milo for what might have been a fraction of a second longer than strictly necessary, and then he went back to the drink he was making.

Milo stopped walking. His jaw worked once, silently. Then he inhaled, straightened his clean shirt, and said, "I'm going to go order drinks."

"You do that," Talia said, the picture of supportive innocence.

"I'll go with him," Cass said, standing up. "Someone should be there for moral support. Or damage control."

"I don't need damage control," Milo said, straightening his collar.

"You changed your shirt to come to a bar."

"I changed my shirt because it was sandy."

"You brought a spare shirt to the beach, Milo," Cass said, already walking toward the counter.

They headed toward the counter together — Milo's posture shifting as he got closer, his shoulders pulling back a fraction, his stride developing a casualness so manufactured it could have come off an assembly line. Cass walked beside him with the steady, measured pace of a hostage negotiator approaching a delicate situation.

I sat down at a table with Talia and Renee, and we had a clear sightline to the bar.

"Okay," Talia said, leaning forward with her chin on her hand. "Here we go."

Milo reached the counter. He leaned on it — casually, except that the casual lean took approximately three adjustments to settle into a position that looked natural, and each adjustment was visible from where we were sitting.

"He's doing the lean," Talia narrated, her eyes locked on the bar. "Look at that lean."

"He leaned at the mixology class," Renee said.

"That was a different lean. That was a nervous lean. This is a confident lean."

"They look the same," Renee said.

"They are fundamentally different leans, Renee."

I watched Nico glance up from his work, register Milo's presence, and say something. From this distance I couldn't hear it, but it was short — two or three words at most. Milo's response was visibly longer. His hands were involved.

"He's using hand gestures," I said. "That's new."

"He always uses hand gestures," Talia said.

"Not like this. These are elaborate. He's explaining something."

"What could he possibly be explaining?" Renee asked, in the tone of someone who already knew the answer was going to be absurd.

Nico said something else. Milo laughed — too loud, we could hear it from the table, the kind of laugh that carried more enthusiasm than the joke probably warranted. Cass, standing a few feet to his left, rolled her eyes so hard we could see it from across the bar.

"Cass is dying," Talia said, grinning.

"Cass is regretting her choices," I said.

"Cass makes excellent choices. She chose me."

"She chose to walk up to that bar with Milo. That was not an excellent choice."

Nico was making drinks now — something with rum, from what I could tell. Milo was watching him work with the kind of focused attention most people reserve for surgery or oncoming traffic. At one point Nico looked up and said something directly to Milo — and whatever it was, it made Milo go very still.

"What just happened?" Talia sat up straighter. "Something just happened."

"He said something," I confirmed. "Directly to Milo."

"What did he say?" Talia was practically out of her chair.

"I can't hear from here, Talia. I'm not a bat," I said.

Renee had been watching with quiet amusement, her head tilted slightly. "Nico didn't wait for him to order," she said.

I looked at the bar. Nico was already building something — reaching for bottles, pouring, moving with the kind of focus that meant he wasn't improvising. And the drink taking shape on the counter looked familiar. Amber. Lime.

"That's the same drink," I said. "From the mixer. The one Nico made him that first night."

Talia's hand came down on the table. "He remembered. From the first night."

"Or he's a bartender with a decent memory," Renee offered.

"You take that back immediately."

"I'm presenting an alternative interpretation."

"Your interpretation is deeply unromantic and I refuse to acknowledge it," Talia said.

"Or just repeat customers," Renee said, leaning back in her chair.

"Renee, I need you to be on the right side of history here."

"I'm on the side of reality. It's less exciting but more structurally sound."

Milo and Cass returned with drinks and a plate of something that looked like chips and guacamole. Milo set the drinks down with hands that were slightly unsteady, which he covered by immediately sitting down and arranging things on the table with excessive precision.

"So," Talia said, at the exact pitch and frequency of a woman who was about to detonate something. "How'd it go?"

"Fine. Normal. We ordered drinks. That's what happened," Milo said, reaching for a chip without looking at anyone.

"Nico made you the drink from the mixer," Cass said, sitting down. "The same one. I watched him build it."

Talia's squeal was not quiet.

"Cass," Milo said, staring at her. "I told you that in confidence."

"We watched him make it from here." I said. "We saw the whole thing."

Milo looked at me. Then at Talia. Then at Renee. Then back at me. His mouth opened and closed once, and then he apparently decided he was already too far in to retreat. "I didn't order it. I didn't say anything. He just looked at me and started making it. The same one from that first night."

Talia let that sit for a second, savoring it.

"It's not a big deal," Milo said, in the voice of a man for whom it was clearly the biggest deal of his entire life.

