Page 8 of Stuck in Paradise with You

Oh God, I actually have to go through with this.

5

LUKE

I’m pacing the tiled floor in my pod, air con blasting because I’m hot, though the fact my linen shirt is sticking to my skin is nothing to do with the temperature outside.

It is everything to do with seeing Carrie again.

Not just fleetingly seeing her. Not bumping into her as we both get out of a cab, alight the subway or head into a Midtown bar after work.

This isdinner. Sitting across the table from her. Hours of excruciating small talk, pretense. A multitude of unspoken questions about the past.

I haven’t seen her for seven years. She’s part of the very worst time in my life. My career in tatters, a divorce imminent, family life obliterated, and the woman I was utterly infatuated with blocking me, not returning my emails, returning to sender six handwritten letters I mailed to her, with all but the first unopened. Making abundantly clear that when everything else was dealt with, there couldstillnever be a chance for us.

She’s my nemesis. And though I’m loathe to admit it, no matter how much Ella presses me, my Achille’s heel.

There’s a tap on my door. It’s only seven-thirty, so I know before I answer that Joe will be waiting for me, and that he’s here to ask… ‘Chalmers, a pre-drink?’

I stare at him, similarly dressed in cream chinos and a linen shirt – though to his eccentric Hawaiian print, I’m wearing pale blue, and to his turtle-inspired bucket hat, I’m wearing none. The upshot is, his outfit is significantly more relaxed than mine.

Have I overdone this? Have I subconsciously over-dressed to appear fine?

I am fine, a soprano version of my inner voice sings.

I am so not fine, normal-pitched me retorts.

‘I can’t do this, Hettich.’

‘It’s only a sundowner, old boy.’

‘The sun set an hour ago, and you know what I mean.This. Dinner. Meetings.Carrie.’

He steps inside and closes the door behind him, eyeing me, hands in pockets as if his next words will be emphatic. ‘You could run. It would be cowardly and, honestly, career ending because, one, there comes a point in life when you have to face your past, and two, I don’t understand all this tax and accounting kerfuffle, which is why I employedyouand gave you a hellish signing-on bonus to deal with it for me.’

The bonus was nice but, ‘Cowardly?More like letting sleeping dogs lie. Not dredging up the past.’

He holds up his hands –Take or leave my warning.

‘You can run or you can accept the challenge. Finally deal with the reason you’re a lonely and increasingly old man.’

‘Hey!’

‘Did you have those flecks of grey last time you saw her?’

My hand automatically goes to my product-styled hair. ‘No, but that’s probably because she caused half of them,’ I mutter.

He gestures to the door with a pointed thumb. ‘Let’s get a cocktail and calm those geriatric nerves.’

‘You’re four years older than me!’

‘Therefore, four years wiser. It’s time to man up, Chalmers, not least because I ordered a crate of Pusser’s rum and it arrived this morning.’

Ordinarily, Joe’s favorite cocktail – a Painkiller made with Pusser’s rum – would be a great idea, but as it happens, I already feel numb. Turning out the lights, I reluctantly head to the terrace, following the flapping flippers of Joe’s outrageous hat.

Two Painkillers have helped. Standing on the terrace with Joe, watching sail boats drifting across the ocean, Ella’s playlist of chilled re-recordings of chart-topping hits playing in the background, tea lights twisted round and dancing on the palm trees, I feel more myself.

Joe and I are talking about going sailing on Wednesday, maybe taking out a couple of jet skis.

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