Chapter Text
There’s a sharpness to his lower back that gnaws and teethes, aggravated by the bumps along the half-paved road that lead him here. The rental bike was probably a bad idea, but with air this soothing — dry and warm, arid from the drought despite the vast Pacific surrounding the island on all sides — Simon finds little else besides the disc aggravation to complain about.
Damned payload. Tweaked something pulling it up over the edge of the dinghy, monster waves crashing against the atoll as he grunted and poured sweat. Salt seemed to still fall from his every pore, pitted into his skin like rust on an anchor chain. It was the L5-S1 disc again if he had to guess — a spindling hip-deep pain that radiates into his legs when he sits for too long. The medic will check him out when he’s back on the mainland, wherever and whenever that happens to be. There are worse places than this to wait out orders.
He opts to stand at the very end of the bar, propped up against the wall covered in hammered tin beer signs and foreign license plates. He can’t drink if he takes a muscle relaxer for his back, but figures alcohol will serve him better anyway.
It’s Thursday, very early afternoon, which means every telly crammed along the far wall plays the same damned American football match. Seattle versus Jacksonville — both rubbish — and the sky above the Florida stadium is onyx black. A tourist escaping some nearby family resort comments offhand to the bartender that it is odd to him to watch prime time games so early in the day. She shrugs and smiles in that passive way that pretty girls do when they don’t want to engage.
And, yeah, he recognizes it. She’s pretty. The most his type he’s seen in months, and certainly since he’s found himself out in Polynesia. There’s a little edge to her, with a muss of choppy fringe that grazes over her brows and a patchwork of tattoos down each arm. Her tongue peeks out between her lips as she swiftly wipes down the bar in front of Simon and motions to the empty barstool.
“Welcome in,” she says almost clinically, still not making eye contact. Busy thing. She keeps flicking her head to the barstool as she readies more drinks at the well, tossing an empty bottle of rum into the bin and uncapping its replacement. “What can I get you?”
She still hasn’t looked at him. She slips the pour spout into the fresh bottle of rum and lets loose a hearty stream of booze into a few glasses of ice.
“Bourbon,” he says simply, still watching her. She has long acrylic fingernails, their tips painted in a bright shock of electric pink with white hibiscus flowers. He feels daft for noticing the details of a manicure, but her hands are as pretty as the rest of her. She dispenses cola from the bar gun with one as the other stuffs a straw into the ice and squeezes in a wedge of lime.
Busy hands — flying everywhere like the little tropical birds in the trees outside.
“You gonna sit or just hover there?” she deadpans, and before he can answer, she’s slipping off to the other end of the bar like a gazelle, sliding the finished drinks in front of a group of old bikers.
He may be the only bloke in here watching anything other than their phone, or the seven tellies all playing the same damned thing. She’s entertainment enough. Loose brown pants slung low on her hips — a Misfits t-shirt cropped up to the bottom of her ribcage. The strip of skin is a treat.
“Gonna stand, if tha’s alright,” he says when she returns, and it finally gets her to look at him. Her eyes flick down to his folded arms so fast he almost misses it.
“A Brit ordering bourbon in this heat,” she chuffs as she pivots toward the bottle shelf. “That’s a new one.”
He smirks, chewing the inside of his cheek as she picks up the only suitable thing worth sipping neat in a place like this. A second later, a short glass is deposited in front of him, and she looks at him again as she pours.
“I like the heat,” he adds, understanding what she’s getting at. “Doesn’t bother me.”
“Well,” she smirks back, dropping her gaze to the glass as she stops off the pour of liquid. “You’re in the right place at the right time. Hottest September on record and an eruption coming this week.”
“Pardon?”
She turns away, replacing the bottle with a clank. “Kilauea. Gonna blow again tomorrow. Or the next. Who knows.”
The volcano. It looms inland from them, collecting rain clouds that don’t seem to break open and give any relief.
“That dangerous?”
“Hardly,” she laughs under her breath. “Been happening often over the past few months. I’m surprised you haven’t heard about it. Tourists eat that shit up.”
“Not a tourist, luv.”
She slips away again, and he settles into the bitterness of her ignoring his little pet name. She continues to flit around, restless, even though the smattering of patrons have their drinks and need nothing of her for the moment. He feels a tug in his gut, a wish for her to float back this way like a petal on the surf and start chirping at him again. He finishes his drink quicker than he’d like to speed along an interaction.
