“Well, well, well. Look who’s doing the walk of shame.”

Tanya’s voice floats at me through the darkness of the suite in a whisper, but I shush her anyway and fumble for our bedroom’s dimmer. In the pale glow from the overhead light, she grins and stretches, waggling her fingers at me.

“Tell me everything.”

I toy with my keycard—a spare I had to pick up at the front desk; I’m grateful to Tanya when I notice my forgotten purse on the chaise under the window—and feel the blush paint my cheeks. “Not much to tell. We hung out, fooled around, and...here I am.”

“Define ‘fooled around.’”

“Tan….”

“Come on! I tell you every dirty detail the second I get home from a date.”

“First of all,” I say, as I fall face first into the bed, “this wasn’t a date.” Turning my head just enough to breathe, I add, “Second, I don’t ask you for those details.”

“That’s right: I willingly divulge, because you’re my best friend. And I would appreciate it if you’d do the same.” She gets up and sits on my butt, setting to work on untangling my hair for a French braid. Tanya’s a pro at them, perfect tension, no loose strands—but merciless on your scalp. So while she works, I cringe and try to think up a tasteful version of whatever just transpired between Kai and me.

“We made out for a little while, and then he showed me this, like, cabana hut thing, kind of a miniature house, where people used to stay when this was just his family’s hotel—”

“Awful lot of talking for a hook-up.”

“Then,” I continue, rolling my eyes even though she can’t see, “we...did stuff.”

“Again, I’m going to request a definition.”

I push my face back into the pillow. “Hand stuff.”

“Oh, good Lord. Did he ask you to the eighth grade dance, as well?”

“Shut up. It was nice.” I’m glad she can only see the back of my head, because now my blush is covering my face, neck, and chest, a full flush as I relive it.

“Mollie. Kiss me.”

I’d hesitated, because something in Kai’s voice.... It wasn’t like my other one-night, ill-advised (or Tanya-advised) hookups.

To be honest, it freaked me out. Even now, blushing and smiling like an idiot and wishing we were still downstairs in that hut, I feel unsettled and strange. I don’t know why.

“All right,” she says, finishing up my braid with a pat on my head, “if it was so nice, why aren’t you down there riding him like a pogo-stick?”

Both of us laugh as she climbs off me. I sit up and pull my knees to my chest, while Tanya opens a small tin of macadamia nuts from one of the bribery baskets. “I don’t know. When we were done, I just....”

She chews. Waits. “You just…?”

I close my eyes and put my forehead on my knees, thoroughly ashamed. “I couldn’t stop thinking about Damian.”

I expect a dramatic groan, maybe some cursing—definitely some cursing—but Tanya surprises me by sitting on the bed again and running her fingers daintily along the top of my braid. “That makes sense.”

“It does?” I narrow my eyes at her. “Are you being sarcastic?”

“For once, I’m totally serious.” She pitches the empty container into the wastebasket and brushes her hands off on her pajama shorts. “You liked Damian for a long time, and then suddenly you find out—twice—you’re never going to have him. Your feelings aren’t going to turn off, just like that. It might take a while.”

I nod, considering this. “Still,” I counter, “it wasn’t like we were in a relationship. I should be able to push the feelings aside, at least. Right? And I’m still so, so angry about what he did....” I take a breath and shake my head, dampening the fury in my chest as best I can. “Sleeping with Kai seemed like the perfect revenge. Showing Damian I don’t care.”

My voice softens. Suddenly, I’m exhausted. The fight drains out of my muscles. “Which is pathetic,” I add, “because Damian doesn’t care if I don’t care. Me sleeping with Kai wouldn’t matter to him.”

“Might make you feel better,” she offers, then corrects herself. “About your ability to get over Damian, I mean.”

“Maybe.” I think of Kai again, how strange it was when he asked me to kiss him—but how quickly and completely I toppled over the edge when I did. He had, too. Remembering it makes my pulse quicken, even if I wish it wouldn’t. The last thing I need is to tumble headfirst from one doomed crush into another.

“Let’s get some sleep,” Tanya says, heading for the dimmer switch.

I make a face. “You’re not going to brush your teeth?”

“In the morning,” she yawns. In the pitch-black softness, I feel the other side of the bed move as she dives back into her nest of blankets and pillows. “It’s vacation. Live a little.”

