Luke

After responding to some emails, I took a quick, bracing, cool shower. It did almost nothing to extinguish my growing desire to take a warm professional business shower with Avery. I dressed in a blue button-down shirt and tan trousers, reviewed my notes for Bucket’s debriefing on my laptop, then noticed it was five-thirty and that the sun was starting to set, so I made my way out onto the patio.

Millionaire world champion surfer slash entrepreneur Buck Reynolds was already on the patio, blending some kind of drink at the outdoor bar. We had met in person twice before, in London, and I’d immediately developed a sort of professional man crush on the fellow. His easy-going nature was so very not British, but he was such a shrewd businessman, the combination of these personality traits was nothing less than delightful to watch in action. If he were in this situation with someone like Avery—in a hypothetical scenario wherein she did not have a boyfriend—surely his attitude would be: “Hey man, we get along, we work well together, we’re here together now, why shouldn’t we enjoy this opportunity while we can? Let’s trust that the universe has brought us together for a reason.” And then he’d take her hang gliding and make love to her in a cave on the beach or something.

When he saw me approaching, Bucket turned off the blender and smiled. “Duuuuude!” he said, in the way that anyone would expect him to greet you, given his shoulder-length hair, laid-back golden boy surfer good looks and the fact that he’s called “Bucket.” I had once asked Avery why he was nicknamed Bucket, and she immediately replied: “Because he makes buckets and buckets of money! No not really, it’s some kind of surfer term, like about making buckets of water splash off the end of the board when they do a certain kind of move or something? Honestly, he’s so cool he could be named Asshat and you’d still want to hang out with him.” She was right.

He stepped out from behind the bar to pull me in for a warm handshake and partial hug. “So glad you could make it! Sorry for the long journey, hope it’s not cramping your style too much.”

“Anything for you, Mr. Reynolds, anything for you.”

“You get a chance to tour the compound yet? Walk the beach?”

“Uh no, actually, just had enough time to catch up on a bit of work, really.”

“Really looking forward to hearing your perspective on the merger, but seriously—enjoy yourself while you’re here, okay?”

“I shall do my best, sir.”

“You do that!” he laughed and patted me on the back. “And there she is,” he said in a sing-song voice.

I followed his gaze back towards the building and saw Avery walking towards us. She was walking rather slowly, in strappy high-heeled sandals, wearing a heavy cardigan over her dress. Clearly she hadn’t realized how warm it would be here when she packed. Or more likely, it was a layer of armor. She looked decidedly languid, compared to her brisk nervous energy after arriving here, due to the dampness of her skin and hair, following a shower.

Bucket took three long strides towards her, deftly placed one hand on the small of her back while grasping her right hand, dipped her, lifted her back up and spun her around. She squealed with delight, laughed, and pushed him away, playfully. It wasn’t flirtatious so much as playful sibling behavior, or so I told myself.

“You dork!” she said.

“I’m the dork, says the lady in her nana’s cardigan. Take this thing off right now, you’re ridiculous.” He reached for her sweater and she swatted him away.

“Okay okay, I’ll do it. Doesn’t it get cold when the sun goes down here?”

“There are heat lamps on the yacht.”

“Yacht?!” she said, mildly terrified.

“We’re having dinner on the yacht tonight, didn’t Samson tell you?”

“Um no, he failed to mention. Good evening, Luke,” she said, glancing over at me while she pulled off her cardigan, revealing the top part of her lovely red dress, her toned bare arms, long neck, enticing clavicles, just a hint of cleavage, and dear God Almighty—the outline of her nipples under the thin fabric. She looked effortlessly stunning. It was almost cruel of her.

Good thing I didn’t make an actual promise to maintain a professional distance from her while we’re here, or I’ll probably break it before the end of the night. I’d hate to break a promise to Avery, of all people.

“That’s more like it,” said Bucket. “I’m making us Bahama Mamas.” He returned to the bar.

