“Is shining that flashlight directly in our faces absolutely necessary?” I asked, bringing my hand up to my face.

I was fucking pissed, wishing I was back in the most perfect post-coital moment of my entire existence. And this close to a possible breakthrough with Calvin. Of what, I wasn’t entirely sure, but I wanted him to finish that sentence so fucking badly and now a security guard was standing there, light in my eyes, and I wasn’t about to have any of it.

“I’ll repeat the question,” he said. “Are you actual guests of the Institute?”

Calvin was frozen in terror, a deer in headlights. He’d jumped in front of me to cover my nudity but I just rolled my eyes, pushing him gently aside. About half the population of the world had seen my tits (or close to it).

 “Yes,” I said firmly, at the exact same time as Calvin said No. We looked at each other. Busted. I bit my lip to keep from laughing.

So much for playing it cool.

“Is that a yes or a no?”

“Do we not look like guests of the Institute?” I asked haughtily, tossing my wet hair over my shoulder.

“You don’t. Because I actually know what every current guest looks like. And you two,” he shined the light back and forth between our naked bodies. “look like a couple of hippies up to no good.”

Couple of hippies?

I turned to Cal and said, dryly, “Your grandfather would have been proud.”

“What?” he whispered at me, eyes as round as silver dollars.

“Well,” I said loudly, waving my hands as if I was about to say something hugely important.

Both men waited on me to speak, but instead all I did was toss the towel in the guard’s face and yell “Run!” at Calvin, leaping out of the hot springs and scooping up my clothes.

He didn’t need telling twice, doing the same, the guard calling out, wearily, “Please don’t run. I’m not even going to call the cops—”

But it didn’t matter, because I was racing through the cottages, the twinkle lights, Mary Oliver quotes and meditation pillows, Cal behind me, laughing uproariously now.

I joined him, and for a second I was laughing so hard I had to double over, Cal pushing me to keep going. We reached the fence and I threw my clothes over the wooden slats, military-crawling through the hole.

I slid through easily, turning around to grab Cal’s hands. He’d thrown his pants on, and mud was smearing all over his chest and arms. I was a literal hot mess, twigs in my hair and cuts up and down my legs and was laughing so hard I could barely hold onto Cal’s hands.

“He’s not even going to call the cops, Lu,” Cal wheezed, shimmying through the hole.

“I know and that’s what makes it funnier.”

“He called us hippies…like we were in an eighties after school special,” Cal said and I snorted, dragging him up when he made it through.

“In this after school special, did I corrupt you? Or did you corrupt me? And which of us smokes weed?”

“Oh, it’s clear that you are the corrupting force here, Ms. Bell,” he said.

I slid into the car seat, taking Cal’s keys and revving the engine. “We gotta make a quick getaway.”

I glanced at the clock as we left the Crescent Moon Institute, winding our way back down Highway 1, nothing but hills on one side and the ocean on the other. No people out, just us.

“I’m sorry to tell you this, but it’s after midnight. No longer your birthday, and you’re officially thirty years old,” I said, reaching over to squeeze his hand.

As the adrenaline of our madcap chase slowly left my body, I remembered what we’d been doing before the guard had gotten there.

What was about to happen, maybe, possibly?

“No more birthday,” Cal said softly.

“How do you feel?” We were close to the bookstore, but I felt myself slowing down, dragging out this night. I didn’t want it to end.

“Fucking fantastic,” he said and I laughed with him. “Hands down, best birthday I’ve ever had.”

“Mission accomplished,” I said, pulling up the long drive to The Mad Ones, going about five miles an hour now. Woodland creatures were scampering along more quickly than we were traveling. We’d been talking nonstop the entire night and now, as the old sign came into view, we both stopped.

I parked the car, turned off the engine.

I’ll just never open the door, I thought.

But then Cal opened his and I silently cursed. We both climbed out, staring at the bookstore, quietly slumbering. The lights along the trees glowed like beacons.

I’d be leaving in six hours.

“Will you send me the poem? The one you wrote tonight?” he asked, breaking our silence. I turned, startled.

“Oh…oh, of course.” I rummaged in my bag, pulling out the journal. Tore the page out and handed it to him. “An original. You’ll have the only copy.”

His eyes widened. “You don’t want it?”

I shook my head. “It’s your birthday present.”

It’d hurt too much to read it. And now reality was really settling in. My feet felt like heavy, red bricks.

Say something, you idiot. But instead, a thick, tangible silence stretched out between us. I needed to go, he needed to go, but we remained still.

“Thank you, again, for tonight. I think it was the most perfect five hours of my life,” he said sincerely. I didn’t laugh because I was suddenly about to burst into tears.

“Some hot springs, huh?” I finally croaked out.

His laughter was similarly restrained.

But then his face turned serious. “I’ll never forget that, Lucia,” he said, the words he’d whispered fervently as I climaxed roaring back.

I was head over heels the first moment I saw you.

It had been the most romantic moment of my life. And I’d said nothing, even though the urge to tell him my true feelings had swept up like a tornado inside me. Even though I’d promised Josie I’d be brave, baring my soul with no thought to the consequences.

But what was I going to say? I think I’m falling in love with you. Will you sell this amazing bookstore and move to Paris with me?

How fucking selfish. Even though, deep down, there was another option and I knew it. But reneging on this contract would be career suicide. To do that…for Calvin, for a week in Big Sur, for a moment in a hot spring…

Crazy, right?

“I’ll never forget it either,” I said. “I’ll never forget the things you said. Thank you.”

Cal looked away from me, suddenly as shy and nervous as the first day we met.