"You're holding the glass like it's an engagement ring," Talia said, pointing.

Milo looked down at his hand. He was, in fact, cradling the drink with both palms like it might shatter.

"He's blushing," Cass observed, reaching for another chip.

"I am not blushing," Milo said. "It's the sun."

"We've been inside for a while now," I said.

"It's residual sun."

"Residual sun," Renee repeated quietly, almost smiling.

"So how do we order food here?" I asked. "Do we go up to the bar?"

"I'll sort it out," Talia said, already out of her chair and heading toward the counter. We watched her lean over the bar, exchange a few words with Nico, and gesture back toward our table. Nico nodded once and said something to a server near the far end.

Talia came back looking satisfied. "Someone's coming to take our order."

"You talked to Nico?" Milo asked, sitting up straighter.

"I asked about food, Milo. Not his intentions."

The server came over a few minutes later, a woman with a notepad and the easy patience of someone used to groups who hadn't looked at a menu yet.

"Do you have actual food or just bar snacks?" Talia asked, already scanning the menu.

"We do sandwiches, wraps, grilled fish plates, and a few appetizers," the server said.

"Grilled fish," Renee said, without looking at the menu.

"Guacamole and chips for the table," Talia said. "And the chicken wrap for me."

"I'll do the grilled fish too," I said.

Milo was looking at the bar. "Whatever's good."

"He'll have the wrap," Cass said. "And I'll take the club sandwich."

The server left with their orders and the table hit that lull where everyone's hungry and the food isn't there yet.

"What do we do now?" Milo asked, drumming his fingers on the table.

"We wait," Cass said. "Like adults."

"I hate waiting like an adult."

A woman at the far end of the bar laughed — loud, head tipped back, the kind of laugh that either meant she was genuinely delighted or wanted the whole bar to think she was. The woman next to her leaned closer and said something that set her off again.

"That laugh is performative," Talia said, watching them.

"That's harsh," Milo said.

"It's accurate. Nobody laughs like that at a bar in the middle of the afternoon unless they want the whole room to know they're having fun."

"Or she's just having fun," Renee said.

"There's a difference between having fun and broadcasting fun. She's broadcasting."

"How can you tell?" I asked, genuinely curious.

"Because she keeps checking to see who's watching," Talia said. "Every time she laughs, her eyes sweep. She's performing for an audience."

I looked. She was right. After the next laugh, the woman's gaze drifted sideways across the bar before settling back on her companion.

"Okay, that's impressive," I admitted.

"Talia does this everywhere we go," Cass said. "Restaurants. Airports. The dentist's waiting room."

"People are interesting," Talia said, eyes still on the couple.

"People are predictable," Cass said, stirring her drink.

"What about the other one?" Milo said, nodding toward the woman's companion. "What's her deal?"

"Trying too hard," Renee said, without hesitation. "She keeps touching her hair."

"She could just have bad hair," Milo offered.

"Nobody touches their hair that many times unless they're nervous," Renee said. "She's trying to impress and she's not sure it's working. That's why she keeps going for the jokes."

"She's a physical therapist and she reads body language for a living," Talia said to me, as if this explained everything.

"I read it because people lie with their mouths and tell the truth with their shoulders," Renee said. "Has nothing to do with my job."

"That might be the most intimidating thing you've ever said," I told her.

"What about those two?" Cass said, tilting her head toward a pair of guys at a table near the railing. Everyone turned, mildly surprised that Cass was playing.

"On a date," Milo said immediately. "The one facing us is doing the lean."

"You would know," I said.

"I am an expert on the lean. That man is leaning with intent."

"The other one's not into it," Renee said quietly.

We all looked more carefully.

"He's been staring at his phone for a while and the other guy has ordered two drinks without asking if he wanted one," Renee said.

"Oh," Talia said, looking more closely. "They're not on a date. They're fighting."

"Definitely fighting," I agreed.

"Brutal," Milo said, shaking his head. "He doesn't even see it."

"Most people don't," Renee said, and something in how she said it — matter-of-fact, no judgment — made me glance at her for a second longer than I meant to.

"Okay, solo guy at the end of the bar," Milo said, pointing with his chin. "Go."

"Business traveler," Cass said.

"International spy," Milo countered. "Look at the shoes."

"Those are loafers."

"Spy loafers."

"There's no such thing as spy loafers," Cass said, pinching the bridge of her nose.

"How would you know? That's exactly what a spy would want you to think."

"He's been nursing that drink for a while," Talia said, squinting at the solo guy. "That's suspicious, actually."

"That's frugal," Cass said.

"Nobody's frugal on vacation, Cass," Talia said. "He's watching the room. Look at his eyes."

