The Unhoneymooners by Christina Lauren
chapter ten
Iwake up and immediately groan in pain; despite the wonder-massage, I am so sore from being pelleted in the woods that I can barely pull the covers back. When I look, my arms are dotted with bruises so colorful, for a second I second-guess whether I showered yesterday after paintball. There is a deep purple one on my hip the size of an apricot, a few on my thighs, and an enormous one on my shoulder that looks like a rare geode.
I check my phone, opening the newest message from Ami.
Checking in for a body count.
We remain alive against all odds.
How are you feeling?
Same.
Not ready to venture out into the world just yet, but alive.
And The Husband?
Oh he went out.
Out?
Yeah. He’s feeling better and was a little restless.
But you’re still sick.
Why isn’t he taking care of you?
He’s been in this house for days.
He needed some guy time.
I glare at my phone, knowing I have no reply that isn’t going to end in us arguing. “Maybe he ran out of beard wax,” I mumble, just as I hear Ethan shuffling down the hall toward the bathroom.
“I can barely move,” he says through the door.
“I am polka-dotted.” I whimper down at my arms. “I look like something from Fraggle Rock.”
A knock sounds. “Are you decent?”
“Am I ever?”
He cracks the door open, leaning in a few inches. “I can’t be social today. Whatever we do, please let it be just the two of us.”
And then he ducks back out, leaving the door open and me alone with my brain while I try to process this. Again: When did the default plan become that we spend this entire vacation together? And when did the idea of that not send us both into a wavy bout of nausea? And when did I start falling asleep thinking about Ethan’s hands on my back, my legs, and between my legs?
The toilet flushes, the water runs, and I hear the sound of him brushing his teeth. I am tripping—I am used to the rhythm of his tooth brushing, am no longer shocked by the sight of his live-wire hair in the morning. I’m no longer horrified at the notion of spending the day just the two of us. In fact, my mind spins with the options.
Ethan emerges from the hallway bathroom and does a double take when he looks into the bedroom at me.
“What’s with you?”
I look down to understand his meaning. I’m sitting ramrod straight, with my sleep mask on my forehead, the blankets clutched to my chest, eyes wide.
Honesty has always seemed to work best for us: “I’m freaking out a little that you suggested we spend the day together, just us, and it doesn’t make me want to rappel down the balcony.”
Ethan laughs. “I promise to be as irritating as possible.” And then he turns, shuffling back to the living room, calling out, “And as smug, too.”
With this reminder of yesterday, my stomach twists and my lady parts wake up. Enough of that. Pushing up, I follow him out, no longer caring that he’s going to see me in my skimpy pajamas, or that he’s in boxers and a threadbare T-shirt. After our encounter in the bathroom on the boat, the hot tub, and his hands all over my oiled-up skin yesterday, no secrets remain.
“We could hang at the pool?” I suggest.
“People.”
“Beach?”
“Also people.”
I look out the window, thinking. “We could rent a car and drive along the coast?”
“Now you’re talking.” He tucks his hands behind his head, and his biceps pop distractingly. I roll my eyes—at myself, obviously, for even noticing—and because he’s Ethan and nothing gets past him, he cheekily does it again. “What are you looking at?” He starts to alternate between his two arms, speaking in a staccato rhythm to match the bicep flexes. “It—looks—like—Olive—likes—muscles.”
“You’re reminding me so much of Dane right now,” I say, fighting a laugh, but there’s no need because the laugh dies in my throat at the way Ethan’s entire demeanor changes.
He drops his arms and leans forward, resting his elbows on his thighs. “Well, okay then.”
“Is that an insult?” I ask.
He shakes his head, and then seems to chew on his answer for a while. Long enough for me to get bored and go into the kitchen to brew some coffee.
Finally, he says, “I get the sense that you don’t like Dane very much.”
Oh, this is some thin ice. “I like him fine,” I hedge, and then grin. “I like him more than I like you.”
It’s a weird silence that follows. Weird, because we both know I’m full of shit. Ethan’s frown slowly turns into a grin. “Liar.”
