Page 46 of The Other Side of Paradise (Story of Paradise #2)

Stella

The day was moving all too quickly. The whole week was. For someone who’d dragged her feet not wanting to go on this vacation, I was awfully reticent to leave now.

I mean, why wouldn’t I be? I was going back to a boring-ass summer where all my friends were either traveling or at this internship that I wasn’t going to, and I’d be spending my days doing nothing but missing this place, missing everything that happened here, missing… well, missing Allison.

I was so pissed off we only got a couple days together. I didn’t know what was happening, what these feelings all were or how to interpret them, but I guess it didn’t matter now, did it? I’d be on a plane tomorrow, and it would be like all of this had never happened.

But for now, I was at a beautiful spot on the beach, and Allison was here in a cute little black bikini, stripping her coverup shirt off as she came down the sand towards me.

I sat up from the beach towel, waving at her, and she waved back, pointing to my Solo cup and making an inquisitive face.

I nodded, gesturing pouring it and pointed at her, and she laughed, coming down the rest of the way, moving slowly, before she lunged in the last instant, catching me off-guard and grabbing the cup before I could.

“Not throwing water at me this time,” she laughed, taking off, and I sputtered, jumping up to my feet laughing as I stumbled on the sand running after her.

“Allison! That’s my drink, dammit, give it back!”

We took a long run down where the water was up to our ankles, pale gold at the crests of the tiny waves coming in with the early sunset light on the water, and I managed to catch up with her this time, grabbing her around the waist and holding her into me, kicking and squealing with laughter as she tried to pull free.

“Give me that—” I took the cup, and I wrestled it from her hand to take a sip, laughing. “My god. What am I gonna do with you?”

She grinned, relaxing back into my grip, resting against my front. “Apologize very seriously and very sincerely for dumping water on me.”

“Psh. When you make such cute noises every time I do? Keep dreaming, babe.”

She snorted, shaking her head, but she blushed heatedly at the term of endearment.

I’d just said it to see how it felt, and yeah, it felt good.

I didn’t know what to do with all of this.

I was open to the idea that maybe I liked having sex with a girl—that maybe I just liked having sex with anybody who made me feel important—but this kind of thing, this awful gnawing ache in my gut at the thought that I’d leave after today and never see her again? That wasn’t just about sex.

I mean, the sex was great, but it didn’t make me feel like all of that.

“I’m always dreaming,” she said. “Got my head in the clouds and all that. How was the workshop?”

“It was a lot of fun. Sherry was super sweet and a good teacher and she loved my painting. We got to talking all about my design program and everything and how the skills translated and how they didn’t translate into acrylics… I’m really glad I went.”

She smiled softly. “Sherry’s a sweetheart,” she said. “I’m not surprised she liked you.”

“Also, painting made me think of yesterday, so I got kind of turned on.”

She cleared her throat, looking away, bright red now. “Uh… uh-huh. I mean, I’m not sad about that.”

“I mean, you got so turned on when you finally got to those overpaints last night that you were, like, squirming, begging—”

“Stella, we’re in public,” she mumbled, a hand over her mouth. I laughed, and I finished off my drink, tipping the cup back into my mouth.

“So I’ll wait until we’re in private to fuck you again. But talking about it is legal.”

“I’m not looking to have other people overhear me… talking about… forget it,” she groaned, standing up taller. “There’s something I needed to tell you.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. It’s—”

I ducked down to the sand, scooped up a cupful of water, and I dashed it at Allison as I stood. She shrieked, jumping back and breaking out into nervous laughter as I burst out laughing.

“Stella!”

“Go on, keep talking,” I said, and I stooped to get another cupful.

“I trusted you!” She dropped to the ground with me and grabbed for the cup, and I squealed, trying to slosh it over her but getting deflected, the water spilling over both of us.

I flinched at the splash, and Allison got the cup out of my hand, pushing me off my feet, and I thumped onto my butt in the shallow water, laughing and trying to push her away as she pushed me down and scooped up another cupful of water, dashing it over my front.

She went for another one, but I batted the cup away, out of her hand, and she fumbled and fell forward, into me, and I caught her, pushed down onto my back on the sand as she came down on top of me, eyes sparkling as we both laughed breathlessly.

“You’re a monster,” she said.

“I’m an innocent victim. Look, I’m shoved down on the ground after you were attacking me viciously with cold water.”

