Page 44 of When Javi Dumped Mari

The emcee weaves through the crowd and plants himself in front of us. He’s tall, dark, and shiny, the latter a result of his gold lamé jacket. “Anyone?”

“What’s the prize?” Brittany asks even though there’s zero percent chance she’ll get up there.

“A prestige bottle of Veuve Clicquot 2015!”

We ooh and aah as he likely expects us to, but no one volunteers to shake their ass on a stage in front of strangers, most of whom are either already on Drunk Island or one cocktail away from getting there. How surprising.

“What about the bride?” the emcee prods.

I stare at him blankly. How the hell does he know I’m getting married?

“The sash with the word ‘bride’ on it probably gave it away,” Chloe says, guessing the source of my confusion.

“Oh, no, thanks.” I glance beside me, where Javi’s quietly sipping a water and scanning the crowd, and I can’t resist getting him back for all the teasing he’s subjected me to since Alex’s DJ fiasco earlier today.

As I wrap an arm around Javi’s shoulder, I say, “But my friend here will do the honors.”

Javi jerks in his seat and scrubs a hand across the back of his head. “No. No. And hell no.”

I pout, batting my eyes coquettishly. “Oh, c’mon, Javi, please ? You’re my man of honor. Don’t you want me to be happy?”

He stares at me, his lips compressed into a grimace that suggests he’s not buying my bullshit, then says, “And it’s still a no.”

“Boo,” the emcee says into the mic. “Her man of honor won’t come up here and win a premium bottle of champagne for her.

” He raises his free hand at the crowd, waving it as he continues to boo.

The crowd delivers, joining in the public shaming.

Oh no, this is getting out of hand! I thought he’d experience a moment of panic, and the emcee would move on; this is far worse than that.

I stand and wave my arms in the air. “It’s okay, everyone. Just a joke between friends.” Unfortunately, there’s no reasoning with drunk people, so now they’re chanting, “Get up! Get up!”

Javi sets his glass down and eyes every person at our table. “If you take photos of this— You. Will. Pay.”

Brittany, Sasha, and Chloe squeal with delight and clap their hands as Javi rises and strides to the stage.

He’s dressed casually, his olive board shorts hanging low on his hips and the front of his fitted white V-neck jersey stretched across his broad chest. There’s a hum in the audience once people see who they were egging on.

I sit back to enjoy the show, pleasantly buzzed after two postdinner cocktails. This is what it’s all about, isn’t it? Making memories. Javi will probably exact retribution, but that’s a worry for another time.

Eight contestants for the still-undisclosed game huddle in a circle while the emcee talks to them, likely explaining what they’ve signed up for.

I giggle when I notice that the older gentleman who walks around in his Speedo all day is among the competitors.

He’s upgraded his outfit by donning a loose button-up shirt that completely covers the bikini so he looks like he has nothing on below. This is going to be a scream.

A server appears at Chloe’s side and asks if we’d like any refills from the bar.

“I’ll take one of those rum punches,” Sasha says.

“Should you?” I ask under my breath.

“Yes, Mom,” she says, with a roll of her eyes. “One little drink isn’t going to kill me.”

Brittany looks between us. “Okay, what the hell’s going on?” She peers at Sasha. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed that you’re not drinking during this trip.” Her eyes widen, and she leans over. “Are you pregnant?” she whisper-shouts.

“Shut your mouth, girl,” Sasha says. “I would need to be having sex for that to happen, and that’s definitely not happening.”

“Then what’s going on?” Brittany asks, her brow knitted in concern as she catalogs Sasha’s face.

Sasha sighs. “I have a thing. It’s really not a big deal. My heart skips beats when I’m stressed.”

“Why didn’t you just tell me?” Brittany asks.

“Because you tend to hover and nag even when you don’t have a reason to. I didn’t want to give you a reason.”

Brittany folds her arms over her chest. “I tend to hover and nag because I care , you ingrate. And anyway, it’s not not a big deal. It can lead to strokes and blood clots.”

“How do you know?” Sasha says, her head tilted.

“Because my dad has AFib too. And yes, it can be managed, but you can’t pretend it isn’t a thing.” She huffs. “I’m so mad at you for keeping this from me. Why does she know”—Brittany juts her chin in my direction—“and I don’t?”

“Why does Mari know you’re sleeping with your boss and I don’t?” Sasha asks in return.

Brittany whips her head in my direction. “Holy shit, Mari, you told her?”

“She didn’t say anything. I just smoked you out, Little Miss Sunshine.”

Chloe’s head swivels from person to person as she throws back the honey-roasted cashews our server dropped off when we first arrived.

“Okay, okay,” I say, putting my hands out in an effort to calm the tension. “This is getting a little heavy for a bachelorette celebration.”

“That’s life for you,” Chloe observes.

I flare my nostrils. “Yes, Chloe, thanks for that illuminating contribution to the conversation.”

“Yes, yes, yes,” she says, shimmying her shoulders, unaffected by the attitude in my voice, “ there’s the fire I knew was in you the whole time! Get it, girl!”

What the hell? When did I become this person who needs to get her spirit coaxed out of her? I take in a deep breath. As usual, Chloe’s derailing my thoughts. “Now, ladies, we’re friends, okay, and sometimes friends don’t share everything they should, or they share in their own time.”