“Make mine virgin,” she insisted, as she joined him. “I’m working tonight. I can’t speak for Mr. Mason.” She glanced back at me, grinning.

“I prefer to work drunk, I’m glad you hadn’t noticed.”

Bucket pointed at me. “That’s what I’m talking about. You need to loosen up, Blondie. If you can’t manage my wealth while consuming an umbrella drink then you’ve got no business here.”

I couldn’t help but admire her while she chatted with Bucket, as though they were old friends. It wasn’t ogling, I was genuinely admiring her. I’ve had the good fortune of being with a number of exceptionally beautiful women, but there was something about Avery Davis that gently took my breath away and moved me in ways that were quite unfamiliar. It might have had something to do with the way she looked at me when we’d Skyped, the way she tilted her head, as though she were really listening to me and contemplating everything I said, yet still not taking me too seriously. She did keep me on my toes, this one, and I liked it. Of course—since we’d arrived on the island she had barely looked at me. We were in an awkward place, and it was not where I wanted to be with her. She was no doubt feeling ill at ease because of her relationship status, and I respected her decision to voice her concern about our flirtation—which was meaningless at best, and seemed inappropriate now that we were here in person, if there was to be no follow-through.

Still… I’d been fond of Avery ever since the first time we Skyped, and she was one of the few people on Earth that I truly enjoyed talking to, but nothing had prepared me for the experience of actually being in her presence. Instead of making her seem stressed-out, her buzzy energy animated her and I couldn’t help but want to be…inside all of that energy…to make her so overcome that she couldn’t move for a moment, and then induce her to writhe and thrash about uncontrollably so that she couldn’t even think for once. It was an unprofessional thought on my part, to say the least.

But alas, it was what I wanted to do, it was not what I planned to do. As long as she had a boyfriend, I would behave honorably. It’s not usually a difficult thing for me, being honorable, but I had a terrible feeling the next few days were going to be a throbbing, aching challenge.

Bucket handed us our Bahama Mama drinks and we all clinked glasses. “To beach business,” he said.

Avery took a sip and exclaimed, “Oh holy shit, that’s delicious!”

Bucket burst out laughing. “I told you!” She immediately looked at me and covered her mouth. “Sorry.”

As if I were some uptight duke that she had to be on her best behavior for. It really was good. “Fuck yeah, it’s delicious,” I said.

She giggled.

“Right on. I’m really glad you could both join me here, I’ve really liked working with you two.”

I swear I saw Avery blush as she looked at me, but it could have been the reflection of the sunset. “This has been a fun and surprisingly easy deal to handle, right Mr. Mason?”

“Indeed, Miss Davis. Despite everything, we somehow managed to successfully shepherd a transatlantic merger, with very few jobs lost, and almost no bloodshed,” I joked.

“Yes, probably because of Luke’s total lack of charm and humor, we were able to focus on keeping things on track, on schedule and on budget.”

“Well, let’s not underestimate the power of Avery’s unpleasant demeanor—we all try our best to stay in line—or face her wrath.”

Bucket looked at us, back and forth, though we barely looked at each other. He smiled. “Ooookaaay. I’m liking what I’m hearing, kids. Let’s get on that boat before the sun sets, I’m starving.”

“There better not be pirates,” Avery muttered.

“Unlikely, but this boat has been surrounded by swimming pigs at Big Major’s Cay,” Bucket laughed. “That was the best day.” He got a faraway look in his eyes.

We followed him down to the private dock to a sixty-foot cockpit motor yacht named “The Endless Summer.”

“You better not have bought this with your private account, Bucket,” scolded Avery. It was worth at least half a million dollars, surely.

He laughed. “It comes with the villa, Mom. Ain’t she a beauty.” A crew man waved at us from the top deck, as Bucket deftly hopped aboard. He held his arm out to help Avery off the dock, but she nearly lost her balance as she stepped over the side. My hands automatically reached out to steady her, but they went straight to her hips. I hoped she didn’t find that too intimate. She caught her breath and looked back at me, over her shoulder.