I put my feet on the floor, ready to brush my teeth, vacation or not. Instead, though, I pause and run my tongue along them. Faintly, I taste salt.

Out there on the grass, when I kissed him and he pulled me onto him so easily, he tasted like the beach. Salt from the ocean and the smell of skin in the sun, the heat and earthiness of sand, all lacing his breath. I’d never experienced anything like it, but could still pick out each note like a favorite wine, something I knew by heart.

I get back in bed and pull the covers up to my chin, fighting with Tanya for some slack.

“Brush your teeth?” I can hear the smile.

“Vacation,” I whisper. She lets out a quiet laugh, and I close my eyes.

I oversleep and miss the first hour of the shift I promised Luka. Again.

When I show up at the cantina, groggy and already sweating through my uniform, he’s there.

“What are you doing here?” I grab a glass and fill it with tap water, chugging half before I add, “I told you I’d take your shift.”

“Well, good thing I didn’t rely on you, huh?” he snaps. He’s almost finished with all the prep work, and I notice a row of dirty glasses on the bar. Each one has fruit dregs in the bottom, seven different colors: a rainbow of blended sugary drinks we usually only make for a...

“Bachelorette party? This early?”

He cocks his eyebrow and carries on chopping a pineapple. “Yep.”

I gather up the glasses and load the dishwasher. “Sorry, man. I promise, I didn’t mean to oversleep.”

Luka’s shoulders relax a little. He glances at me. “Thanks.” After a minute, he adds, “To tell you the truth, I didn’t just come in because I thought you wouldn’t show—even though, let’s be real here, there was a pretty good chance of that.”

“Then why are you here?”

Luka sweeps the fruit into the container and rinses his hands. “Dad has officially passed a ‘no trading shifts with Kai’ rule.”

I freeze, the final glass dripping purple mush and ice onto my leg. “Like, between you and me?”

“Between you and everyone.”

I blink at him. “Are you serious?”

“There’s a big memo up in the kitchen.”

“A memo,” I repeat, waiting, like any second Luka will grin and say, “Gotcha.” He plays a lot of bullshit pranks like that. At least, he used to.

“He’s pissed, dude. When you weren’t at the bar last night, he came home slamming shit and threatening to fire you. Mom had to talk him out of it.” He throws me a dishrag. “You’ve got Purple Rain on your leg, by the way.”

I throw the towel down and kick up the dishwasher door. It bounces back open. Childish as it is, I hope I’ve broken it.

“A fucking memo.” I shake my head, my jaw already aching from how much I’m tensing. “I can’t believe him.”

Luka studies me. On some other level, using what little of my brain isn’t on fire with pure anger, I notice his clothes: pressed dress shirt, khakis with a crease, an actual apron that I can tell, from all the way over here, has been bleached to perfection. I, meanwhile, am still in the uniform I slept in, covered in grass stains. Even weirder than the fact I’ve stopped trying is the fact Luka’s started.

“Where were you last night, anyway?” he asks.

“Just...out. You know.”

Unsatisfied by my answer, Luka folds his arms, waiting for more.

I grab the towel and wipe the fruit gunk off my leg. “I was with a girl.”

“What girl?” he smirks.

“Why is that funny?”

“Because you’re never with girls. You’re never with anybody.”

He’s right, but I’m too pissed about Dad’s memo to admit it. “Well, I was last night.”

“Who?”

“Just a girl.”

“A resort package guest?”

Hearing Luka use the new business lingo in a non-ironic way makes me want to slap him. “Just say ‘tourist,’ dumbass. And yes.”

“Now who’s the dumbass?” he laughs. “You know the rule about summer girls.”

I know it all too well. It’s our rule, not even Dad’s or Paradise Port’s: don’t date summer girls. They all leave.

And if they don’t, you’ll have even more trouble to deal with.

“It was the girl who almost drowned,” I retort, desperate to save face, “if you must know. So if anything, Dad should be thanking me. She told me she’s not going to sue.”

“Yeah?” Luka can barely talk, he’s laughing so hard. “You give it to her that good, man?”

Now, even I crack. “Shut up.”

We work to catch our breath. It’s been a while, I realize, since we laughed like this together. Since I laughed like this at all.

“Okay, okay,” Luka says, composing himself as a drove of tourists come up the beach, in a beeline for the cantina, “in all seriousness, I think you need to go talk to Dad. Smooth things over.”

