Walking with purpose, I rounded the aged barn with the metal shingles, sliding my hand along the rough wooden surface. It seemed so harmless, so old and worn, but it wasn’t. There was nothing innocent about this place or the land it stood on. My heart rate began to rise and my breathing shallowed. I wasn’t alone. I knew they were following me, and I wanted to scream at them to back off. What did they think I was here for in the first place?

I glanced down at my list, but it wasn’t like I really needed it. Each tiny detail had been etched in my brain like a twisted poem. Still I clutched the worn paper in my hand, more for comfort than anything else. “#6 Due South. A single boulder in the meadow with five marks carved in the base of the stone.”

I could see it, that boulder… it was there in my dreams… always that same damn boulder. “Five marks carved in the base of the stone.” I hated knowing these things. They were his secrets, not mine.

“Jake, wake up.”

I opened my eyes slowly, disoriented, as the boulder disappeared from my vision. Casey, my beautiful new wife, was sitting beside me wearing my t-shirt and gently rousing me by patting her hand on my stomach. Over the past two years, we’d devised the least invasive wake-up call. When I was deep in a dream, an abrupt awakening could affect me for hours. But allowing me to wallow in a nightmare was no better a solution. I sat up, rubbing my eyes, and actually looked down at my clutched hands, searching for the list, though it wasn’t there.

Casey placed her hands over mine. “You okay?”

“What was I doing?”

“You were breathing really heavy. I got scared, so I woke you up.”

“It’s okay. I was just having a nightmare.”

“Who was following you?”

“What?”

“You kept telling someone to back off.”

Running my hands through my hair, I wondered how much I should tell Casey about this dream. We had a deal: every time my nightmare was bad enough that she needed to wake me, I had to share one detail with her. Although my first instinct was always to lie to her, I’d made a concerted effort not to.

“Ghosts.”

“Ghosts?” she asked, her skin erupting in goosebumps. There were times she seemed so innocent. Was that how a person reacted who’d never seen the dark side of life? I’d been so young when my world imploded that I didn’t remember what it was like before I was jaded.

“It’s a dream,” I said, trying to justify my answer. “You asked.”

“What did they want, these ghosts?”

The answer to that question had haunted me for years, and even though I knew the answer to it, I would never admit it to her. Against all odds, I’d built a life for myself, one that included this amazing woman beside me. I wouldn’t allow them to take that from me, no matter how selfish it might seem.

“I don’t know,” I said, trying hard to sound unfazed. “You woke me up before I could ask them.”

She smiled even though she didn’t seem at all happy with my response. “I’m serious.”

“So am I. Can we please stop talking about ghosts? They’re such a turn off.”

I yanked her down onto the bed and rolled over her. Although still appearing troubled, she didn’t protest when I removed her t-shirt or when I began running circles around her nipples with my tongue, but her worried mind was not yet ready to concede; her body wasn’t giving in to my touch. Casey wasn’t convinced. She wanted more from me, but we both knew that wasn’t happening. So the question was, would she allow me to change the subject through distraction, as I was doing now, or would she shut me down entirely? It had gone both ways in the past, and recently she’d been getting harder to redirect.

Teasing a trail down her stomach, my fingers and tongue worked in unison until, slowly but surely, Casey’s body relaxed under my caress. Once I moved between her thighs, all was forgotten. At least for her.

* * *

The ultra-exclusive resort where we were spending our honeymoon sat on a secluded stretch of pristine coastline and offered sweeping ocean views as well as luxury amenities. Casey and I had some excursions planned later in the week, but the first few days were spent entirely in the villa. There was no need to go elsewhere. We had everything we could possibly want and more. The private pool and spa aside, we were steps away from the sandy beach where we sat multiple times a day watching the waves roll in. It was relaxation at its finest, and we were taking full advantage of our time together – like now, lounging on inflatable mattresses in our pool with a drink in hand and the ocean as our scenic backdrop.

“Ooh, hon, you’re starting to burn.”

“No. It’s called a tan. I think you forget that I have a superior skin tone, which doesn’t require the application of suntan lotion every twenty minutes, unlike some people I know.”