When she notices the empty glass, she points to the bourbon bottle with a questioning lift of her brows. Simon answers with a nod and pushes the glass closer to her.
“Not a tourist, huh?” she asks as she pours another round. So she did hear him. “You’re here on business I presume?”
“Somethin’ like that.”
He would say more if he could, but he never can. Besides — no need for a cute thing like her to know about what’s going on a few hundred kilometers west.
“That’s vague as hell,” she smirks, finally leaning closer. He’s hyperaware of her. He swears he can pick up the scent of her shampoo over the stench of stale beer and sweating bar fruit. Her nails clink against the glass as she passes it his way. “Didn’t take you for much of a lei-and-luau type anyway.”
She lingers as he takes a sip, watching his posture loosen as the tightness in his lumbar spine begins to dissipate. He feels warmer. Sweat beads beneath his t-shirt.
“So what’s with the standing?” she asks as he swallows. “Too good for barstools, or are you really that committed to not relaxing on your business trip?”
She’s funny. It makes his stomach squeeze pleasantly.
“Bad back. Stools don’t do me any favors.”
She arches her brow and leans against the heels of her hands, pressed up against the lip of the bar. “You fishing for a sympathy drink or something?”
He shrugs — returns the smirk. Leans in a little closer himself.
“Not lookin’ for a handout. Wouldn’t say no to company, though.”
Her smirk cracks into a lopsided grin. “That’s bold of you.”
“What time are you off?”
He can see the question, the audacity of it, knock her off-balance. She grabs the bottle and backs up from the bar, crossing her arms.
“You know how many tourists have tried that line with me?”
He exhales through his nose, unwilling to get shot down just yet. He craves the fight — salivates over it as much as the peek of her hipbones above the waistband of her pants. She moves away to slot the bourbon bottle into its place on the shelf.
“Told you, I’m not a—”
“Double shift. After midnight.” She blinks at him, as if surprised she’s said it herself. A beat passes between them, and she holds stock still by the wall of liquor, waiting to see how much he’ll press — maybe waiting to see how she herself will respond.
He chuckles down into his drink. “Afraid I won’t last that long, as much as I’d like to.”
He peeks up at her, and she’s still staring — appraising him from beneath her fringe with her hip cocked against the counter. He fidgets with the glass between his middle finger and thumb, twisting it like a number lock on the bartop.
“Tomorrow morning then,” he says. “I’ll meet you here, and bring coffee for us.”
She laughs, readying to turn away.
“I’m off tomorrow.”
“Said what I said,” he affirms, pinning her in place with his eyes — with his words. “Tomorrow morning. Here, then wherever you’d like.”
Her incredulous brow softens beneath her hair, and she shuffles forward to him again.
“You’re serious.”
He nods and takes another sip. Of course he is. Isn’t he always?
“Fine,” she breathes, rolling her neck. “Ten AM. Cold brew, extra ice, with oat milk and caramel,” she instructs him, her eyes now roaming more than just that initial cursory glance of his arms. He flexes a bit subconsciously — puffs his chest out. “Gotta tell me your name first, though.”
He smiles — a mission accomplished.
“Simon.”
“Simon what?” she squints at him, grinning.
He shakes his head with a smirk. “Simon’s enough.”
——
The caramel oat milk monstrosity sweats in his fist as he waits in the empty bar parking lot. He’s thankful there was a shop within walking distance from here with what she wanted. Balancing two coffees on a motorbike is a tall order, even for someone like him.
Birds sing in the flowering trees on the edge of the lot, twittering away as her car rolls up onto the pavement. Five minutes early, he notes. She pulls in to the spot beside him and throws him a cute little smirk as she gathers her bag and hops out of the vehicle. She’s in a pair of shorts and a tiny tank top that show the straps of her bikini. He allows himself to check her out, eyes roaming new expanses of skin.
“Mornin’,” he says with a half-smile, offering out his bribe. Condensation beads and falls onto the pavement between them, soaking into the parched surface.
“Good morning,” she says breezily, accepting the cup and swirling her wrist to redistribute the watery milk and coffee floating at the top. “Wasn’t sure you’d show. Or that you’d remember this.”
He blinks at her, slow and silent like a docile street cat.
