Page 42 of The Spirit of Love

There’s a ferry docked at the harbor and a crowd of adventure-seeking passengers unloading.

Most come here to hike the Trans-Catalina Trail.

I remember the last time I was here, how the sight of this ferry broke my heart a little because it meant saying goodbye to Sam.

This morning, it’s a welcome sight, a breath of civilization.

I see families gathering their gear from the ferry’s hold, friends helping each other cram one more thing into a backpack.

I notice a couple huddled close together by the information booth.

They’re consulting a map, disagreeing about something as they plan out a future memory.

I’m sure they have their own issues to contend with, but I can’t help feeling jealous of the two of them and their map.

It’s so simple, but I want that—the mundane, everyday moments in between the high notes.

With Sam, it was all about the high notes.

By the time I park my bike in the tiny town square, it’s still only nine forty-five in the morning.

Olivia, Masha, Eli, and Jake aren’t planning to meet me here for over an hour.

They’re probably still in bed. I think about biking the few extra minutes west toward the yacht club.

If any of them are up and on deck, I might wave them down and they could send over the dinghy to pick me up.

But then I decide I could use the solo time to get my thoughts together first. Maybe I can grab some souvenirs for my nephews.

The Harbor Reef isn’t open yet, but next door there’s a small mini-mart where I can get some tea and island trinkets.

The market is part bookstore, part pharmacy, part make-your-own ramen station, and part gourmet grocery store, where everything’s three times as expensive as it should be and also expired.

I find an iced chai in the refrigerated section and a couple garibaldi stuffies that say “Two Harbors” on the fins.

I carry my items toward the front of the store to check out.

I’m heading up the checkout aisle when I see a tall, familiar man with his back to me.

He’s wearing a thin gray T-shirt, fitted black swim trunks, and a well-worn pair of New Balance sneakers.

His broad-brimmed straw hat shields his head and neck, but I recognize his height, his hands, and the telltale bulge of his deltoid as he reaches for a squeeze bottle of honey on the shelf.

Sam. He’s here. In town. Holding a bundle of firewood because we used the last of his stash last night.

What do I do with this new information? Back at his cabin, I’d ended things—but he doesn’t know that yet!

He’s at the market, shopping for the missing ingredient of the cocktail he knows I like.

Which is sweet. And maybe there’s more sweetness where that came from.

Would he come to brunch and meet my friends?

Would we talk through last night’s argument?

Would that make up for what he’d said in his note?

Is running into him here a sign that there’s something worth salvaging between us? Do I want to salvage it? I can’t tell.

In my heart, I don’t think there’s a future for Sam and me.

But is there one more night together?

I can’t deny that I’m touched to find him here. And so, without fully thinking through the implications, I approach him from behind. I rise on my toes and slip one hand over his eyes. I slip the other around his waist.

As soon as I’ve got my arms around him, I realize my mistake. This man is too thin to be Sam. The knowledge that I’ve just pounced on a stranger makes me rear back, pulling away my hands. Just as the stranger spins around in shock.

“Sorry I thought you were someone else!” I blurt out.

“Fenny?”

I look up and stare. The man standing before me, with the honey and the firewood and the skinny waist…is Jude.

And he’s not happy to see me. He looks horrified.

Which makes two of us.

“What are you doing here?” we both demand at the same time.

“I’m sorry about that handsy moment,” I say, taking another step back. “I swear, I thought you were…”

I stop talking because something is happening, something that makes it hard for me to tell whether I’m actually losing my mind.

This is not the first time I’ve mistaken Jude for Sam.

I appreciate Lorena, but she was talking out of her ass with that erotic conflation stuff.

Something else is going on. Jude is thinner and older and bearded and scarred, but his eyes are Sam’s eyes.

I knew it that first day in Rich’s office, but I convinced myself I was wrong.

I wasn’t. Staring into them now is a mindfuck I wouldn’t know how to begin to express on film.

Real life needs the ability to jump-cut to another scene, a moment in my future when I’ve had time to make sense of this insensible situation.

“I’m not stalking you,” is the thing Jude decides to say, whipping off his hat so I can see more of his—Sam’s—his—face.

His bizarre defense is so out of step with the whirlpool going on in my head that I begin to laugh.

“Honestly,” he insists, and I laugh harder. “I did not know you would be here. What are you doing here? This is really the opposite of stalking—”

“Two minutes alone and you start stalking?” a female voice says from behind Jude.

He turns to reveal Tania, who slips a bottle of wine into his hands.

“I can’t take you anywhere,” she says, then looks at me. “Oh. Hello.” She smiles, showing radiant white teeth. “You’re Fenny, right?”

Jude clears his throat. “Fenny, you remember Tania?”

“Impossible to forget Tania!” I say peppily as my heart plummets. “Hi.”

I make myself put my hand in hers. I can’t be jealous.

Can’t be jealous. Can’t be jealous. But I’m so jealous.

And a little shocked that, two nights ago, Jude said that thing about our kiss being more than a kiss.

It must not have been much more because he’s already over it.

He’s spending the weekend with Tania. He needs wine and honey and firewood with Tania.

“I really can’t believe I ran into you here,” he says.

“I’m struggling with the odds myself.”

“Would you like,” Tania asks, “to have brunch with us? We’re staying just up the road at the Banning House. The view is to die for. Literally.” She glances at Jude, then squeezes his elbow in what’s clearly an inside joke.

“I’m sure Fenny’s busy,” Jude says before I can answer.

I nod. “I’m about to meet some friends.”

“What about tomorrow?” Tania says. “Tomorrow might be even better for us, right, Jude?”

They’re an us . An us I’ll probably have to run into twelve more times before the weekend’s over because that’s how small this town is. I suddenly want to crawl into the top bunk bed in my cabin on The Midlife Crisis and embrace the full meaning of the ship’s name.

I look at Jude. He’s looking at me, distinctly uncomfortable, unfairly attractive. Our eyes are on each other’s lips again, and I can’t stop myself from thinking about what it was like to kiss him.

Tania must know by now how good he is at kissing. Does she know other things Jude’s mouth can do?

I think of Sam. The note I left. I don’t regret it. Not even now.

“You two enjoy your weekend. I think I’d just be in the way.”