Page 31 of The Four Engagement Rings of Sybil Rain
I DON’T SAY MUCH ON THE WAY BACK TO THE RESORT, BUT AS WE NEAR the hotel pool, Sebastian nudges my shoulder. “You up for going into town? The guy who dropped me off from the airport told me there’s an aloha festival this afternoon. I thought I’d go and get some shots.”
“Rum?”
“Photography.”
“Ah, right. That too.” I give Seb a small grin. “Sounds good.” I’m too spun out to get any real work done this afternoon, so I might as well enjoy what the island has to offer.
“Perfect.” Seb grins down at me. “You know, you’re my favorite person to photograph.”
“Really?” I always loved being photographed by Sebastian. It was the only time I could be certain that he was fully in the moment with me. I knew I had his unwavering attention, and he wasn’t planning his next trip or looking for his next adventure.
“Really. The camera loves you.”
I’m about to respond with something teasing, like, are you sure it’s just the camera? but the words get stuck in my mouth when I spot a sweet little scene playing out across the pool.
An older man is helping his wife down the small set of stairs from the garden that leads from the bar to the pool area, his hands on her elbow.
Once they both reach the bottom, she turns to cup his face with one hand, and he bends down to drop a kiss on her cheek before whispering something in her ear.
She swats at his arm but lets out a short bark of laughter.
They’re both grinning as they settle into a pair of lounge chairs. My heart clenches.
Sebastian follows my gaze.
I swallow the lump in my throat and try to smile. “The festival thing sounds great. Let me just change again.” I’m still wearing a bathing suit and linen pants from the ride and picnic. “Meet back down in the lobby at four?”
“Perfect,” he says with a grin, and I start to make my way toward the elevator bank. “And hey, Sybil,” he says quietly. I turn to face him. “I’m sorry again about before.”
I nod, not trusting my voice to respond. “I’ll see you in a bit.”
A T FOUR P.M., I go to meet Sebastian in the hotel lobby as planned.
I’m feeling rejuvenated in a fitted coral-red maxi-dress with halter-style straps that tie behind my neck, hair loose and just a little wavy, the tiniest bit of blush.
I managed to create a really good Flowies reel with all my waterfall footage from earlier.
I’m determined to put the horseback riding incident out of my mind.
To not let myself get hung up on the past—both what happened this afternoon, and what happened a year ago.
In order to move forward, we need to unburden ourselves from what’s come before , Gwendolyn always tells me.
I’ve always kind of believed in fate, and maybe I’m here not just for work but for a reason: for the actual transformation the blood moon eclipse promises.
Maybe what feels like chaos is just attempting to swim against the current; maybe what I really need to do is actually go with the flow .
Sebastian’s waiting for me. He’s changed into an ostentatious Hawaiian shirt with the top two buttons undone, but somehow, he’s pulling it off. He steers me through the lobby and out to the front of the hotel, where he hops into the driver’s seat of a gold cart emblazoned with Halia Falls’s logo.
“How’d you convince them to give you a golf cart?” I take the seat beside him.
“I’m very persuasive.” He gives me a conspiratorial wink, and I’m surprised by the laugh that escapes me.
We crest a small hill and head the short distance to town.
Sebastian has always been a skilled driver; I watch him maneuver around a small sedan and a couple of cyclists.
The breeze ruffles his blond hair, and something flickers in my chest.
The road is blocked off for the festival, so when we get close to the center of town, we park the golf cart and start walking.
The streets are strung with bright streamers and lined with huge, car-sized arrangements of plumeria, pink hibiscus, and other bright-green native foliage.
There are stalls selling leis, ti leaf wreaths, goddess sculptures, authentic food, and all sorts of hand-crafted souvenirs.
On the other side of the street, a stage has been set up, where hula dancers perform to guitarists singing soothing Hawaiian music that instantly relaxes me.
A few stalls in, a man flips sticky Portuguese sausages and Hawaiian pork, the edges slightly charred.
Its sweet barbeque smoke billows off the grill, and my mouth waters.
We continue to wander, passing a cart selling bright-purple ube ice cream.
Next to that is someone frying malasadas, which I learn are a Portuguese tradition and basically the most delicious doughnut holes on the planet.
Seb swings his arms around my shoulder, pulling me deeper into the crowd.