“You alright?” I asked. My lips were dangerously close to her face.

“Mmhmm,” she nodded.

I released her, cleared my throat, and heard her sigh. All I wanted, in that moment, was to be able to hear her sigh again. To be the one who made her do it, over and over.

Well done, Mr. Mason. At least hands on hips is more of a professional distance than hands on thighs. Try not to turn into a drunken lecherous creepy pervert tonight, shall we? Save that for the last night, be clever.

A dining table was set up on the upper deck. There were hurricane candle holders, an exotically-scented bouquet set on the table, and two heat lamps, as promised. The built-in speakers whispered some sultry DJ-mixed beach vibe-y music that I imagined was the soundtrack to Bucket’s life. A young fresh-faced server welcomed us with more Bahama Mamas, as per Bucket’s instructions, I’m sure, and we were seated to a beautiful salad of fruits, vegetables, shrimp and edible flowers. It looked delicious, but to be honest, everything that night tasted of rum, coconut and pineapple, and that was not a bad thing. I hadn’t even noticed when the boat had left the dock.

All through dinner, in between sips of Bahama Mama, Avery kept trying to steer our conversation back in the direction of the merger and our progress since closing the deal, and Bucket would listen and nod for approximately thirty seconds, then check his phone and then change the subject again.

“Here’s something I’ve always wondered, Davis. Why did you get into business and wealth management, anyway? Not a lot of hot women in your line of work.” He glanced over at me briefly, before looking back at her, not at all lasciviously.

She looked offended at first, and it seemed to take her a moment to realize that he was referring to her as a hot woman, and that seemed to surprise her. “Well, Buck Reynolds, I will ignore your comment about women and give you the short answer to that question.”

He and I both leaned forward, and she smiled before continuing. “My father left when I was fourteen. It was a shock and it was devastating at first. My mother had to work two jobs in an attempt to keep my sister and I at the same level of comfort that we’d been used to—which was very middle class—and when I was fifteen I got copies of Suze Orman’s books from the library…”

“The PBS lady with the short blonde hair?” Bucket scrunched up his face, waiting to get playfully punched.

She playfully punched him as she continued. “The brilliant personal financial advisor and motivational speaker, yes, whom my mother and I had seen on PBS. She specializes in empowering women, and I read those books from cover to cover, made notes, and I started balancing the checkbook and our budget, for my mom, putting away some savings, and it made her worry less, and gave me a sense of control and power and hope for the future.”

“Good for you,” I said, raising my glass to her.

“And now you help make the rich richer.”

She shrugged. “I do my part, sure, but the goal—my goal—ultimately, is to open my own firm that helps manage money for single mothers.”

“That’s very noble of you,” Bucket said, after some consideration. “That was an asshole way of saying that, sorry. My mom raised me. If I’m still rich when you’re ready to open that firm, let me know, I’d like to help in any way I can.”

“If you aren’t still rich by then, I will be partly to blame, and I will have no business opening up my own firm,” she said, smiling.

“And that is why I love working with this woman,” he said, turning towards me. “Don’t you?”

I was about to say something appropriate and witty (I’d like to think), but Bucket’s mobile phone buzzed. He immediately answered it and walked away from the table before I could respond. He spoke in hushed tones. I looked over at Avery, who was concentrating on her Key Lime pie. “I do enjoy working with you,” I said, “for the record.”

She smiled. “Good.”

Bucket returned to his seat, his leg bouncing up and down under the table. He couldn’t stop smiling. “You guys are cool, I’m glad you’re here,” he said. He leaned in. “I feel like I can trust you.”

Avery swallowed her bite of pie. “Well, I certainly hope so!”