“A monster,” she repeated, laughing, and she bent down and pecked me on the lips before she pulled back, not quite looking at me, her laugh turning awkward. “Sorry. I, um…”

I wanted her to keep doing it. Wanted to lie here in the golden sunlight and kiss her until morning. Of course, that was impossible, and not just because there wouldn’t be any golden sunlight for the majority of that time.

Seriously, even if I wanted to date a woman, I was leaving tomorrow. What was I doing?

I smiled at her. “Anything else you want to do while you’re on top of me, pinning me down, both of us just wearing these tiny little outfits?”

“Uh. Yes. I won’t specify what,” she said, looking out over the water.

“I know. You like it when I’m the one to specify.” A bigger wave rolled in, splashing the side of my face, and we sat up, standing and wiping wet sand off our knees as we picked up the cup and started the walk back towards my beach towel and bag. Allison spoke softly once we’d started.

“So… er. I don’t know how to say this, but your dad came to the resort to talk to me.”

I whipped on her with an incredulous look. “My dad did? Shit, what did he say? Was he yelling at you? I can go drop-kick him into the sun.”

“I don’t think that’s physically possible. I do appreciate the offer, though. No, he wasn’t yelling, he was… er. Putting his feelings out there? It was kinda weird.”

I stared at her. “My dad was? I didn’t know he had any.”

“Any feelings?” she laughed, and I put my hands up.

“Don’t look at me. He’s tried his hardest over the years to convince us of that. What feelings were those?”

She looked down, watching at where we left footprints in the sand that the low waves filled in behind us. “Um… do you know what happened with Ryan at brunch yesterday?”

I frowned. “I didn’t think she’d gone…”

“I think she wishes she’d skipped it too.

Apparently things got a bit, uh, shouty.

Your dad skipped it too, and he was telling me second-hand what he’d managed to get out of your mom, once he’d finally gotten her to admit something happened there.

He was as frustrated about being left out of the loop as anyone, and he demanded to know what happened, she apparently went running off after the confrontation.

But, from what he heard, Ryan shouted at everybody that she was bisexual and that she’d been seeing a woman here, and that she was arranging her own trip back. ”

I stopped, not far from my beach towel, turning to her with my mouth open. “She told everybody? About all of that? And what’s she talking about, getting her own way back?”

“I talked to Brooklyn after, and she confirmed everything. Ryan had just wanted to get back and shut down and everything, so that was why they’d both been quiet about it since then… she says Ryan’s doing better today. But she also said you should reach out to Ryan to check in with her.”

Ugh, I really should have. I’d been curious, just… I’d, uh, forgotten, having Allison between my legs.

This was the weirdest, grossest thought, but actually, I was kind of proud of her.

Up and putting it out there and telling everybody to deal with it if they didn’t like it…

all those things I wished I could do, the things I told myself I would do in that kind of situation, but then I crumpled under pressure like a baby.

“I will,” I said. “But he didn’t yell at you? My dad, he wasn’t weird to you or anything?”

“No. I thought he would be. I mean, he did foist coffee on me when I arrived and wouldn’t let me say no, so that was a little weird, but I guess expected.”

I laughed. “Yeah, I think it makes him feel like he’s doing business, and he knows how to do business.”

“But he mostly just seemed worried about you. He, uh… he said he regretted talking to you the way he did, said you were right that he hadn’t been fair with you.

He still argued with me a little, but he mostly was just…

you know, listening. Wanting to do okay by you, I think.

” She paused. “The coffee was good, too. He’d gotten it from this one small spot like halfway across the island, and I’d never had their coffee before, but it was really good. Is your dad a coffee snob?”

“Oh, yeah, a hundred percent.” I looked down, a knot in my stomach, and I trudged, slowly, sat down on my towel, and I found myself staring out to infinity. “Would it have killed him to say that to me instead?”

She laughed nervously, sitting down next to me, her side brushing mine.

The casual intimacy of it, the way she steadied herself with a hand on my shoulder as she sat and then left her fingers at my side brushing my hip, the casual little things…

I wanted so much more time to explore it all.

“I think it was already killing him, so it probably would have. Um… I think he’s working his way up to it. ”

“Hm.” I folded my hands in my lap. “I guess we all have our journeys to go through. Can’t fault someone who’s… moving forward.”