“Okay, I admit you’re not Satan anymore, but you’re definitely one of his henchmen. I mean,” I say, bringing two mugs into the living room and setting his on the coffee table, “I always thought Dane was sort of fratty and, like, a Budweiser-in-a-beer-cozy type, but what confused me is how you could be worse when you look so much more put-together.”
“What do you mean by ‘worse’?”
“Come on,” I say, “you know. Like how you’re always pulling him off to these crazy trips as soon as Ami has something nice planned. Valentine’s Day away in Vegas. Their anniversary last year, you took him to Nicaragua to go surfing. You and Dane went skiing in Aspen on her—well, our—thirty-first birthday. I ended up eating Ami’s free birthday dessert at Olive Garden because she was too drunk to hold a fork.”
Ethan stares at me, confused.
“What?” I ask.
He shakes his head, still staring. Finally, he says, “I didn’t plan those trips.”
“What?”
Laughing without humor, he runs a hand through his hair. The bicep pops again. I ignore it. “Dane plans all of the trips. I actually got in trouble with Sophie for going along for the Vegas one on Valentine’s Day. But I had no idea he was missing events. I just assumed he needed brother time.”
A few seconds of silence in which I rewire my memory of all of these things, because I can tell he’s sincere. I specifically remember being there when Dane told Ami about the Nicaragua trip, how he was going to have to miss the anniversary of their first date, and she looked devastated. He said, “Ethan—the dumb-ass—got nonrefundable tickets. I can’t say no, babe.”
I’m about to tell Ethan this when he speaks first. “I’m sure he didn’t realize that he was canceling plans she’d made. He wouldn’t do that. God, he would feel awful.”
Of course he would see it this way. If the roles were reversed, I would do or say anything to defend my sister. Taking a mental step back, I have to admit that now is not the time to hash this out, and we are not the people to do it. This is between Ami and Dane, not Ethan and me.
Ethan and I are in a good spot; let’s not ruin it, shall we?
“I’m sure you’re right,” I say, and he looks up at me gratefully, and maybe with a bit more clarity, too. All this time I thought he was behind those trips—he gets that now. Not only isn’t he the judgmental asshole I thought he was, he’s also not the terrible influence that resulted in my sister’s hurt feelings. It’s a lot to process.
“Come on,” I tell him. “Let’s get dressed and get ourselves a car.”
• • •
ETHAN’S HAND COMES OVER MINE as we leave the hotel. “In case we run into Sophie,” he explains.
“Sure.” I sound exactly like the eager nerd in a teen movie agreeing with something too readily, but whatever. Holding Ethan’s hand is weird but not entirely unpleasant. In fact, it’s nice enough that I feel a little guilty. We haven’t seen her and Billy since snorkeling, so all this performative affection is probably unnecessary. But why take chances, am I right?
Besides, I have become a big fan of those hands.
We rent a lime-green Mustang convertible because we are idiot tourists. I’m sure Ethan expects an argument about who should drive, but I gleefully toss him the keys. Who doesn’t want to be chauffeured around Maui?
Once we’re on the northwestern coast, Ethan opens the speed as much as he can—people just don’t drive fast on the island. He puts on a Muse playlist, and I veto it and put on the Shins. He grumbles, and at a stoplight, chooses the Editors.
“I’m not in the mood for this,” I say.
“I’m driving.”
“I don’t care.”
With a laugh, he gestures for me to pick something. I put on Death Cab and he grins over at me—it brightens the sun. With their chill sound blowing in the air around us, I close my eyes, face to the wind, my loose braid trailing behind me.
For the first time in days, I am completely, no-hesitation, no-doubting-it happy.
“I am the smartest woman alive for suggesting this,” I say.
“I’d like to argue for the sake of arguing,” he says, “but I can’t.”
He smiles over at me, and my heart does an uneasy somersault beneath my breastbone because I realize I’m wrong: for the first time in months—maybe years—I’m happy. And with Ethan, of all people.
Being an expert at self-sabotage, I revert back to old habits. “That must be hard for you.”
Ethan laughs. “It is fun to argue with you.”
It’s not a jab, I realize—it’s a compliment.
“Stop that.”
He glances at me and back to the road. “Stop what?”
“Being nice.” And God, when he looks at me again to see whether I’m joking, I can’t help grinning. Ethan Thomas is doing something weird to my emotions.