“How was the rest of your shift?”
She sighs, takes a sip. “Fine, same as always. How’s your back?”
He warms just barely at the thought of her remembering.
“Fine as well. Slept off the worst of it.” Though he does feel a bit better, it’s mostly a lie. He hardly slept. Up too late, fantasizing about running his thumb over those hipbones, about that Misfits shirt somewhere on the floor of his rented efficiency by the beach.
She squints up at him through the sunlight, chewing on the end of the coffee straw. “The bike was probably a bad idea.”
He chuffs a laugh, peeking down at the bike he leans against. Battered old thing, much like her old white Jeep. The cloth top has a sun-worn tear down the side, haphazardly stitched back together with silver construction tape.
“Can’t say your tax dollars do much for road maintenance, tha’s for sure.”
She chuckles and leans against her own vehicle. “No. But the beaches are really something.”
He hums, nodding out towards the shore just a few blocks away. He’d walked down to the nearest one to watch the sunset each night. A glorious sight. Huge golden orb hanging over navy blue ocean, spilling pink and purple over wisps of clouds like watercolors on thin paper.
“Wanna show me one?” he asks, taking note of her bathing suit again. He’d had the forethought to put some trunks and sun cream in his backpack, and with a heat this oppressive and a bird this beautiful, the allure of taking a dip in the cool Pacific is a siren call he’d be insane not to answer.
“Yeah,” she nods through a widening smile. “Gotta take my car, though.”
“Why’s that?”
“First,” she starts, rounding over to the driver’s seat, “I don’t know you. Second, I don’t think the bike’ll hold up for the off-road portion.”
He laughs as he opens the door and settles into the passenger side, tossing his bag over his shoulder into the open back of the Jeep. The seats are lowered down, accommodating a yoga mat and a bin full of odds and ends like a snorkel and mask, mismatched beach slippers, and a few towels. There is a distinct, layered smell in here, like mildew and mango and sweat. The interior is sandy and stained, likely from sea water and the tropical rain that seeps inside from the tear in the Jeep’s cloth.
He clocks it all, cataloguing it in the same way he sweeps a safehouse. This is different, though. Thrilling in a new way.
“Assuming you’ve got something more appropriate to wear in there?” she asks as she turns over the engine and buckles up.
He nods, peeking down at her manicured hand as she throws the shifter into reverse.
“Good,” she remarks. “You can change when we get there. Unless you’re one of those Brits who swims in his jeans.”
——
The drive had rattled him more than he’d like to admit. Jeep suspension over the jagged black lava fields was a different kind of punishment, each jolt a sharp reminder that his back wasn’t anywhere near right. She’d handled the wheel with one hand, sunglasses sliding down her nose, the other drumming a frenetic punk rhythm against the shifter like she could drive this as easily as she could tend bar.
The bathroom at the entrance to the beach was even less forgiving than the drive — a concrete box with a pit toilet that smelled like something had died in a pile of its own shit, all left to bake in the Hawaiian sun. He’d changed in worse, out in the field. But still, pulling his shirt over his head in there, he swore the rotten stench of excrement had clung to him like smoke.
He emerges squinting into the sun, tugging his trunks into place, jaw ticking as he wonders if he reeks. A soldier worried about smelling like shit — not exactly the posture he’d like to take on a first outing, or any outing with a pretty bird for that matter.
She giggles at him from across the gravel car park like she just knows.
“Thought maybe the toilet swallowed you whole,” she calls, watching him with a hand cupped over her eyes to shield the sun.
“Nearly did.” He feels like a knob in his flip flop sandals, smelling like horse shit and blinding everyone in a five kilometer radius with his ghost-white bare legs.
“You burn easily?” she asks as he clods closer, ridiculous sandals smacking his heels with each step. He sees her eye his pale lower half, the tattoos there that the world hardly ever sees.
“Not willing to find out.”
“Let’s get you some shade, then. C’mon.”
He follows her out onto the sand as she makes a sharp right along the tree line, leading them far from the few families near the main stretch. Her massive metal water bottle swings in her grip, and she’s got two towels slung over her shoulder. When they reach a quiet spot beneath a low hanging bough of a mesquite tree, she spreads the towels down and plops onto one with a contented huff. Simon busies himself pulling out his tube of sun cream as she strips out of her top and shorts.