"I'm not close enough to see his eyes," Cass said.

"Trust me," Talia said. "He's scanning."

"He's probably just bored and people-watching," I said. "Like us."

"Or that's his cover," Milo said. "Pretend to people-watch while actually gathering intelligence."

"We need to stop," Cass said.

"We can't stop," Milo said. "We're in too deep."

The server appeared with plates balanced along both arms, and we made room on the table between the drinks and Milo's conspiracy. "Grilled fish, grilled fish, two wraps, club sandwich, and the guacamole and chips," she said, setting everything down.

"Thank you," Talia said, already reaching for the guacamole before the server had finished putting plates down.

"Thanks," I said, pulling my plate closer.

Milo picked up his wrap without breaking stride. "Okay so the shoes are important because—"

"This fish is incredible," Renee said, after her first bite.

Milo looked at her, then at the rest of us, then at his abandoned spy theory. "I was mid-sentence."

"And now you're mid-lunch," Cass said, already cutting into her sandwich.

"The guacamole is better," Talia said, pulling the bowl closer to her side of the table.

"The guacamole is for the table, Talia," I said, pointing my fork at her.

"And yet here it is, on my side of the table."

"I'm going to need some of that," Milo said, reaching across. "Spy analysis requires fuel."

"The spy analysis is over," Cass said, sliding the guacamole toward the center of the table with one finger.

"The spy analysis is never over. That man is still sitting there. Still wearing the loafers. Still being suspicious."

The conversation drifted after that — the way it does when everyone's full and the sun is doing most of the work. Milo pulled his chair back from the table and stretched his legs out, looking like a man who had no plans to move for the foreseeable future.

"I could fall asleep right here," Milo said, tilting his head back.

"Please don't," Cass said, chin resting on her hand.

"I'm not going to. I'm just saying I could."

"That's how it starts," Talia said, pointing a chip at him. "You say you could, then your eyes close, then we're carrying you back to your bungalow."

"Would you, though?" Milo asked. "Carry me?"

"Absolutely not," Cass said flatly.

"I'd supervise," Talia offered, raising her glass.

"I'd watch from a distance," I said.

"I'd call someone," Renee said, taking a sip of her drink.

"So nobody would actually carry me. Good to know where I stand."

"You're not standing. You just said you wanted to lie down," Cass said, pushing her empty glass to the side.

The server came back and started clearing plates. "Can I get you anything else?"

Talia looked around the table. A few headshakes.

"I think we're good," I said. "Thank you."

"Thanks," Milo said, handing over his plate without sitting up.

The table looked different without all the plates — just drinks and elbows and Talia's sunglasses sitting in a puddle of condensation.

"We should do this again tomorrow," Milo said, leaning forward.

"Do what?" Cass asked, raising an eyebrow. "Sit at a bar and judge strangers?"

"Yes. Exactly that."

"What's the plan for tonight?" Talia asked.

"Dinner. Beyond that, I have no agenda," Cass said, stretching her arms above her head.

"You never have an agenda."

"That is my agenda."

"We could check if there's anything happening at the bar later," Milo said, in a tone so carefully neutral it fooled absolutely nobody.

"You want to come back to the bar tonight," I said, not even bothering to make it a question.

"I'm suggesting it as an option. For the group."

"For the group," Talia repeated, grinning.

"I'm a generous person. I think about the group."

"You think about Nico," Renee said, and the table lost it.

Renee laughed with them — relaxed, unguarded, shaking her head at Milo's expression.

I was watching her do it — watching her be easy, be present — and then I caught myself watching and redirected my attention to my drink with the focus of someone studying a very complicated glass.

"Alright, I think we should head back," Talia said, pushing her chair back. "I need a shower before dinner or I'm showing up as a salt crust."

"You look fine," Milo said, still not moving.

"I have sand in my hair, Milo. Sand. In my hair. That's not fine, that's a geological event."

"We should all probably head back," Renee said.

"Probably," Milo agreed, making absolutely no effort to stand.

Cass was already up, sunglasses on. She looked down at Milo.

"What?" Milo said.

"Nothing. Just waiting."

Talia stood up. "Come on, let's go."

Milo sighed and hauled himself out of the chair.

"You coming?" Talia called back to me.

"I'll finish my drink. I'll catch up."

They headed out in a loose cluster — Talia and Cass arm in arm, Milo trailing with his hands in his pockets. Renee went with them, half-turning as she left to give me a look that was both questioning and understanding — you sure? — and I nodded, and she smiled, and then they were gone.

I was sipping the last of my drink and debating whether to order another when Alina walked into the bar.