“I did promise to be irritating and smug, didn’t I?”
“You did,” I agree, “so get to it.”
“You know, for someone who hates me, you sure moaned a lot when I touched you,” he says.
“Shut up.”
He grins over at me and then back at the road. “ ‘Press together. Don’t spread.’ ”
“Will you. Shut up.”
He laughs this wide-open laugh; it’s a sound I’ve never heard, and it’s an Ethan I’ve never seen: head tilted back, eyes crinkled in joy. He looks as happy as I feel.
And miraculously, we spend hours together without arguing once. My mom texts a few times, Ami, too, but I ignore them both. I’m honestly having one of the best days I can remember. Real life can wait.
We explore the rugged shoreline, find several breathtaking blowholes, and stop to eat roadside tacos near a coral-strewn bay of crystalline aquamarine water. I have nearly forty pictures of Ethan on my phone now—and sadly none of them can be used as blackmail, because he looks great in every single one.
He reaches over, pointing to my phone screen when I scroll to a photo of him. He’s grinning so wide I could count his teeth, and the wind is whipping hard enough to press his shirt tight to his chest. Behind him, the Nakalele blowhole majestically erupts nearly a hundred feet into the air. “You should frame that one for your new office,” he says.
I look over my shoulder at him, unsure whether he’s kidding. An inspection of his expression doesn’t clear things up for me.
“Yeah, I don’t think so.” I tilt my head. “It’s oddly obscene.”
“It was windy!” he protests, clearly thinking I’m referring to the fact that every contour of his chest is visible beneath the blue T-shirt.
Which—yes, but: “I was talking about the enormous ejaculation behind you.”
Ethan goes quiet, and I glance up at him again, shocked that he hasn’t immediately run with this one. He looks like he’s biting his tongue. I register I’ve veered away from insult territory and sprinted headlong into sexual-speak territory. I think he’s gauging whether I intended to be flirty.
And then he seems to decide that I hadn’t—which is true, but now that I’m thinking about it, maybe I should have been—and bends to take the last bite of his taco. I exhale, swiping to the next photo: a picture he took of me standing in front of the famous heart-shaped rock. Ethan looks over my shoulder again, and I feel us both go still.
Admittedly, it’s a great picture of me. My hair is up, but blown loose from the braid. My smile is enormous; I don’t look like the pessimist I am. I look entirely smitten with the day. And hell, with the wind plastering my shirt to my torso, the twins look amazing.
“Send me that one, okay?” he says quietly.
“Sure.” I airdrop it to him, and hear the small ding when his phone receives it. “Don’t make me regret that.”
“I need an accurate image for my voodoo doll.”
“Well, as long as that’s your intention.”
“As opposed to?” He leans into the naughty tone, and won’t let up on the eye contact, which suddenly screams spank bank.
My stomach rolls again. A masturbation insinuation. Suggestive humor. This feels like free-falling without a parachute. I can handle Ethan when he’s terrible; I don’t know how to handle him when he’s turning his legendary charm on me.
“What are we doing tonight?” he asks, blinking away and immediately clearing the mood.
“Do we really want to push it?” I ask. “We’ve been together for . . .” I pick up his arm and glance at his watch. “Like eighty years straight. There are bruises, but no bloodshed yet. I say we quit while we’re ahead.”
“What does that entail?”
“I get the bedroom and Netflix, you wander the island to check on your hidden horcruxes.”
“You know in order to create a horcrux you have to have murdered someone, right?”
I stare up at him, hating the tiny fluttering that gets going in my chest because he knows the Harry Potter reference. I knew he was a book lover, but to be the same kind of book lover I am? It makes my insides melt. “You just made my joke very dark, Ethan.”
He balls up his taco wrapper and leans back on his hands. “You know what I want to do?”
“Oh—I know this one. You want to have dinner at a buffet.”
“I want to get drunk. We’re on an island, on a fake honeymoon, and it’s fucking gorgeous out. I know you like your cocktails, Octavia Torres, and I haven’t seen you as much as tipsy once. Doesn’t the idea of a few drinks sound fun?”
I hesitate. “It sounds dangerous.”
This makes him laugh. “Dangerous, like we’d end up either naked or dead?”
