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Twenty-Two

By unspoken agreement, neither of us checks social media stats. Ignorance is bliss. Instead, our new game is dodging Roz. We both pretend that the road won’t end. Our Mexico stretches on forever.

Fittingly, we run out of road on Day Thirteen.

Los Cabos rises up out of the desert in front of us.

Planes crisscross the sky; the international airport is close by.

There are more people, more cars, less time.

We’re behind schedule, so everything is a rush now.

I stare out the window, pretending to take pictures.

When Ozzy points to a sign for the route back up to Tijuana, my heart is stupidly hopeful.

“We could turn around,” he says. “We could be there in under a day.”

“We should.” I kid even though I want to beg him to do it.

When we pull up in front of the swanky hotel TripFriendz has reserved, the valet does a double take at the van. Poor Berta is dusty and road worn, completely unlike the flock of dark-tinted SUVs and white tourist vans that flock the wide driveway.

I don’t know what to do with myself when the valet takes Berta away.

Can I hold Ozzy’s hand? Wrap an arm around his waist?

Is he off-limits now that we’re here? I inventory his beautiful face.

The warm light in his hazel eyes. The throat I’ve kissed and the shadowed, salty hollow of his shoulder.

He’s so freaking gorgeous. The laugh lines by his eyes.

The broad shoulders that say lean on me .

The hands that hold me up when I let him.

I spent so much time hating him that I haven’t seen him.

He’s beautiful underneath his pretty skin.

“I feel like we just dropped our firstborn off at school.” I wring my hands like a Georgette Heyer heroine. I should meditate. Dig out my relaxing pants. Fire up my rocket ship.

Ozzy doesn’t miss a beat. “She’ll do great. Funniest kid in the class. She’ll make a dozen friends in the parking lot and will never eat alone at the gas pump.”

A van disgorges a bunch of tourists who swarm the steps, pushing past us as Ozzy pulls me out of their way.

He sets his hand on my back, steering me toward the lobby.

The bellboy disappears with our things, either to fumigate them or sell them to Ozzy’s fandom.

We are grubby, dusty, and rumpled. When I catch sight of myself in the millions of mirrors in the lobby, I look like a goblin.

I have sex hair because we made an unscheduled pit stop twenty miles ago.

“We fit in so well,” Ozzy says to me. “I’m so glad there’s a dress code here.”

“I should have brought my handbag collection.” I sigh. “And the Louboutins.”

From behind the check-in desk, the hotel manager shoots us looks. Although he’s been told to expect us, our disheveled state poses a conundrum. The lobby is full of well-dressed vacationers. We’re scarecrows in a field of Gucci and Tuckernuck.

The manager is still deciding whether he should approach or disavow all knowledge of us when Roz bounds toward us.

She looks relieved to see us and promptly shoves a daunting stack of paper into our hands.

She’s got itineraries for tomorrow. An events schedule.

Details for the airport pickup that’s scheduled for the day after tomorrow.

We have separate return flights for reasons unknown to me.

She hands out keys for our hotel rooms. We’re neighbors once again.

“Tomorrow is the surfing exhibition.” Roz gives Ozzy the stare.

“Surfing? You didn’t tell me I was giving a demo! Maybe I should practice.”

Roz ignores me. “Ozzy? Tell me you’re going to be there.”

“I said I wasn’t doing that.” Ozzy looks at her. She glares back. I want to tell her that when it comes to anger and outrage, he’s a duck. It rolls right off him like water.

Roz tries a different approach. “Marketing set it up. Fans are coming. You can’t disappoint them.”

I’ll bet he can.

“I am not surfing.” A shadow crosses his face. He heads for the elevator like the conversation is over. He’s put up an invisible Do Not Disturb sign.

Roz ignores this and barges after him. I do, too. We both want time with Ozzy, although my reasons are far less business oriented. Ozzy stabs the button for our floor. I don’t think it’s enough to work out his frustrations.

“I can’t cancel.” There is worry and outrage in Roz’s voice, and she sounds so put out that I want to laugh.

I slide my hand under Ozzy’s T-shirt, press it against his back.

I’m here. Roz doesn’t comment. She knows what we’ve been getting up to, and she’s picking her battles.

Maybe it works, because he still holds the elevator door for us, and I know he wants to let it fly shut in our faces.

When she follows him into his suite, still arguing, I reluctantly give up on my plan to get Ozzy Wylder alone in a hotel room.