“Oh, okay,” Casey said, feigning indifference despite the fact that my insolence drove her insane. “Suit yourself, but don’t come crying to me tonight when you’re the shade of a solo cup.”

“When have I ever come crying to you?” I asked, all bravado, no bite.

“True. You’re more of a whiner.”

“I prefer brooding.”

“Brooding suggests a level of cool that you just seem to lack,” Casey teased.

“Excuse me. I’m pretty sure if you looked up the meaning of the word brooding in the dictionary, they’d skip the definition altogether and just place a picture of me there.”

“Yeah, I guess,” she said, pulling her sunglasses off to look at me. “What word would be next to my picture?”

“Hmm… that’s a tough one. Let me think,” I said, pretending to waffle on the answer before blurting out, “Loquacious.”

“That’s a big word, sweetie. Good for you.”

“I know. The only reason I know what it means is because when I was writing my vows, I looked up synonyms for talkative, and just like that, I had a new word.”

She laughed, but it died off more quickly than expected. I glanced over. Her eyes were closed, but she wore a frown on her face. Shit, did I offend her? Using my hands as paddles, I splashed my way over to her and grabbed her mattress to pull us together.

Taking her hand, I said, “Hey, I was just kidding. I love that you’re loquacious.”

“No, it’s not that.” She hesitated. “Can I ask you something?”

Figuring it had something to do with my dream from earlier, I steeled myself for her question.

“Do you think I should quit my job?”

I couldn’t have been more surprised if she’d told me she wanted to quit math… if you could even do such a thing. I attempted to sit up on my inflatable, but miscalculated and tumbled into the water.

“I’m not sure how to interpret that answer,” she said, after I’d resurfaced and shaken out my sodden hair. I pulled her mattress into the shallow end and stood next to her.

“That’s because I didn’t give one. I didn’t know you were considering it.”

“I love my job, and when you were still in LA, it was great, but now that you’re gone all the time, I don’t like missing you. I go home to an empty house, and I wish I were with you. Sometimes I wonder why I’m even doing it, you know. It’s not like we need the money. But then, I also feel this need to get some use out of my degree. I just don’t know what to do.”

“That’s not a question I can answer for you, Casey. I don’t want you to resent me later if I give you the wrong advice.”

“But if you had a choice, would you prefer I be with you?”

“You’re my wife. Of course I’d prefer that, but I don’t require it.”

“Wow, look at you, all politically correct.”

Swinging her mattress toward me, I bent down and kissed her. “I know, I’m dying a little inside right now. I want to tell you to drop everything and come with me, but if I make that decision for you, I have a feeling it’ll come back and bite me in the ass. So my answer is, whatever you want, honey.”

“Blah!” She pretended to vomit. “Terrible answer. You’re lucky you’re hot.”

“I know, right?”

* * *

Wincing, I stepped out of the shower and checked my sunburn in the mirror. Dammit. How was I going to hide this from Casey? After boasting of my superior skin tone, I had some explaining to do. Nursing the ache, I didn’t have a chance to cover up before she walked into the bathroom and smirked as she ran her eyes over my charred skin.

“Wow, such a beautiful tan. You were right, Jake, no lotion needed,” she said, grinning, then slapped my naked butt. “And hurry up. Gabriel will be here in a few minutes, and we don’t want him to mistake you for a lobster.”

The knock came on schedule. Gabriel was nothing if not punctual. My stomach growled at just the sound of his knuckle hitting wood. Gabriel was our personal chef, and today would be the third night he’d come to our room to whip us up a tasty meal.

“How are my favorite newlyweds?” he asked jovially, using that same line every night before serving us the dinners I’d prearranged with the resort. There would be no culinary surprises for me. The problem with personal chefs, I’d found, was they always wanted to get creative with their food selections, and I was anything but an adventurous eater. Give me the basics. I was a meat and potatoes kind of guy. The last thing I wanted was experimentation in my mouth.