“What, right now?”

“You know he’s less stressed in the mornings.”

“Yeah, but...what about the shift? I did promise you I’d take it.”

“Rules are rules, apparently.” He wipes down the counter again, making himself look busy for the customers. “Go. I’ll be fine.”

“I still owe you something. For last night and Friday.”

“Let me think on it.”

I slap his shoulder just as the tourists, three middle-aged couples in floral shirts and dresses, reach the top of the wood-plank stairs, ooh-ing and aah-ing at the cantina like they’ve found Atlantis.

Dad’s in a meeting with the staff managers when I reach the resort. The conference room, accessed through a veritable maze behind the front desk, has a lot of dark wood and frosted glass. I can see him nodding as someone else speaks, just a blur through the window.

As soon as it’s over, I slip inside. People shake hands and laugh, but Dad instantly turns to stone. I swear, it’s like he doesn’t know how to smile around me, anymore.

“Kai.” He motions for me to sit, but I put my hands on the conference table and level my gaze with his.

“Luka told me about the memo. I hope you’re kidding.”

“Far from it.” He picks up a folder to skim its contents, like I’m distracting him from something important. “Be happy I didn’t take more drastic action.”

“What, like firing me?”

It’s barely discernible, but he flinches. I’ve caught him: he’s all talk. Not that he’ll dare show it.

“As a matter of fact, yes.”

My throat feels tight, like it’s closing itself off to stop me from saying something I shouldn’t. But the fact Dad doesn’t even have the guts to look at me while he’s admitting this shit, sets something off.

“Fire me, then. Look me in the eye and tell me I’m fired.”

“You have your mother to thank for the fact that I won’t.”

“Well, Mom’s not here now, is she?” I push myself off from the table so hard, all ten feet of it screeches across the floor. Now, Dad’s eyes meet mine.

“Let’s be mature about this, Kai.” He licks his lips, throwing the folder down on the table. “If you would just apply even half the effort you used to—”

“The effort I used to apply was when this place was actually fun. Before you signed it away without consulting me, or Luka, or even Mom.”

“Work isn’t all fun and games and punching in whenever you feel like it. The sooner you realize that and accept it, the better.”

“You don’t like the business like this, either. I can tell. You’re working nonstop, running yourself into the ground—and for what? Don’t you even notice how little Mom comes around here now?”

“Don’t bring your mother into this. What we do or don’t discuss is none of your business. You’re our child.”

“I’m twenty-three, Dad. If you’d stop treating me like some punk teenager, you’d—”

“Then stop acting like some punk teenager.” He runs his hand down his face, taking a long, raspy breath. “I’m not having this conversation with you.”

“You never have any conversation with me anymore.” Dad steps to the side, trying to leave, but I move to block him. “You just assume you know everything I do and think, then you slap up some bullshit memo to try and force me into this new business that I didn’t even sign on for. None of us did.”

“Move,” he says. He stares past me at the door. I see his jaw clench, the veins in his neck popping. When he’s like this—still and quiet—it means he’s at his limit, and whoever pissed him off better get out of his way, stat.

Just the same, I don’t move. I’ve got one more card to play, even if everything in me is telling me not to.

“Noe would hate this more than anyone.”

Dad steps so close to me so fast, I can’t help but recoil. His eyes flash. I’ve struck a nerve, which I thought I wanted to do. Now, I almost wish I could take it back.

“How I choose to run my business,” he says, “is not up to you.”

“It wasn’t your business,” I counter, as he steps around me. “It was ours. The family business.”

“Things change.”

“But they didn’t have to.”

“That’s right,” he says, louder now. His voice hitches for a second, when he turns around to look at me again. Even with the length of the room between us, I instinctively back away. “They didn’t have to. But they did.”

My chest hurts suddenly, like I’ve been punched.

And the worst part of it is that I can tell Dad sees he’s hurt me. But he doesn’t apologize, or at least backpedal with some off-the-cuff crap. He just looks at the door handle, perfect and smooth in his hand. Exactly like the rest of this building, the entire resort: brand-new and manageable. No history, no memories.

Well. If that’s what he wants.

“You can take down the memo.” I stalk past him, out into the labyrinth that snakes out to the front desk, where I can hear a new batch of tourists checking into paradise. “I quit.”