Plot Twist In Paradise
by IAmHerEmma

 

 

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Chapter Seven: Strangers With No Filters

 

The moment lasted about four seconds.

Four perfect seconds of salt air and golden light and the kind of stillness that makes you think maybe the universe isn't entirely out to get you. I was standing on the dock, the water stretching out ahead of me, the catamaran rocking gently against its moorings, and for once in my entire adult life I was not composing anything — not a comeback, not a defense, not the first line of a novel I couldn't write. I was just breathing.

Then Milo came out of the van like a man who had been spring-loaded.

"Oh my GOD." He stopped beside me, grabbed my arm, and pointed at the water with the energy of someone discovering the ocean for the first time. "Look at this. Look at it. Adrianna, are you looking?"

"I was looking," I said. "Before you—"

"The color. That's not even a real color. That's what happens when God opens Photoshop and just goes for it." He was already pulling out his phone. "Nobody move. Nobody breathe. I need this for my Instagram."

I had been having a moment. A genuine, unrepeatable moment of inner peace, and this man had walked into it like a marching band through a library. I kind of liked him already but I also wanted to push him into the harbor.

"Milo, I was literally in the middle of—"

"Smile!" He held the phone up, angled it to catch the marina behind us, and took a selfie with my unsmiling face in the background before I could object. "Perfect. You look mysterious and slightly annoyed. Very editorial."

"I am annoyed."

"See? Authentic. That's going to get great engagement."

Jason appeared behind us, clipboard in hand, already moving on to the next item on whatever checklist kept this operation running. "Your luggage will be loaded by the crew," he said, gesturing toward two staff members already unloading the back of the van. "You're welcome to step aboard whenever you're ready. The crossing to Coral Key takes about forty minutes."

One of the boat crew — a woman in a resort polo with her hair pulled back under a cap — was standing at the gangway with the kind of smile that suggested she'd been trained to project relaxation even in a hurricane. "Welcome aboard," she said. "There's seating inside the cabin and an open deck at the stern. Refreshments are in the galley — help yourselves."

Renee had already passed us while Milo was narrating his Instagram strategy. By the time I stepped onto the catamaran she was settled at the far end of the cabin with her legs crossed, bag tucked beside her, and My Husband, My Bride open in her lap.

I watched her turn a page and told myself I didn't care what she thought of it.

Milo and I claimed spots on the cushioned bench near the front of the cabin. He was still looking at his phone, examining the selfie from the dock with the concentration of a man reviewing proofs.

"Okay, the lighting was actually insane back there," he said. "I look incredible. You look like someone told you the resort was cancelled."

"I was having a moment before you destroyed it."

"Moments are overrated. You know what's not overrated? Documentation." He tapped his phone screen a few more times, then looked up and past me toward the back of the cabin. His eyes narrowed. "What's she reading?"

I didn't have to look to know who he meant. "Don't worry about it," I said.

"Don't worry about it?" Milo repeated, in the tone of a man who had just been handed a wrapped gift. "Why would you say 'don't worry about it'? That's the most worrying thing you could possibly say." He craned his neck toward the back of the cabin. "What is she reading? I'm going to go ask."

"Milo, do not—"

But he was already moving, crossing the cabin with the targeted enthusiasm of a golden retriever who'd spotted a squirrel. I watched it happen in real time, unable to intervene, unwilling to look away.

"Hi again," Milo said, stopping in front of Renee. "Quick question. What are you reading?"

Renee looked up from the page with the expression of someone being asked to explain breathing.

"A book."

"What book?"

She turned the cover toward him just enough for him to read it. She didn't say anything. She didn't need to.

I watched it happen from across the cabin — the recognition, the pause, and then Milo's head swiveling between Renee and me as the math clicked into place.

"Oh my God," he said, turning back to Renee. "You're the one who didn't believe her."

Renee's eyes flicked toward me. Just for a second.

"I was enjoying the quiet," she said.

"You sat next to her on the plane, read her book, and told her she didn't write it? That's what happened?"