Gabriel, ever the professional, abided by my wishes for dinner, but appetizers and between-course samplers were fair game in his book, and before I knew it, bite-sized nasties began showing up on my plate. I mean, was it so hard for him to grasp that not everyone enjoyed octopus tentacles sliding down their throats? Normally such behavior would rub me the wrong way, but not with Gabriel. He was too damn nice, like a friendly grandpa who spent his days doting over his grandchildren just because he could. When it came right down to it, I didn’t have the heart to offend him by not eating what he set on my plate. That’s not to say I actually ate the stuff, I just pretended to. While Casey gamely sampled his offerings, I was busy stuffing mine into napkins, as so many dogless children the world over had done before me.

Regrettably, my silence on the issue only encouraged Gabriel’s creativity, as he believed I was actually enjoying his creations. Each day he brought forth bolder, more Fear Factor-worthy selections for me to try. We’d only been here three days and the dinner thing was already starting to stress me out. In desperation, I’d taken to stashing paper towels in my pants pockets. Since I never knew what was coming my way, I went into every meal prepared for the worst. As for Casey, she found my efforts insanely entertaining, as if I wasn’t doing it for my very survival but for her unbridled amusement.

So it was with great apprehension on my part when Gabriel presented Casey and me with a covered platter after dinner. I pictured the severed head of some exotic beast drizzled in apricot sauce, which was sure to be a delicacy somewhere in the world. I glanced down at my measly stash of paper towels. No way would they be enough to cover whatever monstrosity lay beneath.

“So first,” Gabriel began, moisture pooling in his eyes as he fanned his face. “Oh, gosh, I told myself I wouldn’t get emotional. You just mean so much to me.”

I fidgeted with my paper towels. Oh, fuck, this was going to be bad.

“You two made this old man believe in love again.” Full-on tears were now squirting from his eye sockets.

“Ahh, Gabe,” Casey said, exiting her chair and flinging her arms over his burly shoulders. I wanted to remind them both that we’d only collectively known each other for three days, certainly not enough time to warrant sobbing. Nor was it enough time for Casey to have given him a nickname.

“And…and I…” More weeping. “I made a cake…”

Oh, thank god! Just a cake. No maggot cheese in a bread bowl or embryo eggs dipped in blood pudding.

“It’s okay,” Casey said, rubbing Gabriel’s back. “Nice easy breaths.”

Although I wasn’t a fan of sweets, I didn’t fear them either. So while Gabriel bawled, I shoved the paper napkins in my pocket and leaned back in my seat, feeling as though I’d just dodged a rather slimy bullet.

“It was my mother’s favorite cake and became my signature dessert. Everybody just adores it, but my mother, you know, she… she passed away a while back.”

Gabriel broke down again, forcing Casey to continue practicing her nurturing skills. Anticipating this might take a while, I pulled out my phone to check my messages when I sensed resentment focused at me. I glanced up to find Casey, her lips perched in a thin, terse line, motioning me over to their circle of love. My eyes widened. What the hell? Was I also expected to comfort him? Look, I felt for the man, I really did. Losing a parent, at any age, had to be devastating, but – I don’t think I can stress this enough – I’d known the man for three days! I barely hugged my own father, and I was fully vested in him.

Like an ornery child, I shook my head. Casey’s eyes narrowed as she scowled in my direction. Not a good look on her, I might add. Meanwhile, Gabriel seemed totally oblivious to our non-verbal squabble as he continued with his heartbreaking tale. Apparently, this was no ordinary baked confection. Gabriel’s cake was a masterpiece of sorts, served to celebrities and politicians alike, and he rattled off a long list of famous names to prove it. Somehow I just knew that mine would be added to the roll call the next time he told this tale.

Anyway, the story went something like this – or at least the condensed version did: the cake had been a special family recipe from his mother who, sadly, passed away two years ago. He hadn’t been able to bake it since her death, but seeing Casey and me so in love had inspired him to plug in the old mixing bowl again. Casey held his trembling body as a new wave of emotion played out. I hated to be cynical, but when I counted back how many hours, in total, we’d spent with the guy, I came up with eight.