She had her notebook peeking out of her crossbody bag, already scanning the room before she'd fully walked in. She spotted me at the table and headed over.

"Adrianna," she said, dropping into the chair next to mine. "Drinking alone? That's either romantic or tragic."

"I was drinking with four other people a couple of minutes ago."

Alina dropped her bag on the empty chair beside her. "How's the trip going?"

"Better than I expected, if I'm being honest." I turned my glass on the table. "Somehow I've ended up with a group that saves me a seat at breakfast and drags me into volleyball games and argues about whether a bartender is flirting with one of them. I didn't plan any of it."

Alina laughed — sharp, appreciative, the laugh of someone who recognized good material when she heard it. "That sounds like a story."

"It's not a story. It's just a vacation."

"In my experience, those are the same thing." She looked at me with a tilted-head attention, always half-composing. "Can I ask you something? Writer to writer?"

"Sure."

"How's the work going?"

I was quiet for a second. The honest answer was complicated — the notebook this morning, the words that had come without resistance, the block that was still there every time I opened the laptop but seemed to lose its grip when I picked up the pen. The thing forming at the edge of my thoughts that I hadn't looked at directly because looking at it might scare it away.

"Weird," I said, which was the most honest single word I had. "Different than I expected."

Alina nodded like she understood something I hadn't said. "My piece is going the same way, actually. I came here to write about the resort — the bungalows, the activities, the whole curated experience. But the more time I spend here, the more I realize that's not the real story."

"What's the real story?"

"The people." She said it simply, like she'd already written the lede and was just confirming it aloud. "I mean — a group of strangers who showed up here from completely different lives and somehow became a unit in a few days? That's the piece. That's what makes a place like this actually work — not the thread count or the cocktail menu. It's what happens between the people who show up." She gestured toward the empty chairs around the table. "Like what you just described. That kind of thing is exactly what I'd want in the article."

"What do you mean?" I said.

"I've seen you guys around," Alina said. "At lunch the other day, around the resort. When people actually like each other versus when they're just killing time in the same place — you can tell. Your group is real. And that's rare when everyone showed up as strangers."

I felt something shift. Like a door I hadn't realized was open suddenly catching a draft.

"You want to write about them," I said, and my voice came out flat.

Alina caught it. She was too good not to. "Not by name. Not invasively. I'm talking about the texture of the place — the way it creates these temporary communities. Your group is a perfect example. It's compelling."

"It's their vacation, Alina."

She looked at me for a moment, and I could see her recalibrating. "I wouldn't use names. Or identifying details. It's a colour piece, not an exposé."

"I know. I know that." I took a sip of my drink and tried to figure out why my shoulders had tensed. She wasn't doing anything wrong. She was doing exactly what I did — watching people, noticing things, turning life into sentences. I'd written five character sketches this morning in a notebook on my bedside table.

But those pages were mine. Private. Written for no one, going nowhere, sitting in a closed notebook in a bungalow on a small island in the middle of nowhere. The difference between that and an article — something published, consumed, turned into content for an audience — landed on me with a weight I wasn't prepared for.

"I get it," Alina said. "They're your people."

"They're not my—" I started, and then stopped, because finishing that sentence would have required me to explain what they were if not that, and I didn't have an explanation that didn't make me sound like I was lying.

Alina smiled — not unkindly. "I'll leave the group dynamic out. I mean it." She stood and slung her bag over her shoulder. "For what it's worth, Adrianna — the way you got protective just now? That's not nothing."

She squeezed my arm lightly as she stood, slung her bag over her shoulder, and headed toward the far end of the bar.

I sat at the table for a while after she left.

The bar was quieting down. Nico was wiping the counter in slow, methodical strokes, and the light had gone amber and long through the open sides of the bar, and I was alone with a half-finished drink and a feeling I couldn't put a name to.

I'd written about them this morning. I'd written about them with ease and affection and specificity, and none of it had felt like exploitation or reduction or material-gathering. It had felt like paying attention. Like caring enough about the people around me to get them right on the page.

So why had Alina doing the same thing bothered me?

These weren't characters. They weren't material. They were mine — the breakfast table, the volleyball court, the running commentary on Milo's love life, the easy silence walking back to the bungalows. All of it was mine in a way that had nothing to do with writing and everything to do with the fact that I'd showed up here expecting nothing and somehow ended up with people I wasn't ready to share.

And underneath all of that, quiet and specific and impossible to ignore, was the fact that one of them was on my mind more than the others, and I didn't want to ask myself why.

I finished my drink, pushed back from the table, and headed back toward the bungalows. The afternoon was cooling off. My brain, unfortunately, was not.