Page 59 of Stuck in Paradise with You

I set down my paper bags next to my takeout coffee and count the cash I have in my pocket, then I open Luke’s wallet and see he has a lot more than I do.

‘How much for everything else?’ I ask. ‘I’m willing to accept your gifts but I won’t take no for an answer on everything else.’

27

LUKE

Carrie has been gone a while. As I’m beginning to think I’ll go to the bakery and check on her, she comes walking back to us with a spring in her step that she didn’t have when she went. She’s carrying multiple brown paper bags and sets them down on the hood of the truck.

‘Help yourselves, guys, the banana bread smells insanely good and it’s still warm. There’re cinnamon rolls, pizza slices and almond loaf cake too.’

She turns to me and smiles. It’s a beaming smile, the kind I haven’t seen enough on her since she got here. Wide and dazzling, it brings dimples to the sides of her mouth and creases of happiness around her eyes. The sort that makes my chest tighten and my breathing pick up pace.

‘Here’s your wallet,’ she tells me.

I take it, noticing immediately how much thinner it is since her trip. I open it up to find there are no notes inside.

‘You spent all my money on baked goods?’ I ask in disbelief.Surely not.

‘That baker drives a hard bargain, Chalmers. But one whiff of that banana bread and you’ll understand how she got me.’

She turns away but I can tell she’s still grinning.

‘A hard bargain? Carrie, there was over two hundred bucks in there.’

She shifts, coming at me so fast with a piece of banana bread that I can do nothing except open my mouth and let her stuff it. ‘See. Incredible, right?’

The food is good. Insanely so. But two hundred bucks?

Then I see Joe, mouth full but still managing to smirk as he nods his head, telling me to turn around and look at something. I do a one-eighty to look at the bakery, and I see a very happy lady wearing a rainbow of colors and stacking crates of food on plastic tables. Squinting, I make out a sign stuck to them, stating in bold marker pen:

FREE TO A GOOD HOME

If my chest was tight and my breathing speedy a moment ago, that’s nothing compared to the way my entire body aches as I watch Carrie laughing with Jenny and Roy, tearing into a cinnamon roll, white icing stuck to the end of her nose.

I remember exactly how I fell for her the first time. I know because it’s happening all over again.

When Jenny whispers something to her and Carrie raises her head in my direction, I imagine she can see it written all over my face. I’m falling as hard, as fast, as I ever have for her. I expect her to look away, to throw out a jibe or to run away, the way she has a tendency to do. But she surprises me, holding on to whatever is passing between us, and as twisted as the idea of anything happening between us is, I can’t shake the voice in my mind telling me to just screw it, because I’m already in too deep.

Reloaded with carbs, we pack up the truck and head to the next location. By chance, I wind up sitting next to Carrie and as the vehicle turns and bounces through uneven surfaces, our knees end up touching, our thighs sliding against each other, our shoulders pressing together. The circumstances are innocuous, they should certainly be uncomfortable, but there’s a charge that comes from our connection coursing through me, and if she doesn’t feel it too, she isn’t alive.

When we stop at the next place, part way up a hillside, a two-story property with undisturbed views out to sea, I’m sorry for the loss of contact with Carrie. Maybe that’s the reason my hand grazes the small of her back as she comes up to stand. Maybe it’s also the reason she’s slightly off balance in a stationary vehicle in the first place.

We’re the last two people off the truck and consequently fall into working as a pair. The elderly couple who own the home have metal shutters over the windows on the second floor and boards for the ground floor windows stacked on their lawn.

Carrie and I get straight to work – I lift the boards and she drills in the screws. We’re quick and efficient, so while everyone else helps bring loose items from the lawn inside and shuffles furniture to more protective positions, we fly through the boards.

At 1p.m., I check my watch and round everyone up. ‘We need to finish the last house and get down to the harbor.’

That’s what we do, riding higher into the hillside for the last property, adopting the same roles here as we did in the last place. At every home, we’ve offered to take the residents back to the island with us, to ride out the storm in relative safety, but I’mnot surprised they turn us down. There’s an overwhelming sense of community here, as if they’re all in it together.

Only Roy’s sister has agreed to come with us with her newborn and we’re picking her up on the way back to the boat.

Carrie and I are boarding up the penultimate window when I realize I’m enjoying this, oddly. Enjoying doing something together, watching her work, us work. Surprised by how adaptable she is.

In my fixation, I let the final board slip right before she tries to screw it into place. She glances up to me from her crouched position under my up-stretched body.

‘Help me out here, Luke,’ she gripes, though I don’t think there’s any malice to it; I think she’s tired. As am I.

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