“I’m gonna need you to keep a secret,” he said, not conspiratorially, but matter-of-fact. And then he received a text, laughed, got up from the table again, and said, “I gotta go! You guys stay here, enjoy the night, let the crew know when you want to go back to the villa. We’ll continue this discussion tomorrow, yeah?” He then descended from our deck, hopped onto the dinghy that was tied to the yacht, and disappeared into the darkness, towards land. It all happened so quickly and it was the strangest thing.

Avery and I looked at each other, aghast, and laughed. We stared at each other, smiling, for a moment. “Hello, sailor,” she crooned, her face erupting in a smile, the likes of which I had not seen directed towards me since we’d arrived on the island.

I breathed a sigh of relief. “Hello darling.” Good. Let’s stop pretending.

She looked up at the night sky and gasped. “Look at that moon! So shiny!”

It was. The shining moon, the soft music, the rhythmic sound of the lapping waves against the side of the boat, the sweet taste of coconut and rum on our lips, and the beautiful woman across a small table from me, it was almost too much.

“He’s being kind of squirrelly, I wonder what’s up.”

It had something to do with a woman, I was certain. “I can’t imagine.”

“Have you ever asked him why he got the notion to do business in London all of a sudden?”

“No. Have you?”

“No, I’m just wondering if it was for personal reasons. He’s such a shrewd investor, I’d be surprised if it were, but...He’s nothing if not surprising.”

“Indeed he is. I make it a point not to ask clients their personal reasons for wanting to do things. I’m sure it was because he’d been surfing around the UK and saw a growth opportunity.” Truth was, I didn’t care why he’d wanted to do business in the UK, I was just glad it had given Avery and me a reason to work together again. But I had a strong sense that there was a woman involved, for Bucket as well.

My personal mobile phone was in my back pocket, and it had been vibrating on and off all evening, but I hadn’t checked it. It vibrated again. I ignored it. “I should give you my personal mobile number,” I said, casually. “So you can text me while we’re here. You know, for emergency work chats or what have you. I usually keep two phones with me, but I figured while we’re here I’d carry one at a time. So I’ll have my business mobile with me during business hours, and —”

“You have two phones?! I don’t have two phones. Should I have two phones?”

She passed her phone to me and I added in my number under the contact name Sailor Mason. My phone buzzed again. I had a feeling it was Chiara but didn’t want to look.

“Go ahead and answer your personal phone,” she said, leaning back in her chair. “Sounds like someone really wants to get a hold of you.”

I pulled out my phone and saw eight missed calls from Chiara, no voicemails. I texted her that I was still in the middle of a dinner meeting and would call her when I returned to my hotel room. Then I returned my phone to my back pocket.

“Girlfriend?” she asked, as if she were just making casual conversation.

“No, it’s someone I’ve been out with a few times” I said, looking her straight in the eyes. “I don’t have a girlfriend.”

She blinked, then looked back up at the moon. “Chandra,” she whispered. I tried not to stare at her long, smooth neck.

After a significant pause, I finally said: “And what’s Mr. Potter up to these days?”

“Hmmm?” She continued to stare at the shining moon. “Oh, uh. Quidditch tournament.”

“Jolly good. Best of luck to him.” He’s already the luckiest bastard I know. “Must be difficult for him. Not being able to see you very often. In person, I mean.”

“Ah well. ‘The course of true love never did run smooth.’” She grinned.

“Midsummer Night’s Dream. I don’t think I’ve ever heard Shakespeare quoted in such an unpretentious way—well done.”

“Thanks…I’m not all that great in person anyway.” She looked up at me, daring me to respond.

After a moment I said, “So far I have no complaints.” Except that you have a boyfriend.

It became clear quite quickly that it was impossible to remain alone together on a yacht, on a balmy night, without being uncomfortable in that way that you can only feel with someone you have a deep desire to have sex with, but can’t. So we asked to return to shore. She was extra vigilant about remaining balanced and upright as she disembarked. I held my hands up, inches away from her, just in case, without ever touching her.

The interior of Chandra Villa glowed, like a sexy beacon, inviting us in for a nightcap.