And when the big reveal finally arrived, Gabriel proudly opened the lid to his baked marvel, a German chocolate cake, and although I was no baking expert, the brown creation topped with nuts and coconut was underwhelming even by my standards. It looked more like a hedgehog dipped in dirt than an edible dessert. When I looked to Casey to judge her reaction, she appeared as let down as I felt.

“Oh, Gabriel, this looks fantastic,” she said, lying through her teeth. “We are so full right now, but I for one can’t wait to give it a try a little later tonight.”

“Nonsense! Surely you have room for one more bite to make an old man happy.” He was already cutting into the cake and extracting a slice. Resigned, I pulled the paper towels out of my pocket. I was going to need them after all.

* * *

“Thanks so much,” Casey said at the door with Gabriel, as she tried to get him out of our suite. “It was just heavenly.”

“Oh, honey, you are an angel. My mama is smiling down on you tonight. I know it might be tough, but don’t fill up on too much cake because I’ll be back in the morning to prepare you both a wonderful brunch.”

“Yay!” Casey said, clapping her hands. From my seated position I mouthed ‘Yay’ and silently clapped, mocking her fake joy. Once the door shut, she flattened her back against it and covered her mouth with her hands. Our eyes met from across the room and smiles broke across our faces.

“Oh, my god! That was” – Casey said, as she walked back to me – “painful.”

“I blame you and your whole Dr. Phil act.”

“What was I supposed to do? He was close to a breakdown, and it’s not like I could count on you and your ice-cold heart.”

“This is our honeymoon, Casey. I feel like we’re letting an emotionally disturbed chef get between us… and he carries knives. I’m just saying.”

“Stop being dramatic. So, what did you think of the cake?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s in my pocket.”

“What? I saw you put it in your mouth,” Casey said, laughing.

“No. You thought you saw me put it in my mouth. You know I don’t trust any cake that doesn’t come out of a Betty Crocker box.”

“Jake, we really need to cultivate you. That will be my pet project in our coming life.”

“Good luck with that. Anyway, you’d better get started. Gabriel is expecting a half-eaten cake by first thing tomorrow morning.”

“Me? I hate German chocolate cake,” Casey said, wrinkling her nose.

No way had I heard her correctly. “You don’t hate any kind of cake. You’ve made that very clear over the years.”

“I make an exception for this one. You know I despise coconut unless I’m spreading its lotion over my skin.”

“Why didn’t you tell Gabriel that, then?”

“For the same reason you’ve been shoving food into napkins for days,” she answered, her voice raised in amusement.

“Well, what are we going to do?” I asked. “You saw him – if we don’t eat this cake, he’ll need a forty-eight hour hold in the nearest psychiatric facility.”

“We’ll tell him we were just too full.”

“Great idea. And then a new one will show up tomorrow night, and the night after that. At some point, you’re going to have to eat the cake.”

“When did this become me and not we?”

“When you became emotionally involved. You called him Gabe, Casey. Now he thinks he’s part of the family.”

“Well, no way am I eating it, so what do you suggest we do – wrap it in paper towels and stuff it down your pants?”

“Sadly, there’s just not enough room in there,” I answered, pleasing myself with the big dick reference yet slightly offended when it garnered no response.

“All right, so we throw it away.”

“I tried that on night one, but Gabriel took out the trash and I swear he took a quick look at the contents and saw the snail I tossed in there. No, unless we take it to a dumpster ourselves, he’ll find it.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right. Okay, I have an idea. Why don’t we flush a couple of slices down the toilet? There will be no trace of it, and he’ll still think we ate some of it. Problem solved.”

I thought about her suggestion for a moment then nodded. That wasn’t a half-bad solution. Reaching over, I tousled her hair. “Look at you using that fancy degree of yours.”

“I knew it would come in handy one day.”

Casey and I cut realistic pieces from the body of the cake and fed a small, sample-sized chunk into the toilet to test her theory and, just as predicted, the chocolaty mass broke apart in a vile display before swirling and whirling and disappearing completely from sight.

“Yes!” I exclaimed as we high-fived our good decision-making abilities. We were totally going to rock the communication part of a solid marriage. “Next.”

