About eight couples are milling around, some are chitchatting with others, but a few partners are keeping to themselves. One of the couples, both dressed in matching blue, can’t keep their hands off one another.


    “Juggling,” I whisper to Phillip. “Why on earth did you choose that?”


    “That’s payback for you saying you like the wind in Chicago. That was outrageous.”


    “Worse than getting married on the roof of a skyscraper?”


    “Yes,” he says. “That actually happens. I think.”


    “And you don’t think women can fall in love with jugglers?” I ask. “You’d probably break hearts left, right, and center if you grabbed a couple of balls.”


    His eyes widen, and a smile starts at the corner of his mouth. “Eden, I-”


    “Don’t,” I say. “I heard how that sounded, too.”


    He grins. “That’s all that counts,” he says. “This seems like an awful way to spend an afternoon.”


    “Does that mean you want to leave?” I ask. “Because we totally can. I mean, I’m down. As long as you know it means we’re losing on walkover to all the other guests, half of whom are probably insufferable honeymooners.”


    “I hate you,” he says, but it doesn’t sound like he means it at all.


    “Thanks, sweetie pie.”


    He frowns. “No.”


    “My lucky charm?”


    “Absolutely not.”


    “My honey nut,” I say, and then grimace. “No.”


    “Yes,” he says, amusement dancing in his eyes. “That one for sure. But why the cereal theme?”


    “Because they’re-”


    “Wee everyone!” The hotel employee-and the apparent emcee for this event-calls out. “Ready to get started? We have some awesome activities lined up for you!”


    What follows might be the most chaotic half an hour of my life. I go head-to-head with eight other women in the noble sport of racing with an egg on a spoon being held in my mouth. And I watch Phillip struggle to shoot darts at the water-filled balloons after spinning around a stick.


    By the time we’re grabbing the sacks, he’s forgotten about his promise. We’re doing a ry race.


    He rushes across thewn in his bup sack, neck and neck with the man in a pink polo shirt who seems determined to win in every single game. In my mind, I’ve deemed him Phillip’s nemesis.


    Phillip returns to the start line and quickly kicks the sack off his legs before holding it out for me to step into it. “Come on, Eden,” he urges.


    I pull the bup sack up to my waist and leap, but I get too much momentum too fast. Three hops forward, and I take a fall. Straight onto the green grass beneath the blue Caribbean sky, and I can’t help butugh, lying there on my back. Everything is so silly. This, me, us. I don’t think I’veughed this hard in weeks.


    Phillip’s facees into view. “Eden!” he says. “Come on, we’re losing.”


    That only makes meugh even harder. But I hold up my hands, and he takes them, pulling me up into standing.


    “Eden,” he says. His skin is flushed from his own race.


    I put a hand on his cheek. “We’re racing in sacks,” I tell him andugh again.


    His mouth cracks into a reluctant smile beneath my palm. “It’s ridiculous.”Owned by N?velDrama.Org.


    “Yes. But I’ll be damned if we lose to the couple in blue over there.”


    I race the rest of the course and all the way back amid the frantic cheers of the others. Beside me, the otherpetitors struggle to do the same and, somewhere among all the voices, I make out Phillip’s.


    “Come on, fruit loop!” he yells. “You got this!”


    I fall across the finish line. But Phillip is there to catch me. All around us, the other participants are cheering on their partners. I’m struggling tough through my heavy breathing. The jasmineden air is thick with heat and humidity, and beneath my bare feet, I can feel the softness of trampled grass.


    “That,” I say, “was so much harder than I thought it would be!”


    Phillip’s hands wrap around my hips. “You looked very graceful.”


    “Liar.”


    “No, it’s the truth. Like a ballerina.”


    I hit his chest. My hand stays there, fingers curling over the cor of shirt. “Did we at least win?”


    “They’re tallying the ‘scores now,” he says, “but we beat “PDA One” and “Two” over there.”


    I peer over his shoulder at the couple in blue. They seem to have given up on the contest all together. Still hovering around the finish line, they’ve got their arms wrapped around one another, lips locked in a disy that should really only take ce behind closed doors.


    “Amateurs,” I say.


    “Can’t keep their eyes on the price.”


    I nod, something tightening in my stomach. It’s not desire. It’s something else, something much more dangerous, and I know that saying goodbye to this little fling won’t be as easy as I once thought.


    Beside us, the woman from earlier loudly clears her throat. She’s stepping out of her sack and smiling at us. “You two are just the cutest,” she says. “Aren’t they, Frank? And to think, you’re a professional juggler!”


    I lean my head onto Phillip’s chest to hide myughter. Above me, I hear his deep voice,ced with amusement. “If only that had been one of the games,” he says.


    Today, I’m the one in charge of choosing our activity. But it can’t involve hotel games, Phillip had said the night before. It needs to be something from that guidebook of yours.


    The concierge at the Winter Resort had been somewhat surprised when I asked her about the best rental carpany. Apparently, most tourists either stay at the resort or go on pre-nned excursions, but she obliged.


    Phillip drives. It turns out he’s driven on the left side of the road before, while he was in Ennd for work, and I dly let him take the wheel.


    “But you’re responsible for the map,” he tells me, steering the vehicle out of the car rental agency’s parking lot and onto the trafficked main street of Holetown.


    “You know,” I say as we pause at an intersection, “this might be the wildest thing we’ve done during this whole trip.”