“Doesn’t mean you’re not allowed toin.”


    “Thank you. You’ve had to listen to a lot of it.”


    I sigh. “Well, you heard a lot about Caleb and Cindy.”


    “Hey, I was angry about that, too. Still am. Darn, I have to go. Well, if I can get off this couch.”


    I smile. She always cheers me up. “Talk to youter.”


    “Already looking forward to it,” she says. “Enjoy turning real people into fake people.”


    That makes meugh. “You make me sound like a psycho.”


    “Aren’t all writers?” she asks, and the line goes dead. I’m still smiling when I trudge up the white sand to the pool area.


    Maybe we are. Maybe I can test it out here, in this new ce, with enough space to be anyone I’d like for the rest of these two weeks. An entirely new version of myself that could never have existed back in Pinecrest, Washington.


    The mention of Cindy had sent a pang of pain through me. It’ll pass like it always does, but I stop at the pool bar to get a mojito to help it along.


    I quickly discover that the people who left the beach because of the turning weather just migrated to the pool area. They’re sprawled in cabanas and lying beneath umbres. The ce is packed.


    I grab my mojito and beach bag and walk around the long side of the pool. There’s a single free lounge chair at the very end, protected from the potential rain by the oversized umbre.


    If no one else takes it.


    I soldier on in my flip-flops, my eyes on the prize. This ce is a veritable gold mine of inspiration, and I can’t wait to get my notepad open again.


    I’m so focused that I miss the small kid who races in front of me. I hear his excited scream before I make contact with the intable he’s carrying.


    It all happens very fast. I take a step to the right to avoid hitting the kid and sacrifice my bnce in the process. I tilt toward the only thing close by.


    A lounge chair. A currently upied lounge chair.


    My knees brace against the cushioned seat, and Ie to a graceful stop. No harm, no bruise, no damage except for the painfully overpriced mojito in my right hand. The stic ss tumbles out of my hand and spills its icy contents all over thep of a man and theptop he’s currently working on.


    “Oh no,” I say, reaching out to grip the pole of the umbre for support. “Shoot. Hello. Gosh, I’m sorry.”


    Phillip is staring at me like I’ve just grown two heads. “Eden?”


    “Yes. Shit, did it get on yourptop?”


    He looks down. “Yeah. Wait, it’s not too bad…”


    He starts to wrap his towel around it, but I beat him to it, throwing my own across it with frantic movements. “I’m sorry. I promise I’ll get you a new one if this one is ruined.”


    “No need.”


    “I mean it. It’s just, I didn’t see that kid, and then-”


    “Not your fault,” Phillip says. “This resort is marketed as kid-free.”


    “It is?”Belongs to (N)?vel/Drama.Org.


    His voice darkens. “Yes. It was one of my very few requirements. I don’t know why they’ve made an exception for this one family, but…”


    “Is yourputer okay?”


    “It’ll live,” he says, but he doesn’t sound enthused by the prospect. He sets hisptop on the side table next to him and it does look fine. Usable.


    “The spill mostly missed it, thank God,” I say. “But then… oh. It got on you.”


    We both look down at his legs, and his trunks, and the beige polo he’s wearing. There’s a lonely mint leaf garnishing his right thigh, and I can see ice cubes trapped between his knees.


    “Sorry,” I say. “Really.”


    He gets out of the chair and shakes himself off. I watch the tiny mint leaf sail to the ground. “Stop apologizing.”


    “Let me get you another drink.”


    He stares at me. “Eden, you spilled your own drink.”


    “Oh, that’s right. Sorry.” I chuckle in apology and pick up my bag from where it had fallen on the ground. “Let me get you a drink in apology, then.”


    “That’s not necessary. It wasn’t your fault.”


    I give him a wide smile. “Come on, let me. What do you want? Oh, were you working?”


    “Yeah. The Wi-Fi is better out here.” He runs a hand through his dark hair. It looks more disheveled now than it ever has before, as if he just toweled it off after a swim.


    “Right. Did you get it sorted in your room?”


    “There’s someone there now, checking on the router.”


    “That’s good,” I say, nodding once, nodding twice. “Very good. So uh, do you like mojitos?”


    He sighs like I’m being stubborn. “Yes.”


    “Good. Wait here, I’ll be right back.”


    “Watch out for kids,” he says.


    I do. I’m super careful on the way there and on the way back, carrying two overpriced mojitos. I’m so busy focusing on where I’m stepping in my death-trap-flip-flops that I don’t notice until I get back that he hasn’t opened hisptop again.


    He’s watching me instead.


    I set the mojito down on the table for him. “There we go! Sorry about that. Is yourptop not working?”


    His eyes are locked on his drink. “What’s that?”