She paused. “You…” she started quietly. “You could still fault him. From what both of you said about the conversations, it seems like he was a real asshole to you about things where you did nothing wrong.”

“Yeah, but…” I swallowed. “I just want things to be okay. I want things to work out. I want to have a decent family that can actually talk to each other. If we have bumps and bruises on the way there, that’s okay, but I’m sick of burying our heads in the sand.”

She made an awkward noise, looking away. “Yeah… he, um. Another thing is, um, well, I think he’s… uh, fine with his daughter being bisexual. He didn’t seem too upset about Ryan dating Brooklyn, just asked me what she was like. And, um…”

I stared at her. “And?”

“And, um, yeah, just, you know. Chill stuff. I mean, chill enough. Relatively chill.”

“Allison, what did he say?”

She hung her head, hugging her knees into her chest. “I think I talked about you a little much,” she mumbled. “He asked if I was dating you.”

Something tightened in my stomach, and I put a hand on her shoulder. “What’d you say?”

“Um. I said no. I did a really bad job playing it cool. Eventually I got out of it by admitting I had a, uh, a huge crush on you and I just wished you were.”

She wanted to date me. I guess I could have pieced that together, but I still liked hearing it. “Was he, like… I don’t know… weird about it?” I said, trying to sound casual, natural.

“He, um.” She cleared her throat. “He seemed to mostly just care you weren’t hooking up with a… meatheaded lifeguard.”

I laughed, even as my chest constricted enough breathing felt weird. I slipped my hand to her back, turning back to my bag. “Well, I’m sure he’d like you,” I said. “You’re not at all meatheaded.”

“I wanted to tell him I was, but I, uh, thought better of it.”

I wasn’t really thinking about it—I leaned over and kissed the side of her head as I pulled my phone from my bag, and I enjoyed the way her breath caught when I did. “You don’t give yourself enough credit,” I said, and I shot off a text to Ryan.

so you yelled at everyone about how you’re fucking Brooklyn?

Allison argued how she gave herself the right amount of credit, which was wrong, while Ryan started typing a reply. I guess Brooklyn was at work. I guess Allison heard about it from the gossip network?

from our dad, actually

She was typing for a while before she replied, from Dad? was he harassing you about it? he wasn’t even at brunch

I chewed my lip. I didn’t know how to get into this whole thing with Allison.

it was Allison but it’s not really harassing, I sent.

apparently he’s cool with it and just wants to sort this whole thing out.

he only heard today what happened and confronted Mom about it and she had a breakdown and ran away this morning and he’s sick of the games

“Are you texting Ryan?”

“Mm.” I showed Allison the exchange just as Ryan’s next text came in. that explains this morning… Brooklyn says she ran into Mom at the café close to here, says she wanted to make amends, apologize, actually hear me out this time

“Your mom too, huh,” Allison said.

“Yeah…” I chewed my lip. She looked at me softly.

“You okay?”

“Yeah. Just… I dunno. It’s weird. Never… thought this would have happened.” I laughed. “Any of this.”

“It’s been a lot.” She looked down. “For me, too.”

“Yeah…” And I was glad I came. For a lot of reasons. Only some of which got to come with me once I left this place.

Ugh.

are you going to? I texted. you know, talk to her, let her apologize, make amends

It took her a long time to respond, I don’t know.

me neither

yeah… I feel stupid, she sent. this is what I wanted, but I feel weird about it

like it doesn’t feel real, right? these are our parents and I don’t expect anything different from them than what we’ve always gotten

yeah, pretty much, and then after a minute, maybe I’m gullible for wanting to give it another try

I pursed my lips. Didn’t know what to think of being so aligned with Ryan, but here we were. they were ganging up on you last time, I sent. let’s try ganging up on her. ask her to dinner, and I’ll go too, and maybe even Oscar can be there idc, and we’ll yell at her until she comes around

you have a subtle touch as always

yeah yeah I know I know I’m the best sister anyone could ever have, are we going to do it or what?

you know, she sent, and then after a pause, maybe you’re right, and then, maybe a subtle touch isn’t always the move after all

“Do you know a restaurant close by?” I said, and Allison nodded to the other end of the beach.

“There’s a place just past the beach that does really good seafood. I hear it recommended a lot.”

“Okay, good. I’m going to want to spend as much time here as possible.” As much time next to Allison as possible, if it would help me understand what this thing churning in my chest was.