She dumped a similar-sized piece into the water and flushed. Once again it spun aggressively in the bowl before vanishing. This was the smartest idea we’d ever come up with as a cohesive unit. We cheered our good fortune.

But with success came a feeling of invincibility, and simply put, we got cocky. The following slice, bulkier in size, seemed to go down without problem at first, but a hollow burping sound emanating from the innards of the toilet soon put a damper on the fun, and before we knew it, the toilet was hemorrhaging German chocolate cake. Casey and I watched in horror as our good idea became anything but.

The thing about flushing food down the toilet, I have since learned, is that it doesn’t look the same going down as it does coming up. Going down it still looked strangely like a hedgehog; but coming back from the bowels of hell, Gabriel’s dead mother’s cake was nothing more than a pleasant smelling pile of excrement… and it was rising.

“It’s gonna blow!” I shouted, jumping back as I looked for the nearest exit.

“Can you plunge it?” Casey screamed, in a swirl of panic.

“With what?” I yelled back. “My hands?”

So much for our communication skills. As it became evident that we were going to have more on our hands than just a depressed chef, Casey and I clung to each other as we helplessly watched the poo-nami of German chocolate cake crest in the rapidly shrinking toilet bowl. Just as the first bits and pieces began to drain over the sides, the water miraculously stopped flowing. Holding my breath throughout the entire ordeal, I allowed myself to breathe only when I felt our situation had stabilized.

“What do we do?” Casey whispered, as if she instinctively knew we weren’t in the clear just yet. The rising waters might not have breached the levee, but that didn’t mean we weren’t still in imminent threat of flooding.

“Would sneaking out of the hotel in the middle of the night be too extreme?”

“For the average human, no. But with your name on the guest registry, we are screwed. You’re just going to have to call for maintenance to come and plunge it.”

“Why me?”

“No way am I going to stand there and have them thinking that mess came out of my butthole. You’re a guy. They’d expect shit like that from you. So to speak.”

“I feel like this is a good time to remind you that flushing the cake down the toilet was your college-educated idea.”

“Yes. And clearly it was a poor one, but now you’re going to have to cover up my crime and dispose of the body. That’s what good husbands do.”

* * *

Before tonight, the luxury suite we’d booked for our honeymoon had been all it was promised to be. Casey and I had been so pleased with the accommodations we hadn’t found a reason to leave the room… until this very moment. Now, I’d rather be anywhere in the world but here.

“This way,” I said, opening the door wider and letting the maintenance guy in. I followed behind in a solemn procession, knowing that what I had to show him would be uncomfortable for the both of us. Scanning the room, I searched for Casey, already knowing what I’d find – nothing. She was gone… abandoning me in my time of need. We’d only been married three days, and she’d already shown her true colors.

Standing in the doorway as the man entered the bathroom, I braced myself for the reaction. There was no explanation that would make sense so, when he turned toward me with question in his eyes, I just kept my mouth shut. Embarrassment colored my cheeks as I shrugged my shoulders and averted my eyes. Really, no clarification was needed, and he knew it. As horrible as it might be, this was his job, and I comforted myself with the possibility that perhaps this experience might inspire him to go back to school and get an education.

Seeing no reason to prolong the inevitable, I stepped back, leaving him alone to clean up the mess we’d made. My ears were assaulted by deep gurgling sounds that resonated through the walls. Again, embarrassment seeped through. Whatever was happening in there, I didn’t want to know. From the corner of my eye, I saw movement behind the drapes. Casey! The coward. Oh, no, she wasn’t getting out of this one.

Like a cheetah, I sprang from the bed and lunged for her. She screamed, making a run for it, but I was too quick and grabbed her. Casey swung her legs up in an impressive attempt to escape me. Her screams were loud enough to bring the maintenance man rushing from the bathroom, plunger in hand. Sweat and confusion dripping down his horrified face.

“It’s okay. Sorry. Sorry.” Casey held her hands up to calm the man before breaking into a chorus of giggles so impressive that it made her McDonald’s fit seem tame. “We’re just joking around,” she said hiccupping through the hysterics. “Sorry.”

