Page 11 of Enemies in Earnest

Recently when he spoke, my whole brain decided to forget all the reasons we didn’t like Edwin. It was as if my brain repeated over and over againEdwin the Supervillain, Who?Instead choosing to notice stupid things like how he had a tooth that overlapped another along his bottom row of teeth. But despite that he had a dazzling smile that sometimes had me forgetting what we were talking about.

“Why do you call meSweetAcacia?” I asked.

My tongue decided for itself, apparently, to hold a conversation opposite to the reason for my inviting him.

“The Acacia that is native to Florida is filled with pockets of nectar that not only attract birds but also rare species of butterflies. Including its namesake, the Acacia Blue.”

He had to have googled that. No one knew about the Acacia tree or the Acacia butterfly. Not just randomly anyway. Unless, of course, you were raised by Dr. Demetrius Ashley, world renown etymologist and foremost expert on rare butterflies.

“My dad saw an Acacia blue the day I was born.”

I smiled thinking about all the times my dad told me my origin story over the years.

“He said that if he was lucky enough to spot one of the rarest butterflies in the world on the day that I came into his life, it seemed only right that I get to share their name. Because I was a rare gift, just like a butterfly.”

My parents married later in life and didn’t think they’d even be lucky enough to have one child. Both academics, they’d resigned themselves to professional and academic pursuits. One day, I was their most thrilling surprise, so the story goes.

“Why a bar?” Edwin asked as he signaled down the waiter.

He didn’t know what a flippant question it was. How the answer was far too complex for such an offhand question which he barely paid attention to. I went to Oxford just as my dad wished. I studied literature and pursued my own academic interests outside of the sciences as expected.

“Why a booze cruise?” I volleyed, not prepared to share.

He shrugged. I felt my blood pressure rise. That was exactly the reason that Edwin Wheeler and I could never have an adult conversation. Because rather than engage in actual adult questions and responses, he avoided topics like a teenager. His non-committal shrugs were enough to incite violence. Throw in the cocky smile and roaming eyes that accompanied it, and it could start another Cold War.

Those eyes knew too much. Saw too much. I felt flayed open. Like he could read every pump of my heart, or whoosh of blood through my veins. Each subtle sign telling him things he had no business knowing. Like how I’d obviously deflected the question, which he did in return.

“Look,” he leaned back in his chair, crossing his leg over the other in a suave move I never would have expected from someone who scratched his balls as he piloted his ship. “I don’t want to fight with you, Acacia. I never did. I thought that night when we got stuck on our inlet was the beginning of something. Then two days later you are burning holes into my face every time you see me.”

“As I said before, you know exactly what you did.”

“I ruined Hemingway Day. I know! But it wasn’t intentional. I’msorrythat some woman on my ship flashed Hemingway’s granddaughter and then proceeded to retch, loudly, over the side of the ship as you were releasing your wreath into the water. You know as well as I do there was nothing I could do about that. Navigating the inlet, even if I can do it in my sleep, still requires actual boating. You saw what happened with the cigarette boat. Two seconds I lost focus and bam! I’m out a ship and an entire season’s worth of wages.”

That was what I thought I wanted. Why I brought him here. To reach a truce. To lay down our swords and broker some kind of peace treaty. That apology should have made me feelsomethingthen. Nothing felt different. Other than the strange vibration of every cell in my body making me jumpy and hyperaware.

Did Edwin always wear cologne? I couldn’t remember if I’d ever smelled it. Fresh, clean—sort of like the sea, but if it were hugged with an angel’s kiss that only bottled the good smells of the sea and left out the brine, the smell of fish and all the other unsavory things. That wasn’t the only thing I suddenly inventoried in my head. His fingers? I don’t ever remember them looking so elegantly long. Sure, they were calloused and a bit work roughened but I wanted to know what they felt like in places I shouldn’t be thinking about while holiday elves ran around with bells on their toes and chipper people walked up and down the aisles singing carols. Someone at the karaoke stand started singingBaby It’s Cold Outside.Just what I needed was a song about sex while I sat across a table trying to stay cool and unaffected.

“So, do you?” Edwin asked.

“Do I what?” I missed something.

“Forgive me. Truly. I’m sorry.” He removed his napkin from his lap and waved it back and forth. “This is my white flag of surrender.”

“You said “Come to Papa!” and squirted more drinks from a water gun all over them. It was Candy Cane Key’s version ofGirls Gone Wild. Except with a bunch of middle-aged cougars and, well…you.”

Edwin froze stock still, in the midst of selecting a breadstick from the basket. He stared at me for so long I almost asked if he was stroking out. I never in a million years thought I’d witness someone’s eyes going molten, but they warmed to a gooey caramel color before nearly getting lost behind the jet-black orbs of his pupils.

“Oh my god.”

His voice gave nothing away. Not surprise. Not confusion. Certainly, there wasn’t a shred of excitement. But his lips quirked in that snarky, overconfident, swaggery kind of countenance that he sometimes had.

“Say it ain’t so, Acacia.”

“I don’t understand.”

The way he said those words? I felt them like hot syrup running down the length of my spine. I wanted to bend into the sensation, to writhe in my seat if it would extend the pleasurable sensation.

“You’rejealous.”

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