Page 15 of Here for a Good Time
SIX
“So I have to put my whole face in the water?”
“Yes.” Zwe’s hand makes a circular motion in front of his own face. “The whole thing.”
I eye the snorkeling mask in my hand. “But what if I accidentally breathe in water?”
“Well… don’t.”
I glare at him. Behind me, Antonio and Leila let out inadvertent snorts that they scramble to cough away.
“Yeah, yeah, laugh it up. City girl isn’t born to be the next Moana—shocker.
” I wave my mask around at all three of them.
Antonio and Leila grin, and I’m glad they feel comfortable enough around us now to toe that line between “friend” and “guest.” Pointing out that there were literally no other guests at the resort, Zwe and I had convinced them to join us at snorkeling, partly because we would’ve felt so awkward knowing they were sitting on the shore just waiting for us, and partly because I feel much safer knowing there’ll be three other people in the water around me at all times should I find myself in some freak snorkeling accident, like a sudden attack by a school of jellyfish.
“Ms. Poe, how about this?” Antonio pushes the snorkeling mask hanging around his neck to the back so that the pipe bit is behind him.
“If you’re comfortable with it, I can hold you from underneath while you paddle out.
You can practice breathing until your body relaxes and gets used to it, and I’ll be right beside you if something goes wrong. ”
I consider it. “Only if you stop calling me Ms. Poe.”
He chuckles. “Deal, Poe.”
“And you’ll carry me and run if a shark approaches me?” I ask.
Antonio puts a palm on his heart. “With my bare hands. I am your porter after all. Carrying is literally my job.”
Since he was the one who mentioned them, I take this opportunity to check out his bare, muscular, strong, large hands, tracing them up to his equally muscular, strong, large biceps and shoulders.
He smiles when we make eye contact. Suddenly, my turquoise bikini set feels too skimpy and exposing, my own bare skin warming up like the sun’s been dialed up a few notches.
“ I can hold you while you get used to breathing with the mask,” Zwe offers out of the blue.
I frown at him. Zwe has a protective nature, but I thought if anything, he’d be thrilled that Antonio has offered to look after me so that he can go off on his own with Leila. “I’ll… be okay,” I say. I nod at Antonio. “I’m certain I’ll be in good hands.”
“You sure?” Zwe doesn’t so much look at Antonio as he does survey him, like he doesn’t think Antonio would be able to save me in the event of an emergency. If this were anyone else, I’d almost swear it looks like jealousy. Almost.
“I’m sure,” I say. “You two kids go have fun.” I make a shooing motion at him and Leila. “Don’t let me hold you back. I’ll come join you and your new fish friends in a bit.”
“Okay,” Zwe says, but doesn’t move.
I roll my eyes and give him a push. “Go, I mean it. I’ll be too self-conscious if I know all three of you are watching me.”
Still with that dubious expression, Zwe finally nods, and he and Leila jog off into the water while pulling on their masks.
I watch his figure slowly disappear into the water, his sunscreen-covered skin gleaming in the sunshine, and I can’t help but think once more how young and free he looks while splashing around in the ocean, droplets of water jumping into the air with every bouncy step his blue rubber fins take.
After I watch the two of them go underwater, I turn to Antonio.
“I apologize in advance if I freak out,” I tell him.
He shakes his head. “No apologies necessary. Although I think you should cut yourself some slack. You’re a smart and fit woman—I have no doubt you’ll pick it up in no time.”
I almost ask Are you flirting with me? but stop myself, because even if he is—which I’m pretty certain is the case—I don’t think official employee rules would allow him to admit it.
Which is just as well; it’s been nearly a full year since I last went on a date, and to be honest, I don’t really remember how to flirt with an actual man that I’m attracted to.
Which leads to the realization that this attractive, muscular man is about to make skin-to-skin contact with my torso, and oh god what if my body forgets how a body is supposed to act and reacts in a weird, definitely not sexy manner?
What if I cough and spit water in his face?
What if a wave crashes into us and my top slips down and my boobs pop out (also in a definitely not sexy manner)?
“You ready?” Antonio raises his forearms into a ninety-degree angle, biceps flexing in the process. His slightly confused smile must mean that in the midst of my panic, my face began doing something weird.