Not appearing the least bit amused, the disgruntled hotel worker turned away and bravely returned to the task at hand, mumbling something in Spanish under his breath. Oh, yeah, his silence was going to cost me.

* * *

There were two things wrong with our sunset snorkeling adventure. One, it was at sunset; and two, it involved snorkeling. The name itself should have tipped Casey off that she wasn’t going to like this particular adventure, yet not once during the planning process had she voiced any objections. It wasn’t until we were on the boat headed for Chileno Bay that my bride shared with me her traumatic snorkeling experience as a child. Apparently an unruly clownfish had tried to French kiss her off the coast of Mexico when she was ten, causing Casey to gasp in shock and suck a gallon of water down her tube, nearly drowning her in the process.

Or so she says. If you asked me, there seemed to be a lot of embellishing going on in her version of events. Casey had never been known for her factual storytelling. For example, her clownfish was named Pennywise and had long razor-like teeth as well as a propensity for head-butting unsuspected snorkelers. One thing was for certain: I’d be fact checking her story with Linda as soon as we came home. But for now, I had bigger issues at hand – namely that I was in the ocean at sunset with my newly minted wife strapped to my back like a tortoise shell. With her arms wrapped tightly around my neck and legs around my waist, I was struggling to stay afloat in this lop-sided embrace.

How we’d gotten into this predicament was easy to pinpoint. Moments earlier, our well-meaning tour guide had tossed some food in the ocean directly in front of us, causing an aquatic flash mob to form around us. School was in session, and its tens of thousands of pupils were swirling around us at a dizzying speed. Casey jolted her head out of the water, and I could hear her screaming before I’d had a chance to resurface myself. Even with the goggles covering the vast majority of her face, I could see the terror playing out in her eyes.

“They’re sucking me into their vortex,” Casey shouted before lapping up a healthy mouthful of sloshing waves. As she gagged and flailed, her grip on my neck tightened and she proceeded to choke the life out of me.

“They’re just fish,” I wheezed. “They can’t hurt you.”

“Tell that to the victims in Jaws.”

“Well, that wasn’t real, so…”

“And what about the fatalities in Sharknado?”

“Okay, really not real.”

“Look, I just hate fish, okay?” she said, with the whiniest of pouts. “They think they run the ocean.”

“Yeah.” I agreed. “Who do they think they are?”

“Exactly. I’m not even going to eat them anymore. That’s how much I hate them.”

“Shellfish too?” I asked, knowing full well that anything with shrimp in it was her very favorite meal ever.

“Let’s not go crazy here,” Casey replied, clearly amused by the conversation while remaining sufficiently terrified. “Look, I realize we’ve only been out here three minutes, but I want to go back to the boat.” A gurgle sounded from her throat after all the water she’d consumed. “I’m totally cool with waiting for you to swim but, babe, I’m done snorkeling for this lifetime.”

Seemingly determined to put the nail in the coffin of our snorkeling trip, the guide ignorantly dipped his hand back into a bucket and tossed yet another handful of food into the whirlpool. The grip around my neck tightened into a noose as Casey, not waiting around for me to rescue her, tipped us both backward and swam out of harms way.

“Casey,” I gasped, “You’re sort of strangling me right now.”

I felt her grip suddenly detach as she scrambled onto the boat, not even looking back. It was then that I realized she hadn’t been trying to save me. Casey had been using me as a human shield against the fishy hooligans who ruled the sea. The thought occurred to me that I was lucky this wasn’t a real life Jaws situation because I’d most definitely be dead by now.

* * *

The following day, we tried our luck at another water sport, this one above the water line. Renting jet skis, Casey and I quickly acclimated ourselves to the machines and were thrashing through the waves at breakneck speeds having a frolicking good time until something behind me caught my attention.

“I think we’re being followed,” I shouted to Casey. She immediately looked back to see a man trailing us. He was a big guy, with a shiny bald top and a GoPro camera strapped to his forehead. It hadn’t occurred to me that I might get recognized out on the water, so my bodyguard had stayed on shore. Maybe the best approach would be to let this guy take his picture so he would then leave me be; however, such an outcome was never guaranteed. Sometimes the photo chasers graciously disappeared after getting their shot, but other times, they morphed into flesh-eating bacteria. There was never any way to gauge the direction of any particular encounter until the gangrene set in.