Chloe points a cocktail straw in my face. “So is this when you tell us that you and Javier fucked against a hotel door?”

I gasp. Sasha cackles. Brittany lets out a whoosh of breath.

“How does everyone know this?” I cry.

“Oh please,” Brittany says. “That little tantrum you threw last night was a dead giveaway.”

I rest my forehead on the table and groan.

“Chin up, sweetie,” Chloe says. “It’s showtime, and I have a feeling you’re going to want to see this.”

I reluctantly sit up and turn my attention to the stage, where Javi and seven other people are standing in a row.

The emcee swings his hips from side to side, then says, “All right, all right, my friends. Here’s how this competition is going to go.

For those of you who don’t know, Tanya Carter is our country’s Beyoncé.

No, Rihanna. Anyway, we’re going to play one of her most popular reggae songs, ‘Bad,’ and we’re going to have a dance-off.

The winner will be determined by the audience’s applause.

I’ll eliminate two people until we get down to the last two for the final contest. Sound good? ”

The audience whoops and cheers in response, and then the emcee waves a finger in the air and chants “Bop, bop, bop!”

On the far side of the stage, Javi scrubs a hand down his face. Our eyes meet, and I stick my tongue out at him. He laughs, and I’m giddy just thinking about what’s about to go down. Also, I’m absolutely taking pics.

The music is infectious—it truly is impossible to sit still—so we’re all getting an upper-body workout, grinding to the beat in our seats.

Javi moves from side to side, seemingly content to get eliminated quickly.

Speedo Guy tries to secure the win in seconds, whipping his shirt off and swiveling his hips like he’s in a music video.

The crowd goes bananas, and Speedo Guy revels in the praise.

I’m ready to call Speedo Guy the champion, but Javi gets this peculiar glint in his eye, points to me, and mouths, This is for you .

Then he peels off his shirt and chucks it into the audience.

Sasha throws her arm over my shoulder and jostles us. “Ahhhh, this is epic!”

And it is. But it’s also confusing. Javi doesn’t enjoy the spotlight, so to see him lose his inhibitions this way is breaking my brain.

Chloe takes in a deep breath and flutters her eyes closed. “Look at that man’s abs.”

That’s precisely what I’m trying not to do. Unfortunately, it’s nearly impossible to focus on anything else, especially when he’s doing body waves that emphasize their definition, each contraction giving me a different ridge to concentrate on.

“Is someone recording this?” Brittany asks, wheezing and wiping her eyes with a tissue. “For posterity.”

“And blackmail,” Sasha adds, winking at me.

“Shouldn’t the emcee decide who’s out by now?” I grumble.

Thankfully, the emcee runs behind the contestants, eliciting the audience’s vote by hovering a hand over each person.

Two white women who are so sloshed they can barely stand up straight extend their middle fingers at the crowd when they’re eliminated, while Javi and Speedo Guy easily move on to the next round, possibly on the strength of our table’s applause alone.

Before long, four more contestants are out, predictably resulting in the two early favorites making the finals.

Javi and Speedo Guy, who the emcee tells us is Gianni, an Italian-born and Argentinian-bred American retiree with seven children, move to opposite sides of the stage to plan their final efforts to win over the crowd.

Javi and the emcee put their heads together, then signal a few of the resort staff over. What is he up to?

My gaze snags on Gianni as he does push-ups on the stage in preparation for the battle. How is any of this happening? Will Javi ever live down his defeat by a seventy-year-old man unironically wearing a bikini twenty-four hours a day?

I prepare my phone to record the final contest, and when Gianni begins to hump the stage, I lose it.

My hands shake as I try to capture every moment of this lopsided battle, but then Javi raises his hands in the air, and the servers he was speaking with earlier step onto the stage and throw pitchers of water at him.

Javi grinds, licking his lips and flicking water at the women closest to the stage.

But he’s not done, because he drops to the ground, slaps at the water puddled on the stage, and then draws a finger across his lips, recreating the iconic moment when Tom Holland performed Rihanna’s “Umbrella” on Lip Sync Battle .

The crowd goes wild.

And that, my friends, is how you win a dance contest.

I didn’t think Javi had it in him, but he’s been full of surprises this weekend, hasn’t he?

“I am deceased,” Sasha shouts, collapsing in her chair and throwing a hand over her heart.

“And I have video evidence that it happened,” I say, lifting my phone in the air triumphantly.

“What a way to end this amazing trip,” Chloe says on a chuckle.

And it has been exactly that: amazing. Even with so much going on, I can always count on my friends to get me out of my head.

We wait for Javi to collect his prize, and then he returns to the table, still bare-chested and panting.

“That was something,” I tell him, slow-clapping.

Handing me the champagne, he pins me with his eyes, then winks. “Anything for you, Mari.”

Something about his phrasing dampens my spirits and kicks my brain into overthinking mode.

It may be true that he’d do anything for me now , but that wasn’t always the case.

After all, he vanished from my life for years , and only a chance encounter brought us back together.

A small part of me will never forget that fact.

I suppose my long memory is a good thing. In the end, it’s what led me to Alex.