How to Honeymoon Alone

“He does?”

“Technically speaking, yeah. So if you ever thought of poaching one, look out.”

“There go my summer plans.”

“I know, it’s a real bummer.”

He slows down at an intersection, and I have to remember to guide us. It’s a solid five minutes before the game can resume, with the course corrected.

“I’ve noticed,” he says, “that all your facts are animal-related.”

“Well, we’re headed to a wildlife center, so it’s fitting.”

“I should step it up. So… okay. You asked for random facts, right?”

“Hit me.”

“A duck’s dick is shaped like a corkscrew,” he says.

“What? No way.”

“It’s a hundred percent true.”

“How the hell do you know that?”

“It was a go-to fun fact for a friend of mine in college. He pulled it out at parties all the time.”

“The fact, I hope?”

Phillip laughs. “Yes, the fact.”

I chuckle, too. “He must have been wildly popular.”

“Oh, he was a real crowd-pleaser,” Phillip says.

“A corkscrew. Oh my God, I can’t even…” I shiver again, in discomfort this time. “Poor female ducks.”

“Might not be so bad if it’s all you know,” he says. Then, he laughs again. It’s a full laugh, and it fills the car up, warming the air between us. “I can’t fucking believe the conversations I have with you.”

“You were the one who brought up the intimate anatomy of a duck,” I say, but I’m grinning, too.

“Yeah, and I stand by it because I want to win the game.”

“I feel like my Babe fact was killer, though.”

He reaches across the center console and pats my bare leg. “It was, I’ll admit. Let’s call it a tie.”

My entire body hums at the contact of skin against skin, and the memory of his fingers sliding even further up. “Okay,” I murmur.

His hand lingers a second too long before he puts it back on the steering wheel. Then, he clears his throat again. “Fuck.”

“What?”

“It’s hard to be around you now,” he says. “After the other night.”

“It is?” The words come out soft. We haven’t spoken about it, not in the bright light of day.

“I know too much now,” he says, glancing over at me. “It’s killing me to not do it again. Right now. All the time.”

My chest constricts, making it hard to take in a full breath. “Well, right now would be pretty unsafe.”

“Yes, but that doesn’t stop me from wanting to do just that. Your short dress doesn’t exactly help.”

I stretch out my legs again and watch the fabric ride up an inch. “Good thing you’re a self-controlled lawyer with the discipline of steel.”Belonging to NôvelDrama.Org.

He glances down at my legs. “I used to be,” he mutters. “Now, I’m someone who competes in sack racing.”

That makes me laugh, and it breaks the tension rising in the car.

“Hey, is this the place?”

“Shoot, yes,” I say, looking out the window. “Turn in here to the left.”

He pulls the car to a stop in a gravel parking lot, right in front of the giant gates.

The wildlife center is exactly what the guidebook said it would be. Small and family-run, with palm trees and foliage all around. It’s inhabited by the green-tailed monkeys that live on the island. They run wild all over the countryside, but here they’re more numerous, jumping from tree to tree and watching us with big eyes.

Phillip takes pictures of me next to the monkeys, and I pester him into taking a picture with me, too. A fellow tourist snaps the shot of us.

“To remember the trip by,” I tell him.

He rolls his eyes. “It’s not memorable enough? You fell off a boat, Eden.”

I elbow his side, and he reaches for me, tickling until I finally end up tucked beneath his arm. He drapes it around my shoulders and keeps it there for the rest of our tour around the little center.

After our visit, we drive on. Our route takes us from spot to spot, all the way to a cove on the north end of the island. We eat lunch there, high above the crashing waves of the Atlantic, and I make him tell me about his childhood, and his experiences in law school and the late nights he spent in the library.

In return, he quizzes me about my books, and I finally tell him the name of my first one, the flop, and he listens attentively. Like he truly cares.

Our last stop of the day is at a deserted beach mentioned in the guidebook. We make our way to it using a combination of GPS and a very friendly man who points us in the right direction. The sun is hanging midway down the sky, the afternoon fading. I sit down on the sand, and Phillip sinks beside me. The deep-blue waves beat softly against the shore.

“I can’t believe we’re here,” I say. “That this is my life right now.”

“It could be your life more often. You know, if you wanted it to,” he says. “There are ways to incorporate traveling into your reality.”

I rest my head on my knees. “Yes. I used to be kinda jealous of Kaelie, actually. She gets to travel so much for work. But now, I don’t know if I want that.”

“No?”