“Ah, good,” she quips, nodding towards his hands as he unscrews the cap and squirts some lotion onto his fingers. “You came prepared.”
“Always, luv.”
She chuckles through her nose as she looks out at the horizon. The lava flows they’d driven through extend out into the shallows, creating mirrored tide pools and swirling currents where tiny yellow fish play. Simon smears the sunscreen across his face and neck before reaching for his shirt, tugging it up over his head. She’s watching him out of the corner of her eye as he dispenses more sun cream into his palms — as he spreads it over his shoulders, his chest, the tattoos down his arms.
“Want to get my back?” he asks, as nonchalant as he can.
She smirks and beckons him down onto the towel. “Sure. I get yours, you get mine.”
His hips crackle and pop as he lowers, the lumbar curve tightening sharply as he grimaces through the motion of sitting.
“Gonna make it?” she teases as she shuffles behind him, accepting the tube into her outstretched hand.
He grunts as she gets to work, stomach pulling as tight as his back, but in a different way — pleasant, like his muscle and skin wait for the direction of the next pass of her fingers, calling for it, wanting to hold onto it as long as possible.
She’s delicate with him, especially above the waistband of his trunks. Fingers like feathers on the wing of an island bird.
“Okay, I think you’re decent,” she hums, slathering the excess lotion on her hands across her face. “My turn.”
She repositions in front of him, slinking down onto her knees between his spread legs. She gathers her hair over one shoulder, the nape of her neck bared, skin slick with salt and morning sweat. He has to flex his jaw against the urge to bend and put his mouth there. Simon swallows on nothing as he works the lotion into the expanse of her back, her shoulders. He is less gentle than she was, pushing and molding her as he likes. She leans back into his hands like she wants more of it. He wrestles back a wide grin at the thought.
He lets himself take some of what he wants when his fingertips dip beneath the back waistband of her bottoms. He sweeps lotion there, testing the curve of her buttocks under his touch, stalling only when she throws a look over her shoulder.
“Careful,” she warns, but it’s toothless — breathy, just barely. “You’re enjoying yourself a little too much.”
“Hard not to.”
She slides her gaze forward and slithers from his grasp, returning to her towel.
“Let’s let that soak in before we swim,” she suggests, leaning back onto her elbows and peeking over at him. The look on his face must be amusing to her, because she puffs out a little bashful laugh. “You stare a lot.”
“Again,” he says, stealing a look at her breasts before retreating, landing out somewhere on the water. “Hard not to.”
A beat passes, filled only with the sounds of gently crashing waves and the call of birds overhead. She breaks the silence with a question.
“So what is it you do, Simon?”
He sighs through his nose. “Little of this, little of that.”
“You’re unemployed then?”
He darts his head to her and sees her teasing, wry smirk.
“What? No,” he says firmly, while trying to figure out a way to answer without saying too much. “It’s — it depends who’s asking, and what they’re asking for.”
She makes some sound of disbelief, maybe of disapproval, and sits back upright.
“Sounds sketchy.”
“Maybe. Sometimes.” She slides her eyes towards his, brow furrowed. She doesn’t like that answer, either, and frankly, she shouldn’t. Smart girl.
“You know, you’re allowed to say it if you’re in the military.”
He’s a little dumbstruck by her forwardness, but recovers well enough. “What gave that away?”
She shrugs and motions toward his far leg. “Tattoo on the back of your calf. Looks like something I’ve seen before. We get a lot of vets at the bar.”
Simon twists his knee outward and looks. He sometimes forgets he even has it. The 141 insignia stares back at him, faded and blotchy at the edges from age and patchy leg hair. He doesn’t take the bait of asking if she’s seen this exact marking on anyone else. Too much of a risk.
She doesn’t know him — she’s said that. But he doesn’t know her either.
“Right,” he says, an edge of relent in his voice. He does not do well with being unmasked like this — with showing this much to someone so new. His bare feet and legs in public are strange enough to him. “Well. Now you know.”
“Come on,” she says, popping up onto her feet and stretching out a hand to help him hoist himself upright. “We’re both sweating like animals out here.”
She leads him into the water, blessedly cool and refreshing at first, until it hits the scar tissue along his midsection and sends needles through his nervous system. The water seems a little chilled for her liking, too, evidenced by the stiff peaks of her nipples showing through the fabric of her bikini top. His mouth feels magnetized again when he notices — blood rushing into his gums, making him salivate.