"That is a dramatic oversimplification."

"How far are you?" He sat down across from her without being invited. "What chapter? Don't spoil anything, I haven't read it yet, but — are you enjoying it? What do you think?"

"I think you sat down without asking."

"Is it good? It's good, right? Tell me it's good. Actually don't tell me, I want to go in fresh, but just — a nod. Give me a nod."

Renee closed the book — carefully, with a finger marking her page — and stood up. "I'll be outside," she said, and walked past both of us toward the open deck at the stern without another word.

Milo watched her go, then turned to me with his eyes wide. "She is amazing."

"She just fled the cabin to get away from you."

"She fled with dignity. That counts for something." He dropped back into the seat beside me with the satisfied air of a man who had accomplished something important. "She's the one, right? The person from the van — 'certain people don't believe I wrote it.' That was about her."

"That was about her."

He leaned back and shook his head slowly. "That's cinema."

Through the cabin window, I could see Renee settling into one of the seats on the stern deck, book already open again, the wind catching the ends of her hair. She looked — I noticed this against my will — completely at ease. As if the rest of us were a weather pattern she'd chosen to wait out.

The engines hummed to life and the catamaran began to pull away from the dock. The marina shrank behind us, and ahead of us there was nothing but open water and late afternoon light. The cabin rocked gently. Milo was already composing what sounded like a review of a book he hadn't read.

"Excuse me — is this seat taken?"

The voice came from a woman who had appeared beside our bench. She clearly had never in her life worried about whether she was interrupting. She was petite, early-to-mid thirties, wearing a patterned wrap dress that mixed at least three prints in a combination that should not have worked but absolutely did. Her smile arrived before her words.

"All yours," Milo said, shifting over.

"Excellent. I'm Talia." She sat down, crossed her legs, and looked at both of us like she'd known us for years. "My wife is getting us drinks. She'll be back in a second with something nonalcoholic and responsible, because Cass doesn't believe in drinking before five, which I think is a character flaw but she thinks is a personality."

She said all of this in roughly four seconds.

"I'm Milo. This is Adrianna."

"Adrianna. Gorgeous name. Are you two together?"

"No," I said. "We met in a parking lot twenty minutes ago."

"Also I'm gay," Milo said. "Like, aggressively, irreversibly gay. Trans women, cis women, all women — gorgeous, all of you, and I could not be less interested. I can admire the craftsmanship but I am not in the market." He looked at me. "No offense, honey."

"None taken."

"I mean you're stunning. Completely wasted on my gayness."

"Yeah, I got that the first time."

Talia laughed — loud and delighted.

"I love you both already," she said. "Okay, but parking lots are underrated. My wife and I met at a dog park. Neither of us had a dog. We'd both gone to look at dogs because we were having bad weeks, and Cass was sitting on the bench looking elegant and miserable and I sat down next to her and said, 'If you had to pick one of these dogs to be your therapist, which one would it be?' And she looked at me like I was insane, and then she pointed at this enormous Great Dane who was just standing there judging everyone, and she said, 'That one. He looks like he'd give you a diagnosis in one session and send you on your way.' And I knew." Talia pressed her hand to her heart. "I just knew."

Milo was staring at her with the expression of a man who had just found religion. "That is the greatest meet-cute I've ever heard."

"Thank you. I tell it at every opportunity. Cass thinks I over-tell it, but Cass is wrong about that specific thing."

A woman appeared beside Talia, carrying two bottles of water with an unhurried calm. She was tall, composed, with warm brown eyes and the kind of quiet self-assurance that didn't need to announce itself.

"I'm not wrong," she said, handing Talia one of the bottles. "I've heard you tell it fourteen times. Eleven of those times, the Great Dane was a different breed."

"I embellish for emotional impact. It's called storytelling."

"It's called unreliable narration." Cass looked at me and Milo with a small, warm smile. "Hi. I'm Cass. She's already told you the dog park story."

"Milo," Milo said, extending a hand. "And it was incredible."

