Page 107 of Resorting to Romance

If they only knew.

“She’s a single mom. She’s been through a divorce. Her ex left her years ago. We’re being respectful of her son. He’s only seven.”

“Ahh. That’s wise.” My dad nods his head a few times in approval.

“We haven’t even told her son we’re dating,” I explain.

“But you’re serious?” My mother looks confused.

“She’s it for me.” There. I said it.

My father’s face breaks into a smile. My mother looks conflicted. Of course she does. She hasn’t met Mila. She loves Aima. She has plans to matchmake me if there’s even a chink in my availability. Her dream is for me to come home to Hawaii andmarry Aima. Then we’d give her little grandbabies and raise them nearby. It’s a lovely dream, but it’s not my dream.

My dream is currently on the other side of this island preparing dinner for a full inn of guests. And like any dream, she’s elusive.

Eventually, my family and extended family leave the shack. Bodhi escorts them out and Ben and Jamison linger behind to take over. Bodhi and Kalaine are having a co-ed bachelor/bachelorette party tonight. And Mila and I are going as a couple. They invited us and I presented the invitation to her with a big EXIT sign over the top.

“You don’t have to come,” I told her.

“Of course I do,” she said.

So now I don’t know if she’s coming because she wants to be with me, or if she is just fulfilling a duty. She could be thanking me for being a buffer to Brad, or she might simply be trying to be a good friend. Whatever her motive, she’ll be with me tonight, and I’m not mad about that in the least.

The bachelor-ette party includes every relative and close island friend under age thirty-five. We’re a crowd of twenty-seven people total. We eat a meal at Kala and Bodhi’s favorite restaurant followed by dancing at Club Descanso. Then we’re teamed up for a scavenger hunt to search for a list of twenty wedding themed items. We end the night at one of the pools in the back area of the resort. Bodhi reserved a whole section of patio and an entire pool for us.

Mila comes out in a modest one piece. She warned me,I’m wearing a mom suit. It’s the only kind I have anymore. Sorry I won’t be your sexy date. I’ve given birth. I’m a grown woman in my early thirties with a figure that isn’t all it used to be. I hope it’s enough to make Aima think you’re into me.

She couldn’t be more wrong. I’m into her and she could bewearing a scuba suit for all I care. But she’s not. She walks over to a lounger, drops her towel and then strolls to the edge of the pool where she points her toe and swishes it along the surface of the water to test the temperature. I dunk myself underwater and resurface just to cool off and refocus.

I guess I have a thing for a woman in a mom suit. At least that woman in that suit.

Eventually, Mila descends one step at a time. I push off underwater and sluice my way beneath the surface to meet her at the stairs, emerging just as her feet hit the bottom step.

“Oh!” she startles momentarily.

Her eyes dip to my chest and back up to my face. The chemistry between us feels like it did in the shack: physical, electric, intimate. Only for me that’s the least of what I’m feeling.

The ache for her never dulls in me. Even when we’re together I want more of her. And when we’re apart, I’m only half useful because a part of me keeps reaching to the other side of this island we share trying to tether myself to her with an invisible thread—one that’s wearing thin the closer we get to our end date.

Mila won’t need me to act like her boyfriend forever. Just the other day she mentioned that Brad will only be here for his project part-time. He’s got other store locations to constantly oversee. His time here on Marbella will be intensive at first, but then he’ll come and go. Mila will be able to string Brad along without needing me present as a prop in her pretend relationship.

But she’s here now, staring up into my eyes as if we’re alone.

“Chicken fights!” Ben shouts like a frat boy from the other end of the pool. “Partner up!”

“You in?” I ask Mila.

“Of course. Let’s show them who’s the number one chicken on the island.”

“Somehow that doesn’t sound very impressive.” I chuckle.

She giggles. “It sounded better in my head.”

I lower myself into the water, turning so Mila can easily climbonto my shoulders. We walk toward the middle of the pool, my hands on her shins, her hands in my hair.

She runs her fingertips through from front to back and then says, “Sorry! I don’t know what I did that for.”

“You can just keep doing that,” I tease.

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