They bob through the water, hopping over low waves until they reach a sandy flat bottom past the lava rock. The clear water is nearly to her shoulders, wetting the last few inches of her hair.
Suddenly, she gasps and plants her hand smack in the center of his abdomen.
“Wait—” she breathes, tugging him back a step.
He stiffens, scanning the water automatically, until she tilts her chin toward the darker shadow gliding just beneath the surface. A broad, domed shell, green-brown and ancient-looking, passes with the slow grace of a ghost.
A sea turtle.
It moves between them and the break, riding the push and pull of the surf as though it were born from it.
Simon stills, hand hovering near her waist though he doesn’t touch. The creature surfaces once, long enough to show its blunt head and glistening eyes, then dips again, flippers stroking slow as oars.
“Christ,” he mutters low, the word carried off by the wind.
She’s beaming, eyes following its path like it’s a miracle and not a regular guest in these waters. “Never gets old,” she says softly. “I’ve lived here a long time, and it still feels… magic. Every time.”
He looks at her then, not the turtle — the curve of her smile, the way the sun gilds the ocean droplets stuck to her cheek. Something in his chest shifts, warm and heavy, like the tide pulling him deeper.
The turtle drifts past them, unbothered, a relic of the sea. When it vanishes into the next swell, they’re left in the hush of water slapping gently around their skin, the air between them humming louder than the ocean. She slides her hand from him reluctantly, almost as if she’s forgotten she put it there and grew accustomed to his weight beneath her palm.
“You know how to float?” she asks, then kicks herself perpendicular to him, letting the peaks of her body emerge from the water. He watches a rivulet of salty water roll from the well of her belly button down off her flank. Again he swallows on nothing. “Or are you too heavy for that?”
“Too heavy?” he deadpans, still watching the water trail along her soft middle, pool and flow wherever gravity wills it to.
“Yeah, like—” she tucks herself into a ball and stands back up, facing him, taking in the breadth of his shoulders, his thick waist. “I imagine you’d just sink? Like a rock. Or a refrigerator.”
“A refrigerator?” he deadpans again, his mouth a teasing, hard line.
She giggles. “Try it. Might make your back feel better. Take the pressure off.”
He sighs and relents, easing backwards into the water and allowing himself to float as best he can. The waves gently rock him side-to-side as he views the clouds overhead, growing heavier and fuller, swelling with shades of bruised purple and grey.
Her voice is muffled in his water-logged ears. “Might wanna hold your breath,” she says with some urgency, and just as he tips his head up to ask why, she dips beneath a much larger wave that must’ve snuck its way up from the horizon.
The breaker smacks against him, sprays up his nose and mouth, and he’s sputtering, jerking upright. The salt burns down his throat, into his chest. His vision whites for a flash, a memory crowding in uninvited — sand grinding his spine raw beneath his soaked kit, boots filling with water, instructors barking over the roar of surf as he dragged breath through his teeth. A thousand sit-ups on the shore with the tide choking him alive.
He drags in a breath now, forcing it deep. She’s watching him, brow cocked, one corner of her mouth tugging in amusement. “Not much of a floater,” she quips.
“No,” he mutters, shaking off the sting in his nose — the memory. His voice comes out rougher than he means. “Think I’d rather be up on the sand.”
She doesn’t press, just grins and tips her head toward the shore. “Fair enough. Shade’s still ours.”
He follows her out of the surf, water streaming from his hair, from the dip of her spine, their footprints swallowed quickly by the waves behind them.
Simon drags the rough towel over his hair, over his chest and arms, though it does little more than smear the salt and sand around. Still, it gives him something to do with his hands while he watches her.
She wrings her hair out with both fists, head tipped backward, the rivulets running down the slope of her body. Then she drops forward onto her towel in one languid sprawl, stretching long into the sand. Her hips sink, her shoulders roll back, and her lower spine curves in a way that makes heat coil low in his stomach. She sighs as if boneless, as if the ocean has emptied her.
She knows he’s looking. She must know. She looks too fucking good not to.
He clenches the towel tighter in his hands, wills himself to ignore the press of blood thickening in his shorts. His throat feels dry as grit.