"Adrianna," I said.

"Nice to meet you both." Cass looked at Talia. "Also, she changes the breed every time. Last month it was a Newfoundland."

"The breed is not the point, Cassandra."

Cass sat down beside Talia. "So what brings everyone to Coral Key?"

"We're celebrating our fifth wedding anniversary," Talia said. "Eight years together total. Which is basically a hundred in lesbian years."

"Congratulations," I said, and meant it. Something about the way Talia orbited around Cass — close, constant, gravitational — made the number feel earned.

"Five years. That's amazing," Milo said. "I can't even get a man to commit to a second date. What's the secret?"

"Lower your standards," Cass said.

"She's joking," Talia said. "The secret is finding someone who thinks your worst qualities are funny."

"She's not joking," Cass said. "I genuinely find her worst qualities funny. It's the only reason this works."

Milo was already leaning in, elbows on knees, fully invested. I liked them. I liked them immediately and without reservation, which was unusual for me and probably said something about the kind of day I'd had.

"So what do you two do?" Talia asked, pointing between me and Milo with her water bottle.

"Nurse," Milo said. "Six years."

"Writer," I said. "What about you guys?"

"I'm a graphic designer," Talia said. "Freelance. I do everything — websites, branding, magazine layouts, book covers. Basically if it needs to look good, I'm the one they call when they've already tried to do it themselves and made a mess."

"Book covers?" I said.

"All the time. Mostly indie authors, a few mid-size publishers. I did a sapphic thriller series last year — four covers, each one sexier than the last. By the fourth one my reference folder was basically porn."

"That's oddly specific."

"The sexy cover economy is real, Adrianna. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise."

Milo looked at Cass. "And you?"

"Divorce lawyer," Cass said.

There was a beat of silence that Cass seemed entirely comfortable with.

"I'm sorry," Milo said. "Your wife is out here designing romance covers and you spend your days ending marriages?"

"It keeps things interesting," Cass said.

"She comes home with the worst stories," Talia said. "And I come home with reference folders that would get me arrested. We balance each other out."

"I come home with confidential case details that I don't share," Cass said. "She comes home with softcore on her laptop. Guess which one of us has more fun at work."

"Me," Talia said. "Obviously me."

"So wait," Milo said, turning to me. "Talia designs book covers and you write books. Are we not going to talk about that?"

"We literally just met," I said.

"And? That's how things start. Talia, tell me you're already thinking about it."

"I am absolutely already thinking about it," Talia said.

I looked at Cass for help. She shrugged. "She's already designing it in her head. I can tell."

"Okay," Talia said, sitting up straighter. "But first — what do you write? Fiction, obviously. What kind?"

"Erotica," I said. "My latest is about a married couple figuring out who they actually are. Together and separately. With a lot of sex."

Talia's face lit up. "Erotica. Okay, now I really need to design your next cover."

"You haven't even read it yet," I said.

"I don't need to. I already know the vibe. Married couple, identity, sex — that's moody lighting and close framing. I could do something incredible with that."

"She's not wrong," Cass said. "She's annoying, but she's not wrong."

"So how did the book do?" Talia asked. "Are we talking like, solid reviews? Or actual numbers?"

"Bestseller lists for four months," Milo said, before I could answer.

"Four months?" Cass said, and the slight lift in her voice was the most animation I'd seen from her. "That's significant."

"It did well," I said, understating it in the way you do when saying the real number feels like bragging.

"She's being modest," Milo said. "It took off. She told me in the van. She's famous and she's pretending she's not."

"I'm not famous. The book just kind of went viral and started doing really well."

"Viral," Talia repeated. "Four months on the bestseller lists. And you're sitting here saying it 'did well.' Girl, own that."

"Nobody's recognizing me on the street."

"Yet," Milo said. "Nobody's recognizing you on the street yet. I'm manifesting it for you right now."

He was genuinely the most annoying person I'd met in weeks, and I could not stop finding him funny. It was becoming a problem.