It feels like being punched, hearing him say this, because that is exactly what I meant, and the idea of ending up dead doesn’t scare me nearly as much as does the alternative.
• • •
ABOUT HALFWAY BACK TO THE hotel, we pull into the dusty lot of Cheeseburger Maui —which boasts $1.99 Mai Tai Wednesdays. This is thrilling as it is Wednesday and I am broke.
Ethan unfolds from the front seat, stretching distractingly. I definitely do not grab an eyeful of happy trail. But if I did, I would notice how soft it looks against his hard, flat—
“Ready?” he asks, and my attention rockets to his face.
“Ready,” I say in my best aggressive robot voice. Definitely not caught swooning. I hold out my hand, beckoning, and for a hilarious beat, Ethan clearly thinks I want to hold his hand. He stares at it, bewildered.
“Keys,” I remind him. “If you’re getting drunk, I’m driving.”
After he sees the logic here, he tosses them over to me, and given that I am the least athletic person alive, I manage to nearly catch them but ultimately slap them into a pile of gravel near the tire.
Ethan laughs as I jog to retrieve them, and when I pass as he holds the bar door open for me, my elbow slips and digs into his stomach. Oops.
He barely winces. “That all you got?”
“God, I hate you.”
His voice is a growl behind me: “No, you don’t.”
The inside of the restaurant is over-the-top and kitschy and so positively magical that I pull up short. Ethan collides with my back, nearly sending me sprawling. “What the hell, Olive?”
“Look at this place,” I tell him. There is a life-size shark coming out of the wall, a pirate complete with pirate ship mural in the corner, a crab wearing a life preserver suspended in a net overhead.
Ethan whistles in response. “It’s something else.”
“We’re having such a good day not murdering each other that I’m going to be polite and suggest that we can go somewhere a little more hifalutin’ if you’d prefer, but I don’t see a buffet anywhere, so . . .”
“Stop acting like I’m such a snob. I like this place.” He sits down and picks up a sticky menu, perusing it.
A waiter in a Cheeseburger Maui T-shirt stops at our table and fills our water glasses. “You guys want food, or just drinks?”
I can tell Ethan is about to say just drinks, but I jump in first. “If we’re in this for the long haul, you’re going to need food.”
“I just had tacos,” he argues.
“You’re like six foot four and weigh two hundred pounds. I’ve seen you eat, and those tacos aren’t going to sustain you for long.”
The waiter mm-hmms appreciatively beside me, and I look up at him. “We’ll check out the menu.”
We order drinks, and then Ethan leans his elbows on the table, studying me. “Are you having fun?”
I pretend to focus on the menu and not the curl of unease I feel at the sincere tenor to his words. “Shh. I’m reading.”
“Come on. Can’t we have a conversation?”
I put on my best confused face. “A what?”
“The exchange of words. Without banter.” He exhales patiently. “I’ll ask you something. You’ll answer, then ask me something.”
Groaning, I say, “Fine.”
Ethan stares at me.
“God, what?” I ask. “Ask me a question, then!”
“I asked you whether you’re having fun. That was my question.”
I take a sip of my water, roll my neck, and give him what he wants. “Fine. Yes. I’m having fun.”
He continues to watch me, expectantly.
“Are you having fun?” I ask obediently.
“I am,” he answers easily, leaning back in his chair. “I expected this to be a hellmouth on a tropical island, and am pleasantly surprised that I only feel like poisoning your meals about half the time.”
“Progress.” I lift my water glass and clink his.
“So when was your last boyfriend?” he asks, and I nearly choke on a piece of ice.
“Wowza, that escalated quickly.”
He laughs and gives a wince I find so adorable I want to spill his water into his lap. “I didn’t mean that to be creepy. We were just talking about Sophie yesterday, and I realize I didn’t ask anything about you.”
“That’s okay,” I assure him with a casual wave. “I’m fine not talking about my dating life.”
“Yeah, but I want to know. We’re sort of friends now, right?” Blue eyes twinkle when he smiles, the dimple makes an appearance, and I look away, noticing that others are noticing his smile, too. “I mean, I did rub your butt yesterday.”
“Stop reminding me.”
“Come on. You liked it.”
