Page 12 of Reel Love

“The barbecue?” I ask. Bodhi extended me an invitation two days ago.

“Yeah. We’ll all be there.” Ben tips his chin toward Kai. “Kai and Mila, Cam and Riley, Bodhi and Kalaine, Summer and Me.”

“Is there such a thing as being the ninth wheel?” I half joke.

“We know women,” Ben wags his eyebrows. “Giselle’s still single. That yoga instructor friend of Riley and Summer’s, Aria, is still single, I think. Want us to invite some women?”

“No. No. I’m good.”

Ben chuckles. “It’s a waste of all that good rizz, my friend. You should be blessing the women of Marbella with some dates at the very least.”

Kai shakes his head. “Leave him alone, Ben.”

Kai’s forehead wrinkles with confusion when he looks at me. “Rizz?”

“It’s nothing. Trust me,” I glance at Ben, and Kai seems to read the room.

“It may be a bunch of couples at Bodhi’s, but we’ll just be hanging out,” Kai says. “These gatherings usually end up with all the girls on one end of the yard and all us guys around the grill anyway. Come over. We’d love to have you.”

“I just might.” I concede.

Eventually, I may just have to give in and let the guys set me up with someone. My thoughts flick to SaturdayIslandGirl. I looked up Saturday Island the other day, hoping it was a location I had never heard of before. It’s not.

There’s an old 1950s movie with an island by that name located in the South Pacific. And there’s a book too—about a shipwreck near Jamaica. That doesn’t narrow things down at all. If I employ deductive reasoning based on those two pieces of information, my online friend either lives in the Caribbean or Bora Bora. Those two spots are nearly six thousand miles away from one another, and they each are three or four thousand away from me. I’m probably not going to end up dating her. Well, let’s be practical here. I will not be dating her.

For some inexplicable reason, SaturdayIslandGirl is the one woman I have any interest in pursuing even though I know nothing about her outside the ease of our connection, her wit, and the way she draws out my desire to banter. For now, I’d rather not date. I’m happy with my boats, my friends, and the curious relationship I’ve formed with SaturdayIslandGirl.

I have dated women in the past. I even had a pretty serious girlfriend in grad school. She dreamed of touring the world drumming up grants to fund research trips focused on furthering ocean conservation. She met an ecologist one summer and broke things off with me when she returned home from that expedition. I barely grieved. She was more of a companion than the love of my life. It was then I landed on an important discovery about myself. I don’t want a relationship that’s basically a convenience.

If I’m ever going to invest in something committed and romantic, I want the woman to be someone I can’t live without. I need to be swept away by her. She needs to challenge me and settle me. That woman may not exist, and that’s fine. I’m pretty good at being single. But if she does exist, I’ll pursue her until she’s mine. And she’ll be worth whatever I have to do or sacrifice tobe with her.

Until then, I need to spend at least as much time with the actual people I know in real life as I do with anonymous acquaintances online.

“I’ll be there,” I tell Ben, snapping out of my spiraling thoughts about relationships.

He whoops enthusiastically. “Atta boy. And let me know if you change your mind. I’m sure we could come up with quite a few females who would want to show up if they knew the elusive Stevens was coming over.”

“I’m good,” I assure Ben. “I’ll see you two later. I’ve got to stop by my mom’s for a bit.”

“Give her a kiss on the cheek for the boy she wishes were her actual son,” Ben says. “I love that woman.”

“I’ll do just that.” I chuckle.

My mom unofficially adopted Ben once she found out his family lives in the Midwest. She’s always been like that, collecting stray friends of mine and treating them like extended family. Her extroversion knows no bounds.

The air outside the watersports shack is warm on my skin. A light breeze blows in, tempting me to consider taking my sailboat out for a second trip today. I don’t have any tours scheduled. I need to finalize my formal report for work. Otherwise, I’m a free man—until Bodhi’s barbecue, at least. Here’s hoping Ben doesn’t invite a random woman.

I pedal my bike back toward the north shore. When I arrive at my childhood home, Mom’s voice filters through the house out to the front porch. She’s singing an Adele song. My father can sing. My brother can sing like he was born to make music. I might be able to carry a tune. Mom … can’t. The women in our family are spunky, delightful, beautiful … and horrible singers. She’s giving it her all. And when she sings the word, “Hello,” I sing back “It’s me.”

“Ren!”

Mom shouts my childhood nickname. It’s a shortened form of my full name, which no, I’m not disclosing to you, or anyonefor that matter. I follow the sound of her voice to the screened-in porch off the back of the house. Our home is in a hilly section of the island, about two-thirds of the way up the street. We have a small front yard, but a decent sized back yard with a porch up on stilts off the back of the house. Mom often sets up an easel or table out here, depending on her project, and loses herself in whatever she’s creating for hours.

She stands from the easel and sets her brush into a cup of water.

“What a sweet surprise!” Mom exclaims before squeezing me into one of her notorious hugs. She warned each of us kids when we entered our preteen years, “I’ll be hugging you. You’re my children and I’m going to hug you. That’s not negotiable. Get over any awkwardness you have right now. Some kids go through this,Mom, you’re embarrassing mestage. Not in our family. I’m a hugger and you need hugs.”

I believe each of us rolled our eyes at her when it was our turn to hear the speech. I distinctly remember trying to arrange for Mom to pick me up at discreet locations throughout my high school years so no one would witness her hugging me. Looking back, I now know I was one of the lucky ones.

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