"I mean, people do DM me," I said. "Readers leave comments. Most of them are great — the kind that make the whole thing feel worth it. And then there's the assholes who think writing about sex means you can't actually write." I shrugged. "That's the extent of my fame."

Talia nodded slowly, like she was filing that away. Cass was watching me with a quiet attention I wasn't sure I'd earned yet.

"I'm buying it immediately," Talia said. "Cass, we're buying it."

"I'll read the reviews first," Cass said.

"You will not. You'll read it because I told you to, and then you'll love it, and then you'll pretend you found it yourself. That's our system."

Milo held up his phone. "I'm also buying it. I refuse to be left out."

"That makes two sales on a boat," I said. "My publicist would be thrilled."

"You're not the only one," Milo said, jerking his thumb toward the stern. "Renee back there is already reading it."

Talia's head swiveled toward the stern like a radar dish locking onto a signal. Through the cabin window, Renee was visible on the outside deck, legs crossed, book open, the wind doing things to her hair that a shampoo commercial would have paid for.

"Who is that?" Talia asked.

"That's Renee," Milo said. "We met her at the shuttle. And there is a situation happening between her and Adrianna."

"There is no situation," I said.

"There is absolutely a situation. I was in the van for fifteen minutes and I could have sold tickets." He turned to Talia and Cass. "The tension was so loud I nearly opened a window."

"There was no tension."

"So what happened?" Talia asked, leaning forward.

"It started at the airport," I said. "This woman crashed into me at the curb. My bag went everywhere — phone, sunglasses, everything on the pavement. And instead of apologizing, she commented on my luggage. The size of my luggage. At an airport. Where people have luggage."

"Bold," Talia said.

"Then she vanished. I thought that was it. Over. Done. But no — she shows up in the seat next to me on the plane."

"Same flight?" Cass said.

"Same row. Four hours of her. And at some point I look over and she's reading my book. My book. So I tell her I wrote it, and this woman looks me dead in the face and tells me that's very nice but she's not buying it."

"She didn't," Talia said.

"While holding my book. While sitting next to me. The actual author."

Talia turned to Cass. "This is the best thing I've ever heard."

Cass had been quiet through the whole story. She'd listened with her head slightly tilted, her water bottle resting on her knee, and the expression of someone running a secondary analysis beneath the surface. When the laughter settled, she spoke.

"So you got off on the wrong foot with someone you've been thinking about all day."

The sentence landed with the precision of a dart.

"I haven't been thinking about her all day."

"You remember exactly what she said about your luggage."

"It was a very aggressive comment."

"And you told that story like someone who's been composing it in her head all day."

Talia was grinning. Milo was grinning. I was suddenly very interested in the water outside the cabin window.

"Anyway," I said. "Moving on."

Talia patted my knee. "We can move on. But that is one hell of a story."

"Alright," Cass said. "I think we've thoroughly investigated Adrianna's airport experience." She looked at me with something that might have been an apology, or might have been amusement.

Milo rescued me. "So — fifth anniversary. What's the plan? What are you two doing out here?"

"Everything," Talia said. "Beach yoga. Cocktails. Karaoke. I saw they have a bonfire night and I already know I'm going to be the last one standing."

"What about you?" Milo asked Cass.

"Silence," Cass said. "And a book."

"That's not a vacation," Talia said. "That's a Tuesday."

"My Tuesdays are excellent."

"Oh my God," Milo said, pointing between me and Cass. "There's two of you. You're the same person. You're both going to sit on a beach with books and pretend you're not having the absolute time of your lives."

"That sounds perfect, actually," I said.

"It is," Cass confirmed.

Talia sighed. "Every vacation. I'm out there doing activities, meeting people, living my best life, and she's on a lounge chair not moving for three hours."

"It is relaxation."

"It's reading. Those are different things."

"They really aren't."

"But that's the whole point of this trip," Talia said, softer now. "We barely get time like this. Between her cases and my deadlines, sometimes we go a whole week where the most intimate thing we do is fall asleep on the same couch watching something neither of us picked."

