Page 110 of Our Last Resort

“We were…seeing each other,” he says.

“Huh?”

By which I mean:What the fuck?

“You and Sabrina? What?”

He nods stiffly.

I need to make sure I understand correctly.

“You were…having an affair?”

“Well, technically, I wasn’t,” he says. “Having an affair. She was having one. With me. I guess. If you can call it that.”

I bring a hand to my forehead.

“How is that…What? How is that even possible?” I make a sweeping gesture in the direction of the hotel. “You were right here. I was right here.”

He winces.

“Not always.”

They come to me now: those moments, throughout our stay, when I lost Gabriel. When he went back to our suite while I stayed by the pool. The hike he missed, on our third day. During our last dinner before the murder:I’m just going to grab a sweater.All those times I thought I caught him gazing into the distance.

He wasn’t gazing into the distance. He was looking ather.Admiring her from afar.

Is that right?

I turn the idea over in my mind.

Do I believe him?

CanI believe him?

And if I do, is there more to this?

Gabriel sits on the ground.

“Come here,” he says, and pats the dirt next to him.

I hesitate.

Really?It’s Gabriel.

I sit.

He nods in a silentthank you.

“It started on the first day,” he says. “I don’t know if you remember, but I bumped into her on the way to—”

“I remember.”

“There was…something about her. I mean, she was gorgeous, of course. But it wasn’t just that.”

I search for a more comfortable position on the ground. When I speak next, I choose my words carefully, to keep him talking.

“How did you go from bumping into each other to…whatever happened?”

---