Page 68 of The Romantic Agenda
“Sure did.” She laughs. “But you actually make everything? From beginning to end?”
“Everything I didn’t learn at school or on the job is self-taught from the internet,” he says. “It was a hobby that accidentally turned into a small business.”
“Wow. That’s so cool.”
“It’s no different from what you do. We all have a side hustle these days, you know?”
“For real. They’re required to have even the barest minimum of anything.”
“Did you always dream of being a model?”
“No. I mean, I knew I was pretty,” she said, only half-joking, “but I was more interested in the ocean.”
“Marine biologist?”
“No, that’s for plants and animals and stuff. I wanted to study the actual ocean. It didn’t work out.”
Joy stretches her arms upward, then twists her body closer to Fox until her head lands on his shoulder. “How are you so warm all the time? It’s weird.” She snuggles closer, drawn in by his rumbling laugh.
You can do whatever, he said.
Joy tentatively traces the veins in his arm again, starting at his elbow and trailing down, down, down until she reaches his palm.
“That tickles.”
“Sorry,” she whispers. “I’m just gonna rest my eyes for a minute.”
“We should go in before you fall asleep.”
“I’m not asleep. I said I’m resting my eyes.”
“Okay.” He laughs again. “If everything went perfectly and you became Joy, the oceanographer, what else would you have wanted?”
“That life doesn’t exist at all anymore.” Joy yawns. “I might’ve had an answer for you when I was eighteen, because if I didn’t goto SJSU with Grace, I never would’ve met Malcolm. You know how in games you have a save point? No matter what happens you go back to that point when you run out of lives. Meeting him that day was too important. I can’t go back beyond that moment.”
“Hmm,” he says. “What kind of life do you want now, then?”
Joy inhales—
“Besides Malcolm.”
—and exhales a snort of laughter with enough force to shake the hammock. “Surprisingly, I wasn’t even going to mention him.”
“Sure.”
“It’s the truth.” Joy yawns, covering her mouth with her free hand. “Let me think for a second.”
But she doesn’t. Joy drifts off to sleep instead.
Feeling the warmth of his body, the calluses on his palm.
Listening to waves lap gently against the shore.
Watching the rise and fall of his chest through half-closed eyes.
Malcolm’s voice snaps Joy back to consciousness. “She’s asleep?”
Fox says, “She’s resting.”