I did. I really did. Taking a deep breath, I tell him, “My last boyfriend was a guy named Carl, and—”
“I’m sorry. Carl?”
“Look, they can’t all be sexy Sophie names,” I say, and immediately regret it because it makes him frown, even when the waiter places a giant, alcohol-soaked, fruit-filled drink in front of him. “So, his name was Carl, and he worked at 3M, and—God, it’s so dumb.”
“What’s dumb?”
“I broke up with him because when the whole thing with 3M and the water pollution went down, he defended the company and I just could not handle it. It felt so corporate and gross.”
Ethan shrugs. “That sounds like a pretty reasonable reason to break up to me.”
I meet his high-five without thinking, and then mentally log how awesome it is that he chose that moment to high-five me. “Anyway, so that was . . . a while ago, and here we are.” He’s already put away about half of his mai tai, so I turn it back to him. “Has there been anyone since Sophie?”
“A couple Tinder dates.” He drains the rest of his drink, and then notices my expression. “It’s not that bad.”
“I guess not. In my head, I just picture every dude on Tinder is expecting it to just be sex.”
He laughs. “A lot probably are. Probably a lot of women are, too. I’m certainly not expecting sex on the first date.”
“Or, what? The fifth?” I say, gesturing to the table, and then clap my mouth shut because HELLO, THIS IS NOT A DATE.
Thankfully, my idiocy coincides with the waiter coming by to take another drink order, so by the time Ethan turns back to me, he’s ready to move on.
And as it turns out, Ethan is a really cute, happy drunk. His cheeks turn pink, he’s got a permagrin, and even when we return to the topic of Sophie, he’s still giggling.
“She wasn’t very nice to me,” he says, and then laughs. “And I’m sure it made it worse that I stayed. Nothing is harder in a relationship than not respecting the person you’re with.” He leans his chin heavily into his hand. “I didn’t like myself with her. I was willing to try to be the guy she wanted rather than who I really am.”
“Examples, please.”
He laughs. “Okay, here’s one that might give you a sense of it: we had a couple’s photo shoot.”
“White shirts and denim with a fence backdrop?” I ask, wincing.
He laughs harder. “No, she wore white, I wore black. In front of an artfully dilapidated barn.” We both groan. “More importantly, though, we never fought. She hated fighting, so it was like we couldn’t even disagree.”
“Sounds just like me and you,” I say sarcastically, giving him a grin.
He laughs, and his smile lingers as he looks at me. “Yeah.” After a pause that seems to hang, heavy and expectant, he inhales deeply and says, “I’ve never been like that before.”
God, I relate to this more than I can say. “Honestly, I get that.”
“Do you?”
“Before Carl—” I say, and he snickers again at the name, “I dated this guy, Frank—”
“Frank?”
“We’d met at wor—”
But Ethan will not be deterred. “I know your problem, Odessa.”
“What’s my problem, Ezra?”
“You’re only dating guys who were born in the 1940s.”
Ignoring him, I press on. “Anyway, I’d met Frank at work. Things were going well, we had a good, sexy vibe ifyouknowwhatImean,” I say, and I expect Ethan to laugh at this, but he doesn’t. “Anyway, he saw me freaking out about a presentation one day—I was nervous because I didn’t feel I’d had enough time with the material to get comfortable—and I swear, seeing me like that totally turned him off. We stayed together another few months, but it wasn’t the same.” I shrug. “Maybe it was all in my head, but, yeah. That insecurity just made it worse.”
“Where did you meet Frank again?”
“Butake.” As soon as I say it, I realize it was a setup.
“Bukkake!” he sings, and I push his water toward him.
“It’s Butake, you dumbass, why do you always do that?”
“Because it’s funny. Didn’t they run the company name through some test audiences or—or—what’s it called?”
“Focus groups?”
He snaps his fingers together. “That. Like, Urban Dictionary is right there! It’s like naming a kid Richard.” He leans in, whispering like he’s imparting some great wisdom. “He’s gonna be called Dick. It’s just a matter of time.”
I register that I’m staring at him with overt fondness when he reaches forward, touching a careful fingertip to my chin.
“You’re looking at me like you like me,” he says.
“It’s the mai tai goggles you’re wearing. I hate you as much as ever.”