Instead, I check out my room, which is very much not a suite. I have a double bed and a tiny balcony that’s separated from its neighbors by tall walls. If I squint, I can see the ocean.

I eat all the M&M’s in the minibar to compensate myself for this injustice and take the world’s longest shower. It’s glorious. I wallow in the fancy shampoo. I unwrap all the tiny bars of soap and cover myself with free lotion. I will never, ever take indoor plumbing for granted again.

When I come out, swathed in towels, Ozzy’s on my balcony. He knocks on my door, and I open it.

“Wow. They let just anyone in here,” I tell him. He laughs as I pull him into my room.

After breakfast the next morning, we’re bundled into an air-conditioned car and driven to a surf break whose name I promptly forget.

The beach is a strip of sand at the bottom of a steep hill.

Waves break on the rocks at the western end, and the water is a darker blue than I’ve seen before.

Surfers bob out beyond the break on their boards, waiting for waves.

Condos dot the nearby cliffs, and there’s a restaurant serving up fish tacos and beer.

It’s nice, but I wouldn’t bet money on Ozzy getting in the water.

He’s playing nice right now, but I recognize the mulish look on his face.

There’s a crowd of people waiting for us down on the beach. Ozzy flinches when we reach the sand and see the sign: Surf With Ozzy Wylder!

People converge on him, waving cameras, and he’s carried away. It’s exactly like the night I first met him except it’s daylight and we’re no longer strangers. We’re—

Lovers, definitely.

And friends.

I think I mean that last one.

On the other hand, I’m standing on the beach alone, exactly like that night.

The giant redundancy axe hovers over my neck.

The executioner swings it up and up. Any minute now, it will be game over for me.

Except that there’s a hot, huge man who could be a stand-in for a lumberjack headed up the beach.

The ocean breeze tugs his hair from its man bun.

His broad shoulders can’t be contained by the stupid, silly, so fun T-shirt he wears—Nacho Average Engineer!

This time, though, he looks back. Is he—

He mouths something.

Hi? Or: see you at the bar . Maybe: it’s been real .

I look back. From his hazel eyes to his bare feet. Somewhere between the car and here, he’s shed his shoes because he’s allergic to footwear. And wandering around fully dressed. Ask me to come with you , I hope desperately. You’re so—

Fun.

Present.

Real.

I’m not ready to let you go.

I squint, trying to read the word on his lips. It could be tacos!

But I don’t care. I bound across the beach—the wind whips away my family-unfriendly “Fuck it”—and catch up. Who says I have to stay where I’m put? I’m choosing to follow.

Help , I think.

Maybe that’s the word he’s trying to say.

Rescue me.

“What’s the plan?” I hold out my hand.

When he takes it without answering, I know I’m right. I wrap my fingers around his wrist and tug him to a standstill.

“Talk to me,” I say.

He concedes defeat. “They want a surf demonstration. Apparently, everyone standing over there—” he waves a hand at the sizable group of people clumped together on the sand with longboards and shortboards and even a SUP board or two “—has come out here to see Ozzy Wylder surf.”

The expression on his face says they’re about to be disappointed.

“So you’re running a surf school.” I tap a finger against my lips, running scenarios in my head. If we do this, then that. “Okay. Let’s do it. Teach me how to surf.”

“What?”

I point to the surf shack at the base of the cliff. “Gear me up. Show me how to do this.”

“You want to learn how to surf.”

I shrug. “Are there sharks in the bay?”

“Not right now.”

“And there aren’t any of your monster waves, right?”

We both look at the ocean. The impressive waves, the ones the surfers are riding, require paddling way out. That bus stop is blocks and blocks away from me. Ozzy shakes his head.

“So teach me.” I tug him toward the surf shack. “Teach them . We’ll do the surfing for you, and you can just boss us around. It’ll be good practice for you.”

We go into the surf shack and pick out gear.

I’m squeezed into a wetsuit tighter than anything worn at the Latex Ball.

I want to grab a towel, wrap myself up like a mummy, and ditch the photographers.

As quickly as I think that, I abandon the idea.

I’m the decoy duck. My first attempt to put the wetsuit on fails because I assume the zipper goes in the front where I can reach it without contortions.

Ozzy sorts me out, although he’s still wrestling with the ramifications of my plan.

“You sure you want to do this? If you want a diversion, we could just run off and get married. Get caught having sex in the elevator.”

Such great ideas. I give him big eyes. “I could use a diamond ring…”

He snorts. “You’d run so fast if I came near you with a ring. You want that even less than I want to surf.”