Page 121 of Ten Years and Then…
When he realized what she’d picked, he burst out laughing. But he sang Don’t Go Breaking My Heart with just as much enthusiasm as she did. And when it was done, he tossed the microphone over to the hostess, pulled her into the shadows in the far corner of the lounge, and kissed her for all he was worth.
Daniel, a moment later
She didn’t pull away from him; she was still in his arms, her face still only a couple of inches from hers.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I couldn’t say goodbye without that—I just couldn’t.”
She held him even closer. “I know. If you didn’t do it, I would have. But—this is goodbye, right? We’re not going to see each other again. We have a plan. We’ll stick to it. We’ll stop being selfish and rotten to Greg and Leanne, because they deserve better. And we are better. Aren’t we?”
Daniel didn’t think it had much to do with being better; they were still in love, and you couldn’t get rid of emotions by unplugging yourself and rebooting your system, as nice as it would be if that were possible. But he nodded along with her anyway, because everything else she said was right, and they absolutely owed it to Leanne and Greg.
“We are. So—I love you. I’ll always love you. But, yeah. This is goodbye.”
He pulled himself away, walked out of the South Seas Lounge, and started back to his cabin—to his girlfriend—and to the second or third attempt at keeping his promise.
To her.
And to himself.
Chapter 38
Day 4 and 5 of the cruise—aboard Empress of the Seas/The Bahamas
Nora, November 9, early evening
They were sitting in Giovanni’s, the fancy Italian restaurant on the ship and Greg asked her, “How can something be so amazing and still be disappointing at the same time?”
Nora felt the same way about their visit to the Kennedy Space Center today. There’d been so much to see, and their tour guide had been fantastic. Everything was fascinating. But, as they’d discovered, the timing of their visit was awful.
There’d been a rocket launch yesterday morning. And there was a space shuttle launch scheduled in just ten days—the next cruise would probably visit here just in time to witness it. At least they got to see the space shuttle sitting on the launch pad, which she couldn’t deny was an awesome sight.
“I know. And I should have thought of it when I picked the date for the cruise. I work for a science publisher, for God’s sake.” Not to mention, if she’d booked the next cruise instead of this one, she wouldn’t have run into Daniel, and she wouldn’t have had to spend the whole trip lying to her boyfriend.
But what was done was done. She hadn’t thought of Daniel—well, not much—today.
Except during the quiet moments when Greg was standing there staring up at the space shuttle, totally enraptured, or geeking out at the Apollo 11 display, and she imagined Daniel doing the same thing.
That was mostly a victory, wasn’t it?
Daniel, a little later
It had been a great day. Cocoa Beach was everything he’d hoped for. The weather was perfect, it wasn’t too crowded, and on a more shallow note—hey, he was only human—Leanne looked amazing in a bikini.
He felt a little guilty, because her view of him in a swimsuit couldn’t have been as appealing to her; he hadn’t realize just how pale he was until he saw the tans on nearly all the men and women sunning themselves. And also because he’d had a fleeting mental image of what Nora would look like in Leanne’s bikini.
He’d managed to banish that thought and focus all his attention on Leanne, which she had enjoyed as much as he did.
They were in the Main Dining Room now, waiting for dessert, and thinking about the beach, and all the scantily-dressed beachgoers brought an old story back. He’d never told it to Nora; if he told Leanne now then there’d be something that was just between them, something he didn’t share with anyone else. It was worth a little embarrassment.
“I’ve never told anyone this. Not even Bianca,” he said. “But being at the beach today made me think about it. You know I went to an all-boys school, and I was pretty shy. So the first time I really started noticing girls—I mean, I noticed them, but this was the first time out in the world, if that makes sense. It was that trip to Disney World, sophomore year of high school. It was March, spring break time, I guess, and a lot of the girls there were wearing long T-shirts, you know what I’m talking about, they go down to their thighs?” Leanne nodded. He could feel himself going red as we went on. “And all I could think was, were they wearing shorts under them, or just underwear?”
“Daniel!” She reached across the table to punch his arm, mostly playfully. “That’s so juvenile!”
“I was a juvenile!” he protested, then grinned sheepishly. “And it’s not like I did anything about it—just stared from a distance, and blushed a lot.”
She laughed at that, and then she shared her own story, slightly racier, about really noticing boys for the first time.
It involved her first high school dance, her first kiss, the most mortifying talk with her mother afterwards, and—inevitably—her first properly broken heart.