Ethan lifts a skeptical brow. “Really?”
“Yep.” Nope.
He exhales a little growl and polishes off his sixth mai tai. “I thought I rubbed your butt pretty well, well enough to at least be shifted up into the strongly dislike category.” The waiter, Dan, returns, grinning down at sweet, pliable Ethan. “One more?”
“No more,” I quickly answer, and Ethan protests with a drunken Psssshhhhhh. Dan waggles his eyebrows at me, like I might have a great time with this one tonight.
Look, Dan, I’m just hoping I can get him to the car.
I can, in fact, but it takes both me and Dan to keep him on task. Drunk Ethan is not only happy, he is exceedingly friendly, and by the time the three of us get out the door, he’s received a phone number from a cute redhead at the bar, bought a drink for a man wearing a Vikings T-shirt, and high-fived about forty strangers.
He babbles sweetly on the drive home—about his childhood dog, Lucy; about how much he loves to kayak in the Boundary Waters and hasn’t been in too long; and about whether I’ve ever had dill pickle popcorn (the answer is hell yes)—and by the time we get back to the hotel, he’s still drunk off his ass, but slightly more collected. We make it through the lobby with only a few more stops so Ethan can make new friends with strangers.
He stops to give a hug to one of the valet attendants who helped us check in. I give an apologetic smile over Ethan’s shoulder and check his name tag: Chris.
“Looks like the honeymooners are having a good time,” Chris says.
“Maybe too good.” I lean toward escape—I mean, the path to the elevator. “Just taking this one upstairs.”
Ethan lifts a finger and beckons Chris closer. “Do you want to know a secret?”
Uhhhh . . .
Amused, Chris leans in. “Sure?”
“I like her.”
“I would hope so,” Chris whispers back. “She’s your wife.”
And boom goes my heart. He’s drunk, I tell myself. This isn’t a thing he’s saying, just drunk words.
Safely in the suite, I can’t help but let Ethan collapse on the enormous bed for the night. He’s going to be rocking a pretty serious headache in the morning.
“God, I’m so tired,” he moans.
“Rough day of sightseeing and drinking?”
He laughs, one hand reaching up and coming in for a heavy landing on my forearm. “That isn’t what I mean.”
His hair has fallen over one eye, and I’m so tempted to move it aside. For comfort, of course.
I reach out, carefully sweeping the hair across his forehead, and he looks up at me with such intensity that I freeze with my fingers near his temple.
“What do you mean, then?” I ask quietly.
He doesn’t break eye contact. Not even for a breath. “It’s so exhausting pretending to hate you.”
This pulls me up short, and—even though I know it now, the truth of it still blows through me—I ask, “So you don’t hate me?”
“Nope.” He shakes his head dramatically. “Never did.”
Never? “You sure seemed to.”
“You were so mean.”
“I was mean?” I ask, confused. I scrabble back through the mental history, trying now to see it from his perspective. Was I mean?
“I don’t know what I did.” He frowns. “But it didn’t matter anyway, because Dane told me not to.”
I am so lost. “He told you not to what?”
His words are a quiet slur: “He said, ‘Hell no.’ ”
I’m starting to understand what he’s telling me, but I repeat it again anyway: “Hell no to what?”
Ethan looks up at me, gaze swimming, and reaches up to cup the back of my neck. His fingers play with my braid for a contemplative beat, and then he pulls me down with a surprisingly careful hand. I don’t even resist; it’s almost as if, in hindsight, I’ve known this moment was coming forever.
My heart vaults into my throat as we move together; a few short, exploratory kisses followed by the unbinding relief of something deeper, with tiny sounds of surprise and hunger coming from both of us. He tastes like cheap alcohol and contradictions, but it is still hands-down the best kiss of my life.
Pulling back, he blinks up at me, saying, “That.”
I’ll need to see if there is a doctor in the hotel tomorrow. Something is definitely wrong with my heart: it’s pounding too hard, so tight.
Ethan’s eyes roll closed, and he pulls me down beside him on the bed, curling his long body around mine. I can’t move, can barely think. His breathing evens out, and he succumbs to a drunken slumber. Mine follows much later, under the perfect, heavy weight of his arm.