When he finally lowers himself onto his own towel, he’s close enough to catch the faint floral scent of her shampoo. He stretches out flat on his back, arms folded behind his head, eyes pinned on the rapidly darkening sky as though it might keep him in check.
Beside him, she props her chin on her folded arms, lying on her stomach. Sand clings to the backs of her thighs, glittering in the weak sun as clouds slide in from all angles.
For a long moment, neither speaks. Just the wind through the trees, the hiss of waves chewing the shore, the sound of two bodies very aware of each other and the hush between them.
“So where’s home?” she asks finally, breaking the spell. “England, obviously, but where?”
“Manchester,” he grits out, short and clipped.
“Makes sense,” she breathes, wriggling her hips to burrow more comfortably into the sand beneath her towel. “You’ve got that whole storm cloud thing about you.”
He peeks up at the sky, still darkening by the minute. “Seems I brought it with me today.”
“It’s good though,” she says airily — fully relaxed, content to watch him and chat idly with her head cradled by her forearms. “We needed it. Think it’ll actually rain?”
He hums indecisively and turns the conversation back to her. “What about you? You said you’ve lived here a long time. What about before?”
“Nowhere exciting,” she says with a breezy sigh. “That’s why I’m here.”
“Wanted some adventure, yeah?” he teases, rolling onto his side to face her fully.
“Yeah,” she giggles softly, letting her smile widen. She rolls onto her side as well, mirroring him, allowing the distance to close just a bit more. “Sea turtles and volcanoes and flirty tourists.”
She scrunches up her nose, all cheek and lightness, as she pokes his side playfully.
“Already told you, I’m—”
“I get it, I get it,” she laughs, rolling her eyes in jest, only stopping herself when his fingers brush a wet clump of her fringe out of the way. He hears her gentle inhale — sees her shoulders go taut in anticipation. Her mouth looks delicious — a ripe, berry red fruit, heavy and sweet, and when he leans down to taste it, he’s interrupted by a sudden deluge of thick, engorged rain drops.
“Shit!” she shrieks, scrambling to her feet and grabbing their things before bounding back towards the Jeep with Simon. She wraps the towel over her head like a hood, ducking to keep the rain out of her eyes, and throws all their belongings into the back of the car the moment it’s unlocked.
They laugh as they catch their breath inside the car, and for a moment, Simon thinks about trying to kiss her again. She starts the engine and throws it in reverse before he gets the chance.
“You hungry?” she asks, peeking in the rear view to make a clean getaway.
He swallows back what he really wants to say. “Starving.”
“Cool,” she nods, launching them back on top of the unpaved pathway through the lava field. “Hope you like tacos.”
——
It’s a little shack a short drive up the main highway, open on most sides with tarp overhangs that collect the rain and dump it in thick sheets down onto brick pavers. They sit at the picnic table with a singular numbered flag between them, waiting for their food, sipping beer from cold cans and debating about everything and nothing.
“I refuse to believe that,” she scoffs, leveling him with a flat look as she rests her chin in her palm. Her shirt is wet around her chest, where it’s soaked in the salty water from their brief dip into the Pacific. Simon still has sand between his bare toes. The conversation is doing a lot to distract him from the growing aggravation in his lower back.
“Why not? I can prove it.”
“I don’t mean to generalize, but your people aren’t exactly known for tolerating spice.”
“Hot, final answer,” he reaffirms. “As hot as it will go.”
“Even with Thai food?” she challenges, reaching for a caddy at the end of the table stuffed with paper napkins and non-perishable condiments.
“‘Course not, m’not a bloody masochist.”
“Then that’s not as hot as it will go!” she balks, laughing heartily at him as she rifles through the little bottles in the caddy and pulls one out. She turns the label out to him, which reads FURIOUS VOLCANO GHOST PEPPER HOT SAUCE in all capital letters, flanked by flames and rivers of magma. “This looks like a promising barometer.”
He smirks and takes another sip of his beer as she untwists the squirt cap and deposits a healthy drizzle of sauce onto her index finger. She extends it out to him with an expectant, challenging quirk to her brow, as she waits for him to wrap his lips around her finger and taste it. His neck flashes hot before the peppers even hit his tongue.
“You’ve lost your bloody mind,” he says, shaking his head despite his easy smile. “You hit your head on a rock earlier?”
