Page 46 of A Quick Stop in Paradise

Jesus Christ, I’d forgotten I’d even gone to a club. “Ah,” I said, after half a second too long. “Yeah, it was… it was nice.”

She grinned. “Damn, you’re losing it. Congrats on it going well.”

“It wasn’t—I didn’t pick someone up at the club,” I protested. I didn’t even know why. Maybe I should have gone with it. Allison grinned, a light in her eyes.

“So you hooked up with BB instead?”

“What—no, I, uh,” I stammered, my face fuzzy, every part of my body feeling like it was in the wrong place. Even my teeth felt out of place. “We didn’t do anything.”

“You are such a liar,” she laughed, standing up taller. “Just admit to it. I’ve been rooting for it. You two are cute.”

“Uh—” I wrung my hands on the counter. Since when was I this uncool? Well—I knew the answer. It was when the topic came to being with a woman. I slumped, looking down, picking at my fingernails. “Just don’t… tell anybody.”

“I won’t, jeez. Congrats. I could tell you two weresointo each other. So does this mean BB’s going to stop trying to push me into someone’s bed, now that you two are going to spend the week being all cutesy holding hands together?”

“Uh… Allison, it’s not—” I cleared my throat, standing taller. Why was this a million times more difficult when it came to women? I could have these conversations effortlessly around relationships with men. “We aren’t dating, you know, just, er…”

“Okay, but it’s notjustsex, either, is it?” she said, hands on her hips. “Something between a serious relationship and no-strings casual sex. That’s what BB usually does anyway. You know—a fling. All the intimacy and tender things without trying to make it a commitment. Don’t pretend that’s not what you’re after. I see through you.”

“You think I know what I’m after?” I huffed. She raised her eyebrows.

“Honestly, kinda, yeah. You seem like you’ve got your ducks in a row.”

“I am laying low on vacation because my family is spending time with my ex-boyfriend instead of me, having a fling with the girl my ex tried to cheat with. What part of that looks likeducks in a rowto you, ma’am?”

Allison laughed, but she didn’t get a response before the door flung open behind me and I looked with a sick feeling in my stomach at where my mother swept through the door in a rush, eyes burning at me. Allison gulped. “Oh—yikes,” she muttered. “Good luck.”

“Ryan,” Mom said, sweeping over to me and pulling me into a hug, where I stood awkwardly rigid as a plank just accepting it. Grandma and Grandpa came in the door too, talking quietly to each other, clearly gossiping about me, but I wasn’t listening anyway. Mom stepped back and brushed herself off. “My god, where have you been? Do you realize how much we’ve been worried about you?”

“I told you I was just fine,” I said coolly. She threw her hands up.

“You sent one text while you disappeared without a word!Just fineisn’t enough for us not to worry.”

Ugh, this wasn’t how I’d hoped to do this. Everybody was supposed to be getting ready at the other side of the complex in a minute, and I was planning on showing up to address them all together, not this awkward piecemeal thing. Mom must have seen me through the window while fussing over somebody who wasn’t any of her business.

Still, if we were doing this, we were doing this. I’d made a commitment, told Brooklyn about it this morning after breakfast—and other activities—and I was sticking to it. Trying to be a little more like her, like that authenticity she brought to everything. Hoping it could, if not fix things, at least set the record straight for everyone.

“I’ve been with a friend here,” I said. “And I’ll probably continue to stay with her for the rest of the trip.”

She frowned, shaking her head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. This is a family vacation.”

Grandma, bless her heart, decided this was her chance to speak up and condescend. “Now, Ryan, you know, your mother put a lot of work into this. I know she didn’t raise you to be disrespectful.”

Maybe it was Brooklyn rubbing off on me, or maybe it was what I’d said about how it was easier seeing the situation from the other side, but either way, I didn’t care. Not just that I didn’t, but that Icouldn’t—that there wasn’t any part of me I could dredge up to care. I folded my arms. “No, if we’re talking about disrespect, then it all comes from a very different place,” I said. “Mom—I’m extremely disappointed in your reaction yesterday, to put it lightly. I’m yourdaughter,and you believed Shane over me without even hearing me out, and you tried to bring my career change into it, which makes me feel like you’realwaysgoing to take Shane’s side because you’re disappointed in my career change.”

Mom looked a little green in the face, like she might heave. Grandma and Grandpa both gave me stony looks—not even judgmental, just that thing they did where they didn’t like a conversation so they’d turn into stone statues and pretend it wasn’t happening—and that was when the universe decided things weren’t fun enough yet, and the doors swung open to shoes squeaking in on the clean polished floors, Oscar and Stella coming in along with my cousin Daniela, and Stella was like a moth to a flame when drama was going on, so she made a beeline right for us.

“Jesus, Ryan, everyone’s been freaking out about you,” she said, looking between me and Mom and our grandparents. “What’s going on? Don’t tell me we’re having another fight right now.”

“I’m sure you’d like that,” Oscar sighed, giving me a greeting nod and not any more acknowledgement than that, standing with his hand in his pocket. Mom hunched her shoulders.

“Well,” she said, her voice tart, “Ryan was just telling me how she’d rather spend this trip with her friend instead.”

“Mom,” I sighed hard. “I’m not trying to start a fight. I’m trying to let you know how I feel.”

Grandma turned to Allison with a sharp look on her face. “Miss, tell me what room Ryan’s been staying in.”

“Uh—” Allison froze up under the attention. I stepped between her and Grandma.

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