Page 79 of Stuck in Paradise with You

I don’t hear which of the boys takes the other two hippos because I’m too distracted by becoming Aunty Carrie. I shouldtell them it’s not the case. I’m just their father’s tax advisor, temporarily at that, but the way everyone in this room has accepted me into this safe haven and made me feel welcome – Luke aside – makes me accept the comment and the green hippo instead.

We play two rounds of the hippopotamus game, I think – it’s hard to know where one game ends and another begins. There’s squabbling and shouting, lots of flying marbles and slamming of animals. I’m not entirely sure which of the boys won. But I judge the success on the fact that neither boy is worried about the storm, even though the generator trips in and out multiple times as we play.

It’s going well, until the roaring outside gets louder and the walls of this apparently fail-safe basement begin to tremble as if we’re in an earthquake. I know the air pressure has increased because my ears have popped as if I’m on an airplane and with all of this going on, I can’t stop myself from looking around the space, seeing the worry on the faces of everyone else too, and wondering if this is really as safe as Joe has made out.

‘Hey,’ Luke whispers. He reaches his hand toward mine on the coffee table then stops himself. ‘We’re good down here. It’s going to be fine.’

‘It’s not going to be fine, Luke,’ I say quietly. ‘We might be but the islands are going to be ruined by this.’

I wait for him to argue, to tell me I’m wrong, and when he simply nods, my spirits drop further still, as if this day hadn’t started at rock bottom in any event.

‘Mom, my ears hurt,’ Noah says, and Ella and Joe replace Luke and me at the coffee table so their family of six is sitting around the hippo game. Ella mouthsthank youto me as I uncross my legs and stand, rubbing my own ears where the pressure is starting to be painful.

‘How about it?’ Luke asks. He’s standing by the toy chest with a wooden chess board in his hands.

‘With you?’ I ask, knowing the answer. ‘No, thanks.’

‘Don’t you play, Carrie?’ Joe asks.

‘She plays,’ Luke tells him, his eyes still fixed on me. ‘She’s never beaten me, though.’

We’ve played multiple times, in fact. Always by the light of his wall fire in his New York apartment. We’d play, we’d drink wine, eat food, talk into the early hours of the morning, and wake up in each other’s arms. But he’s right. It was a game he always won, just like in life. Except… ‘I’ve only never beaten you because you don’t play fair. You’re dishonest.’ I scowl at him, knowing he understands the double meaning of my words. ‘The one time I had you in check, you flipped the board.’

‘Ha. That sounds like Luke. Sore loser,’ Joe says, receiving a murderous look from Luke in response.

It’s true, Luke flipped the board. He couldn’t stand not getting his own way. So he turned the board and then crawled across the floor of his lounge and turned me on until I surrendered.

‘He certainly never played fair,’ I say. He didn’t play fair that night and he definitely didn’t play fair when he led me on, made me fall in love with him, showed me the kind of highs I’d never,havenever, known with anyone else, then left me.

‘I promise I will, if you give me a chance,’ Luke says, already manipulating the situation. Already making me wonder if he’s also making me an offer of something that’s nothing to do with the game.

‘No.’ I won’t fall for it.

‘Are you that afraid?’ he asks.

You’re damn right I am. Terrified, in fact. Because last night, I was right back there. I was falling.

‘You don’t scare me, Luke. To be afraid, I’d have to care, and I don’t. It’s all just a game.’

We seem to have moved closer to each other. Me to him, or him to me, I’m not sure how but we’re facing each other, staring each other down, just a fraction of air between us.

‘If it’s just a game, you might as well play and have some fun. Unless you can’t because it isn’tjusta game.’

I feel my eyes narrow, my brow crease, and I sense the others in the basement wondering what the hell is going on. I’m curious myself. ‘Fine.’

‘Fine.’

‘Oh great,’ Joe says. ‘Everyone’s fine again.’

From the corner of my eye, I see Ella flick him with the back of her hand, though I won’t be first to blink or take my focus from Luke. When his eyelids eventually close for a nanosecond, I feel myself grin like the Wicked Queen after Snow White takes a bite of her poisonous apple.

36

LUKE

I’m still reeling about what Joe just told me. This whole damn thing, Carrie being here, my soul being in tatters, again, is his doing.

Yet, somehow, Carrie and I are going to play chess, as if my mind isn’t whirring at a billion thoughts per hour. I’m not sure why I suggested it, whether I saw the box and the memories of us playing together made me want to be right back there, to remind her of great nights we spent together, or if I just wanted to distract her from the storm that I can see is scaring her, making her increasingly anxious. She was great with Noah and Toby, amazing. I’m not surprised everyone loves her. She’s extremely lovable.

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