“Thank you for seeing me.” I gulped, since that was pretty brave. And true. Cal had seen past the gauzy, shallow layers and seen me.

“Don’t worry about it,” he said, looking up at the trees. “Just kind of…swept up in the moment, you know?”

“Oh…of course,” I said, recovering. “Me too.”

This is what you wanted. A few days of hot and heavy fun with a guy I’d never see again, swept up in the moment. Live a little—that’s what I’d said to Josie.

 “You know, this is the last time you’ll see this place,” Cal said.

I swallowed thickly. Oh, and that too.

“Yeah,” was all I could manage.

 “The investor’s plan is to bulldoze the store, build an organic spa. Use the cottages for private massage suites.”

“Yeah…okay. Sounds like you made your choice—” But I wanted to say please don’t.

 I wanted to say this is the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen.

“Selling it is the right choice. I know it,” Calvin said.

He stumbled at the end. Hesitant. But I pretended to ignore it. I wiped my face, catching a tear before he could see it.

“Do you, um…do you want to stay the night?” he asked, catching me totally off-guard.

More than anything. “I think…don’t you think that’ll just make it harder? I’m leaving…tomorrow morning,” I said, and my voice definitely cracked. I cleared it.

God, this was terrible.

“Right, of course,” he said quickly, backing away from me. I went to move closer, but then stopped myself.

 “You’re probably right.”  He smiled weakly.

“Calvin,” I started to say, but he interrupted me.

“So, Paris, huh? You’ll be there soon. Exciting.” It was like awkward party small talk. My emotions were a fucking mess. I didn’t know, entirely, what I wanted Calvin to ask me, but I wanted him to ask me.

“Opportunity of a lifetime,” I said again, shrugging, the words like ash in my mouth. I shouldn’t have agreed to tonight—too much salt in the wound. “You’ll have to let me know the first time you see my face on a billboard here in the States.”

As if that fucking mattered anymore.

“I will. You can, um…well send me a postcard? And I’ll see you, you know, on Instagram.”

Another follower, mindlessly liking my posts, feeding my ego.

“I’ll try and post some topless ones for you,” I said, and he gave me the sweetest smile. The entire week came rushing back, every moment we’d spent together. I was going to need Josie to physically restrain me in the car tomorrow or I’d stay here, curled up next to Cal, reading books. Writing. Being truly happy. Forever.

 “And, you know, I know it’s not…um, likely but if you’re ever in Big Sur again—”  A pause, while he corrected himself, “I mean, if you’re ever in San Jose, give me a call. We could grab coffee or something.”

Coffee. This was starting to sound like the end of an awkward one-night stand. How had our walls gone up so quickly?

“Yeah, okay,” I said, and I was definitely crying now—buckets of tears. Cal reached out, concerned, touching my wrist, and just that was too much.

“Lucia? Are you—I’m sorry, did I—?”

But I was walking backwards, shrugging my shoulders and attempting to laugh through my tears, and probably only succeeding in looking like an insane person.

“So anyway,” I said, speaking over Cal’s concerned words, “Happy birthday. We’ll always have the hot springs. And, uh…see you around some time. We’ll have coffee. In San Jose.”

He called out to me, a few times, but I ignored it, just pushed my way through the trail, branches snagging on my clothing, tripping over rocks.

Going back was only going to tear my heart to pieces.

 

◊

 

I crawled into bed with Josie who, from the looks of it, had had the same kind of night.

I reached out, held her hand.

“Were you brave?” I asked.

She bit her lip, tear sliding down her cheek. “It’s a long story. Yes, but also…no. It’s not going to work out.”

Silence for a moment. I stroked her hair.

“How about you?” she asked, sniffling.

The whole horrible scene replayed itself in my mind—Calvin and I both obviously leaving words unsaid, neither one of us willing to put themselves on the line. And also, maybe, like he’d said…we were just swept up in a moment. A week in Big Sur, no consequences, just great sex with an undercurrent of intense, possibly life-changing, emotional connection.

Yet neither one of us could do it. Be brave.

“A little bit,” I said. “But mostly no. Not at all. And it was awful.”

 

◊

 

I held Josie’s hand and cried all the way back to Los Angeles. Except when she needed to cry and we’d switch spots, saying the same things over and over. This is for the best. It wasn’t meant to be. It was just great sex, nothing more. A continuous stream of complete and utter bullshit, but the kind of bullshit you say to your best friend when she’s sure she’ll never love again. I said it to Josie and she said it right back to me.

Because of course I was fucking going to Paris. The farther we got from Big Sur, and the closer to civilization, I felt Big Sur’s hold on me loosen. Shake loose from my bones. As Josie read through the latest celebrity news, got me caught up on gossip, my world shrank back to size.

I wondered if I’d be inspired to write in Paris, or if it’d be more of the same…listlessness. Disinterest. But my apartment was too small, and I missed the constant sound of the waves, the giant redwoods, that lingering scent of forest and moss.

Calvin wasn’t in my bed, and in the morning, when I woke to make my flight to Paris, there was no book of poetry left at my door, with a post-it note inside, scrawled with his favorite lines.

I was head over heels the moment I met you.

I cried on the way to the airport and during the flight—received my fair share of odd looks and it wouldn’t surprise me if I didn’t end up in some gossip column later. Lucia Bell in tears at LAX—what happened?

I arrived in Paris in a daze, greeted Sabine’s people numbly, barely glanced around my cute Parisian flat. Just laid down on the bed and fell into a restless, unhappy sleep.

And in the morning, I strolled onto the set, plopped into a chair, snapped for a latte and took out my phone.

 

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