The familiar, spicy scent of him surrounds me, and I let my arm come around his waist.
What am I doing, exactly—trying to convince myself of the boyfriend charade too? But I shoo away those thoughts. Go with the flow , I tell myself. I deserve to feel good, and right now, leaning into Sebastian feels a hell of a lot better than darting around the resort dodging Jamie.
We pass a stall filled with racks of brightly colored sarongs that flap in the afternoon breeze and another piled high with koa wood that seems to glow from within.
While Sebastian buys us a couple of beers, I stop at a jewelry stall.
The pieces are all handmade, the vendor tells me as I trail a hand along the display tables, and I recognize her name as the shop owner Ash told me about, the one who made Ash’s green beaded earrings.
A milky, pearlescent stone winks up at me from its setting in a delicate gold band.
It’s unique. Almost otherworldly. “That’s moonstone,” the vendor says.
“It’s beautiful,” I tell her, captivated by the way the light plays across its surface.
My fingers trace the smooth face of the stone, and I imagine it catching the moonlight, its iridescent glow shimmering against my skin.
It’s stunning, but probably way out of my budget.
I thank the woman and move on to browse some other pieces in her shop while I wait for Seb.
At one point, I slip a woven bracelet over my wrist. I’m admiring it when Sebastian returns.
“It suits you.” He takes my hand and twists the bracelet around to get a better look. “I’ve always thought you looked good in organic jewelry,” he says with a wink, and the flakes of seaweed in my jewelry box flash across my mind.
“What do you say?” He squeezes my hand and nods down at the bracelet. “Want to make a run for it?”
I roll my eyes and drop his hand. “After the dine-and-dash disaster of 2019, I’m going to say no.”
Seb had forgotten his wallet when we were out to dinner one night at a little hole-in-the-wall on St. Mark’s Place not far from my apartment, and I hadn’t brought anything, assuming he was going to pick up the check (I’d gotten the last one).
He convinced me to dash after we’d finished our entrees, but predictably, the restaurant caught us.
If I hadn’t convinced the owner to take Seb’s watch as collateral while we waited for Emma to come down to the restaurant with my purse, we’d probably have found ourselves sitting in some Manhattan precinct office, awaiting sentencing for Grand Theft Dumplings.
“Guess I’ve got to pay for it, then,” Sebastian says, his eyes sparkling.
He gives the crafter some money for the bracelet, and we maneuver through the crowd that seems to have grown even denser since we got here.
We find an empty picnic table on a lawn near the bandstand, and Seb takes a seat beside me, his hand coming up to my back.
Resting beneath my shoulder blades, his thumb rubs up and down along the bare skin of my spine, exposed from the open back of the coral dress, and even though the weather is mild, I swallow and suppress a shiver.
I’m not sure if I should lean away, but before I can decide, Sebastian’s hand drops to the bench, as if he’s not sure either.
Sebastian lifts his beer bottle in a toast, his eyes sparkling down at me. “To losing sight of the shore.”
Smiling at the familiar words, I lift the cool glass bottle to my lips.
The quote has always been one of Sebastian’s favorites.
Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore.
That’s how it’s always been with Sebastian.
Like we were throwing ourselves into the unknown with the hope that we’d land somewhere new and dazzling.
“This might sound corny to say.” Sebastian doesn’t look at me as he sets his beer gently on the table.
“But this feels like fate.” His bright blue eyes come to mine, and I’m struck by the sincerity in them.
They’re totally serious, free of the mirth that usually sparks in them.
“It feels like fate,” he repeats, “that we were both in the Pacific Islands at the same time. That we got to reconnect.”
“Would it still be fate if it had been one of your other exes in Hawaii this week?” I tease.
“If you must know,” he says, almost primly, “I don’t keep tabs on any of my other exes.”
That surprises me. “Really?”
“Really. You’re special, Sybil Rain. It’s like…” He trails a hand through his hair. “I never felt like the door was fully closed with us, you know?”
I swallow and nod. “I felt that way for a long time too. Until…”
“Until you met him.”
“Yeah.” I begin to peel the label off my beer bottle.
He presses his lips together and looks away, toward the hula dancers.
“You were really right for me, for a certain time in my life, Seb,” I say, willing him to believe me. “But I don’t think we ever would have been right forever. We just didn’t want the same things.”