Page 47 of Every Time I Go on Vacation, Someone Dies

—Shek with his phone to his ear, trying to explain to the emergency operator in broken Italian that I’m not going to die after all.

—Connor and Isabella standing hand in hand with expressions I can’t read. Connor’s might be relief, but it might also be joy; I don’t want to spend too much time thinking about it.

And finally, Oliver, whose hands are around my waist, my back pressed against him. It feels so familiar to be in his arms that it dissipates the fear and makes it feel like a memory.

“I can’t believe that worked,” Isabella says, with wide-eyed wonder.

“Thank God for Oliver,” I say, but I shouldn’t have said anything at all, because his hands loosen and then he moves away from me.

I shiver and hug myself. I almost died. I was just about to die, but Oliver saved me.

All this talk of Connor’s death, and it was my life that ended up on the line.

That tracks.

“You’re okay?” Oliver says, stepping in front of me. His dark eyes are unreadable, but the tone of his voice is one I know—a mix of dread and hope.

“I’ll live. Thank you.”

He pats me on the shoulder, then rounds the table back to his seat. His chair was toppled over in his rush to get to me, and he picks it up and rights it.

If only we could be put back together so easily.

That’s a pipe dream, but his action is a clue to the others, and they disperse to their seats as I sit down.

“What’s the next course? Not fish, I hope,” Allison says as she smooths out her napkin, and everyone laughs.

Shek raises his glass. “Told you we should’ve stuck with pasta.”

“Pasta’s coming,” Guy says. “That’s guaranteed.”

I feel a rustling next to me. Connor is inspecting his plate, poking around it with his fork.

“What are you doing?”

“Checking for evidence.”

“Of what?”

He lowers his voice. “You know what.”

“You think that fish bone was meant for you?”

“You are sitting next to me.”

I feel that quiver again, the one telling me that there might be real danger here.

But no, that’s impossible, because—

“You can’t kill someone with a fish bone.”

“Weren’t you the one about to die?”

I raise my hand to my throat. “Not on purpose, I meant. It was an accident.”

“There have been too many of those. The car, the Vatican, the mugging, you. Come on, you must see it?”

And the thing is, I do. I see where he’s coming from, even if I can’t make it add up to attempted murder. But I’m also sick of it.

---