"That happened once," Cass said.

"It happened three times last month. So this holiday is about being together. Actually together. No work, no clients, no deadlines. Just us."

Milo put his hand over his heart. "That is the most beautiful thing I've ever heard."

"She also wants to have a lot of sex," Cass said.

"That too," Talia said, completely unbothered. "I have a whole plan."

"She has a plan," Cass confirmed. "She always has a plan. That's usually where it goes wrong."

"Excuse me?"

"Tell them about Savannah," Cass said.

Talia's face changed. "We don't need to—"

"Tell them about Savannah, Talia."

Talia groaned and covered her face with both hands. "Oh God." She dropped her hands and sat up straight, like she was preparing to testify. "So for our third anniversary I planned this whole trip to Savannah. Romantic bed and breakfast, horse-drawn carriage ride, candlelit dinner at this place with a six-week waitlist. I had the whole thing mapped out. It was going to be perfect."

"It was going to be perfect," Cass echoed, in a tone that made clear it had not been.

"So we get there, and the bed and breakfast is gorgeous. Beautiful. Except the walls are paper thin and the couple next door are having the loudest, most aggressive fight I've ever heard in my life. We're talking screaming, doors slamming, full on soap opera drama. For three hours."

"It was two hours," Cass said.

"It felt like three. So I'm like, fine, we'll go to dinner early. Get out of there. Romantic reset. We get to the restaurant and they've lost our reservation. Gone. No record of it. And I'm standing there with my confirmation email on my phone and the hostess is looking at me like I photoshopped it."

"You did raise your voice," Cass said.

"I advocated firmly. There's a—" She caught herself. "I was passionate about our reservation."

Milo was already laughing.

"We ended up eating at a sandwich shop three blocks away. Which would have been fine, except I'd worn heels for the nice restaurant and by the time we walked there I had blisters on both feet and I was genuinely ready to cry."

"She did cry," Cass said. "In the sandwich shop. Over a turkey club."

"I was grieving the evening I had planned!"

"She was trying too hard," Cass said, looking at me and Milo. "She always tries too hard. The best parts of our vacations are the parts she didn't plan."

Talia opened her mouth, closed it, and then said, "That's annoyingly accurate."

Milo wiped his eyes. "Okay that might be the greatest vacation disaster I've ever heard. But I have one that's worse."

"Impossible," Talia said.

"Mykonos. Two years ago. I met this guy at a bar — tall, dark, gorgeous, spoke four languages, had this jawline that could cut glass. We had three incredible days together. I'm talking beach, sunset, the whole thing. Steamy doesn't even begin to cover it."

"Oh, I need details," Talia said, leaning forward.

"I will spare you the specifics but let's just say the hotel room got its money's worth."

"Don't spare me the specifics."

"The man had stamina, Talia. I'll leave it there." Milo grinned. "And then on day four he told me he was moving to Dubai and that long distance wasn't really his thing. While we were still in bed."

"No," Talia said.

"While I was still catching my breath. He literally rolled over and said, 'So I should probably mention I'm relocating.' Like he was updating his LinkedIn."

Talia was shaking. "That is devastating and hilarious."

"It was both. I cried on the ferry back to Athens and then ate my feelings at a kebab place for two hours." He leaned back. "That was two years ago. Haven't had anything close since. I just want to find my person, you know? Someone who sticks around long enough to fight about where to eat dinner."

It hit differently from when he'd said something similar in the van. There, it had been light — a throwaway line to fill air. Here, with Talia and Cass sitting across from him being proof that it was possible, it landed with more weight.

"You will," Talia said, and she meant it.

"In the meantime," I said, "you have incredible kebab stories."

Milo turned on me. "Oh, she's got jokes now. Miss 'I got into a fight with a stranger before I even boarded the plane.' What's your worst vacation? Come on, share with the group."

"I don't have vacation disasters."

"Bullshit."