“Man up,” she deadpans, mock-seriousness radiating off her lopsided smirk. “Eat the sauce or die a bland British pussy.”
He rolls his eyes and snatches her by the wrist, firm but not forceful, and slips her finger into his mouth. He doesn’t lose the opportunity to roll the flat of his tongue against her skin, just to give her a glimpse of what he could’ve done had the rain held off another moment longer.
She’s blushing as she pulls her hand away, and doesn’t move to clean up with a napkin — just holds it there, between them on the picnic table, and waits patiently for some big reaction to the spice that will never come.
To be honest — the sauce isn’t hot at all. The label is all bark.
“So?” she urges, leaning forward to punctuate her impatience.
He shrugs a shoulder, all cool indifference. “I’ve had hotter.”
“Jesus,” she groans. “Impossible. You should be excommunicated. Have your passport revoked.”
An older woman, the waitress, appears and drops off two baskets of tacos — simple barbacoa beef and cilantro for Simon, and some oozing wet mess for the girl, loaded with every topping on offer — plus a tray of seasoned chips to share.
“I just have to say,” the server starts, eyes passing between both of them with a big grin. “You two have not stopped smiling at each other since you walked in. Such a cute couple.”
As quickly as she drops the compliment she’s gone, not hearing the girl call after her, “Oh, we’re not—”
When her eyes slide back to Simon, he’s laughing into his food.
“What?” she scoffs, turning beet red. “Not gonna deny that?”
“Not sayin’ a word.”
When they finish up their meals, the ride back to the bar is just as lively, conversation flowing as easily as the post-rain breeze passes through the palms. He is reluctant to leave the Jeep, still thinking about that kiss that was interrupted on the beach, but she bounds out of the vehicle so quickly it makes him wonder if he’s come on too strong.
The worry isn’t enough to stop him, though.
“That was fun,” she says a little shyly as they stand between their vehicles. She fidgets with her car keys, jingling them between her fingers.
“It was,” he says lowly, shifting forward to begin a glacially slow closing of the space between them. “Good company.”
She nods silently, inching backward until her shoulder blades thud against the side of the Jeep. He keeps advancing, gaze dipping to her mouth, to her neck, where her pulse thrums visibly beneath thin skin.
“Yeah,” she says under her breath, inhaling almost imperceptibly when his arm comes up to lean against the window beside her head, caging her. His free hand reaches out for her hip, sliding his thumb up over the point of bone there, digging into the muscle stretching over it. She shivers — licks her lips.
“Simon—” she starts, cutting herself off when his nose brushes against hers.
“Yeah, luv?” he breathes, soft, quiet, holding there until she can’t take it anymore.
She tips forward. Grips him by the center of his t-shirt as their lips connect in a gentle press — one he deepens upon meeting. He tilts his head, slots against her more insistently — swallows up the small, soft sound that chokes itself short at the back of her throat. The hand not holding her keys releases his shirt, sweeps up past the back of his neck, scrapes her acrylic fingernails into the sweaty hair at the base of his skull. He shivers, flattening his body against hers, gasping when she tugs at the roots.
When he pulls away, she sighs nearly silently, slivering her eyes open to look at him again — flushed, pupils wide.
“Follow me back to mine,” he insists in a whisper, dipping his head down to kiss the underside of her jaw. “Please.”
She chuckles, a dark huff of air that trembles against his open mouth.
“I don’t make a habit of fucking tourists,” she purrs — a sentiment he’s heard from her too often already. “Told you that.”
She doesn’t move away. Her back arches to accommodate the wrap of his arm around it, to press herself closer to him as he pulls her from the closed Jeep door.
“Not a tourist, luv. Told you that, too,” he tells her, steady and quietly adamant. He searches her eyes, flitting between them and still finding a reluctance, a hesitation he wishes wasn’t there. “Tomorrow. You finish early, yeah?”
She nods, sighing when his thumb leaves her hip to drag slow across her mouth, testing the softness he’s already tasted.
“We’ll go up the mountain. Try to see it burn.”
The corner of her mouth ticks up in a smile. “Think it’ll happen tomorrow?”
He shrugs, kissing her softly one more time.
“We can hope.”
He disentangles himself from her, smiling softly when he sees her unsteady on her feet.
“Tomorrow,” he says again, throwing his leg over the bike. His eyes stay on hers, unblinking. “I’ll find you here.”