Page 38 of The Holiday Honeymoon Switch
He leans over the bar and points at the top one, a photograph of a wave curled tight like the top of an intricately carved violin. “You’re right that it takes patience. It usually takes me at least five or six hours to get just one perfect shot of a wave. That one, I think, took about ten. My entire bodywas a prune.” He settles back down onto his stool. “I also take a hell of a lot of pounding and have been almost concussed more than once. The ocean is the boss, and you’d think I’d know better by now, but I get taken for a ride every single time.”
“I can tell from the way you’re talking about it that you love it, though.”
His grin widens. “Adoreit. That moment I know I’ve gottheshot—and I always know, even before I look at it—it’s the absolute best feeling. Nothing like it in the world.”
“I get that, in a way,” says Ivy. “I mean, I’m not getting my head pounded into the sand of a beach, but I have to be patient when I’m doing my landscapes, wait for the light to be just right. I know I could take a photograph and draw from that—and I do, sometimes. I did that with the tree, for example. But there’s nothing like being immersed in the perfect, most beautiful, natural moment—and creating it on a page at the same time. I feel one with it, if that makes sense? One with my entire life.”
“Makes perfect sense,” he says. During their conversation, he’s moved his stool closer, and their arms aren’t touching, but almost. She can feel the now familiar sensation of the hairs on her arms standing up, almost as if they’re straining to reach out and touch him. “I feel it, too. That I’m one with the wave, maybe even the whole ocean. That it has a message, and I’m the conduit. I chase that feeling.” Shenotices that this close, and in this light, his ocean green eyes have a ring of indigo outlining the iris, and that at night they look more green-gray than green-blue. She thinks of the shades in her favorite box of soft oil pastels. Maybe transparent blue mixed with light gray. No, English gray and charcoal blue.
He tilts his head, quizzical. “Is there something in my eye?”
“I’m sorry—I do this a lot. Sort of forget I’m in the real world and start trying to figure out the colors I’d use to draw things. My best friend is used to it, but for other people, it takes a little time.”
“What are you thinking about drawing?”
Her throat goes dry and her pulse speeds up. “You,” she says, trying to make it sound like she says this sort of thing to people all the time. “Your eyes, specifically.”
The sexy smile dimple has made an appearance. “You’d want to draw me?”
It feels like it takes far too much effort to drag her gaze away this time. “Sure, why not?” she says. “Something tells me you’re a bit like a wave, though. Might be hard to get you to sit still for long.”
“I’d sit still for you,” he says. “For as long as you wanted me to.”
Ivy breaks his gaze, puts down her drink, and decides to be frank. “I can’t do this,” she says.
Oliver looks confused. “Do what?”
“I can’t keep flirting like this. I’m sure if we got together we’d have a lot of fun. But I’m sort of an all-or-nothing person. I can get very focused. And I can’t spend a night with you”—as she says those words, she feels that pulse between her legs again, so intense this time it almost makes her squirm in her seat—“because, as I said, I’ve made a commitment to myself and to my art. I have to focus.”
Now his eyes are lit up with blue-green fire. “What makes you think it would just be a onetime thing?” he says.
“Isn’t that what you do?” she asks him. “One-night stands with tourists?”
He frowns and stays silent. Larry is approaching again, and Ivy doesn’t tell her not to when she starts preparing her a refill.
“Hey, you know, Larry,” she says, turning her attention as firmly as she can away from Oliver. “I think a case can be made for Janis Joplin’s ‘Mercedes Benz’ actually being a Christmas song, right?”
Larry laughs as she adds the final touch of prosecco to Ivy’s cocktail glass, then mixes Oliver another drink, too. “You’re absolutely right. It’s like a Christmas wish list. A new car, a color TV, a night on the town—it’s positively festive. Hey, are you guys hungry? All I have here are bar snacks, but I’m starved. Ollie, would you go across to the Manapua Man truck and get us some dumplings? Pretty please?”
Oliver hops off his stool. “One of my Oliver’s Tourism Board highlights. Come on,” he says to Ivy. “You can help me pick.”
The food truck is a Westfalia van, parked across the street, with a sign on top that says “Manapua Man.” The savory smells emanating from the van’s window make Ivy’s mouth water immediately. She forgot how hungry she was.
“Hey, Noa.” Oliver greets the man leaning his head out the window, wearing a red hat that says “Manapua Man” in yellow writing, with a hibiscus flower beside it.
He glances at Ivy. “What do you feel like?”
“Tell me what’s good.”
“Three four-packs of faux char siu steamed, and three of veggie baked, please.”
The big, fluffy dumplings are ready quickly, nestled in compostable cardboard boxes. Ivy takes three of the six boxes and they cross the street again, but just outside the door of the bar, Oliver turns to Ivy and looks down at her. “Hey,” he says. “I’m sorry. I was being really forward in there. I get the importance of keeping your creative time sacred. I really do. I won’t do that again, okay? Friend zone from here on out. I meant what I said—I like you—and I’d still like to hang out while you’re here. Cool with you?”
“Of course,” Ivy says. “I am living in the same house as you, so it’s going to be pretty impossible to avoid each other.”
“Exactly,” he says. “And why would we want to?”
That thump of desire hits her again, but she’s almost sure it’s fainter than it was before. Or maybe she’s just getting used to it.