"I don't take vacations. This is literally the first one in—" I stopped. "Okay, fine. My friend Sasha and I drove to the Catskills two years ago. Weekend road trip. She was convinced she'd found this incredible cabin on Airbnb."

"And?" Milo said.

"And the photos were from 2015. The place looked like it hadn't been touched since. Peeling wallpaper, carpet that crunched when you walked on it, and the faucet in the bathroom leaked so loud it sounded like someone was slowly clapping all night."

"Stop," Talia said.

"And Sasha calls the owner and asks about it and the guy goes, 'Oh yeah, it does that. Just put a towel under it.' Like that's a solution. Like a towel fixes plumbing."

"Did you put a towel under it?" Milo asked.

"We put three towels under it. It did nothing. And then we tried to go to dinner because the listing said 'great dining options nearby' and the nearest place was this diner that looked like it peaked in 1987 and had been coasting ever since."

"How bad?" Cass asked.

"The menu was sticky. The lighting was yellow. Sasha ordered a burger and it arrived grey. Not brown, not medium — grey. I got a salad that was just iceberg lettuce and a single tomato slice with dressing that tasted like it came out of a bottle from before we were born."

"Did you eat it?" Milo asked.

"Sasha ate the burger. I watched. She said it was fine. Then she spent the rest of the night in the bathroom. We drove home at six in the morning and she didn't speak to me for two days because I was the one who said the Catskills would be fun."

Milo and Talia were gone — leaning into each other, laughing so hard that Milo was slapping his knee and Talia kept repeating "a grey burger" like it was the funniest phrase she'd ever heard. They'd found each other's frequency and they were locked in now, feeding off each other's energy in a way that made the rest of us spectators.

Cass looked at me. "What did we just unleash?"

"I think they might be best friends now."

"God help us," Cass said, but she was smiling.

"Everyone — if you look to your right, Coral Key is coming up."

The announcement came from the crew member at the helm, casual and practiced, but it rippled through the cabin like a current. Everyone shifted. Milo stood up immediately. Talia craned her neck toward the window.

And there it was.

The island came into view slowly — a low green shape against the sky that sharpened as we closed the distance. Lush, dense, fringed with white sand that caught the late afternoon light. The architecture of The Whispering Palms was visible through the palm trees: white walls, dark wood accents, structures that looked like they'd been placed there by someone who understood that a building should get out of the way of the landscape it sat in.

It was beautiful. It was genuinely, absurdly, almost offensively beautiful, and I had been so committed to not being impressed by this place that the feeling caught me off guard.

Milo grabbed my arm. "It looks like a romance novel cover."

"It really does," I said, and meant it.

"This is where your next book should be set. Right here. Tropical erotica."

"First of all, 'tropical erotica' is not a genre. Second, I do not write romance."

"That's the same thing."

"It is absolutely not the—"

"You write about people falling in love but with their clothes off. That's romance just with a lot of sex, honey."

He was grinning at me like he'd just won something. And the worst part was, I had a devastating, airtight, genre-defining response ready — the kind that would have left him intellectually humbled and personally sorry. But arguing with that face felt like kicking a puppy, so I let him have it.

"Fine," I said. "Romance with a lot of fucking. Put that on a bumper sticker."

Renee chose that moment to come in from the stern, passing through the cabin toward the bow to get a better view of the approaching dock.

She glanced at me as she passed. Just for a second — a look I couldn't read. Then she kept walking, and the island kept getting larger in the window.

The catamaran was slowing now. Coral Key filled the view — all of it, everywhere I looked — and the water beneath us had gone from deep blue to the kind of ridiculous turquoise that doesn't exist in real life. Staff in resort polos were already lined up on the dock, ready to do whatever it is boat people do when boats arrive.

Milo was already standing, phone in hand, documenting everything. Talia had grabbed Cass's arm and was pointing at the beach like she'd discovered it personally. Renee was at the bow. I was looking at the island. I was looking at where I'd be spending the next nine days, and I was thinking that maybe — just maybe — this wasn't going to be the disaster I'd been bracing for.