To hide it, I pull my very sexy plastic mask on and give two thumbs up. “As ready as I’ll ever be.”
Not to toot my own horn, but I pick it up way more quickly than I thought I would.
There were some abrupt starts and stops at the beginning, but that was solely because I got in my own head; otherwise, there was no inhaling or spitting of sea water, which is a major win.
Once I managed to go several minutes without stopping, Antonio even began teaching me breathing control techniques: shallow inhales and full exhales will make your body less buoyant and let you sink deeper into the water, while full inhales and shallow exhales will keep you floating closer to the surface.
“Look who’s joined us! Ariel herself!” Zwe says after I snorkel on my own to demonstrate my newfound ability, the three of them watching like a trio of proud parents. It would’ve easily sounded like sarcasm coming from anyone else, but not Zwe.
We stick close together at first underwater, one person waving and gesticulating at a cool fish and the others giving thumbs-ups to acknowledge them; eventually, though, we drift off on separate paths, close enough to keep each other in our peripheral vision, but far enough that we’re doing our own thing.
And for the first time in a long time, I realize the typically frantic part of my brain has… stopped.
As great as the spa day was yesterday, lying on a massage bed in a quiet room while other people worked through a menu of massages and facials left me with nothing to do but think.
Despite my fervent pleas to my mind to relax and do nothing, it did what it always does, whether that’s on a commute or while queuing at the supermarket—plot, fidget, wonder, worry.
I once tried explaining to Zwe that it feels like I’m a video game character running through my own book, repeatedly running into dead ends or down plot holes that I don’t know how to overcome on the next try.
Not today, though. Today, the physical activity keeps my brain distracted. I’m not worrying that my next pitch for Ayesha won’t be exciting enough, because I’m too busy worrying about breathing correctly and staying alive.
When I look around, I see crystal-clear turquoise waters and iridescent fish and coral reefs and Zwe taking photos with his waterproof disposable camera.
The water is cool but not freezing, and I’m awestruck by the way the sunlight breaks through the surface and makes the seabed shimmer.
Ironically, here—in the middle of the Indian Ocean with a piece of plastic shoved into my mouth—is the first time in months that I’ve felt like I can breathe.
Right now, life feels manageable, and being happy, really truly happy, seems like such an easy and achievable goal.
I’m cured! I think, and immediately chuckle, making a couple of bubbles float up in front of my face.
Noticing, Zwe makes a questioning Okay? gesture with his fingers, and I nod and return it.
I’ve never been more okay in my life. If snorkeling turns out to have been the solution to my problems all along, I’m going to sell our apartment and move us to a shack on the beach.
“Do you think we should move here?” I ask Zwe as I pop another cheese cube in my mouth.
Antonio and Leila had arranged a post-snorkeling picnic for us, but even with our most fervent pleas, refused to join us for this part.
So now it’s just the two of us, sitting on a blanket, enjoying a substantial cheese and fruit platter served with two pitchers of our signature drinks.
It’s the beginning of yet another perfect cotton-candy sunset, a pattern that would seem improbable if you wrote it into a movie.
“What would we do with our place?” Zwe asks.
“Your brother can take it. Or we can sell it.”
Zwe chuckles. “I wish we could move here,” he says. “But it’d be a logistical nightmare.” Even when we’re fantasizing, he’s realistic. “I’m glad we’re here right now, though. Thanks again. For”—he gestures around with a hand—“paying for everything.”
“Don’t even mention it, what else would I do with my advance?” I say, waving a sand-specked hand. “You know, Vik and I used to say that we would go on a big, fancy holiday whenever I sold my first book. He wanted to climb Everest—”
Zwe interrupts me with a snort. “You would not have survived thirty minutes on Everest.”
I throw a grape at him even though we both know he’s right. “But this was the kind of trip I always envisioned,” I admit. “Where we just sat around and… talked. Wherever we went, though, for me, the most important part was that I paid for it.”
“Why couldn’t he pay for it? The man was the poster child for finance bros.”
“It was an ego thing.”
“Yours or his? Because I distinctly remember the latter being big enough to make your relationship a throuple.”
I roll my eyes. “Mine, in this case. I wanted to show him I could do it, you know? Buy us nice things. That my books would one day be worth… something.”