I turned to Casey to get her opinion, only to find her standing up on her jetski looking like a goddess in her yellow bikini top and jeans shorts combo.

“Let’s dust him,” she said, flashing me her most mischievous smile. Oh, hot damn! That’s what I liked to hear. I had my very own personal Charlie’s Angel. She took off like a bolt of lightning and I whooped my approval of her can-do attitude. Pushing down on the throttle, I took off after her. In a life filled with uncertainty, Casey was the one path I always followed.

We rode through the choppy waters, leaving the shutterbug in our wake. My sexy wife suddenly turned into the fiercest of competitors as the two of us hit the choppy waters at top speeds, sending our jetskis airborne on multiple occasions. No way was that follicly-challenged hanger-on with the geek headgear going to keep up with my girl.

It wasn’t until we’d circled back around that we saw the unmanned jetski bobbing on the surface, and its passenger flailing in the water. Casey and I exchanged glances. I could already tell what was going through her mind before she even opened her mouth.

“He’s wearing a life vest.” I shrugged, as if that might get me out of having to rescue my water-stalker at sea.

“We can’t just leave him out here. There’s nobody around.”

“Sure we can. We’ll go get help.”

“And what if we can’t remember where we left him and he drowns? We’ll never forgive ourselves.”

“Actually, I might not be all that heartbroken,” I said. Casey raised a brow at me as she fixed an angry scowl on her face. Strangely enough, she appeared more amused than anything else, probably because she knew I wasn’t going to let the dude drown.

“Oh, fine!” I huffed. “We’ll rescue him. But I get to be Pamela Anderson.”

We sped toward the thrashing photographer as I assessed the situation. His jetski had drifted away from him and he was now floating on his back.

Pulling up next to him, I asked, “Can you swim to your jet ski?”

“Can’t swim.” The man was panting something fierce. “Too fat.”

I fought the urge to laugh at his straightforward comment. He was a big guy, no doubt, but all of his weight was carried smack dab in the middle of the most magnificent beer belly I’d ever laid eyes on. He could have been carrying septuplets in there. I had to give the guy some credit – that kind of extended gut required a lifelong commitment.

“Okay, hang on. I’ll go get your jetski.”

Trying to maneuver one machine while riding another wasn’t easy, and by the time I returned, the guy had propped himself up onto the footboard of Casey’s jetski and the two were having a full-on, lighthearted conversation complete with unbridled laughter. Did she have to make friends with everyone?

“…and with all those girls,” she said, shaking her head at her new buddy. “That’s impressive.”

You know what else was impressive? Me… dragging a 600-pound jetski through the water with one hand!

Casey finally acknowledged my presence, her eyes sparkling with enthusiastic wonder. “Jake, Tony’s on his twenty-fifth anniversary. He and his wife have four daughters. He was hoping to get a picture with you to show his girls. Isn’t that sweet?”

I wiped the sweat off my forehead with the back of my hand, struggling to find the joy in Tony’s awesome home life. What the hell did I care how many years he’d been married or how many children he’d sired? The fact remained he was cock-blocking me on my honeymoon.

“Yeah, awesome. Can you pull yourself up onto the seat?”

“Man, I can barely get off the toilet.”

Casey laughed like he was some top-rated stand-up comic before looking back at me to confirm my reaction was similar to hers. It wasn’t. Not even close. This guy was wasting my time. I could be back at the hotel getting it on with my new wife; but no, I had to save his sorry ass first.

“You can at least try to lift yourself up, right?”

“I guess I could try. If it’ll make you happy.”

Tony acted like he was doing me a huge favor, when in reality, he was the one in imminent danger of sinking to the ocean floor like the anchor of a fishing vessel. Although I had to admit, that belly of his was floating nicely. Tony heaved and grunted, his plumber’s crack on full display. And, like passing by a car accident with bodies littering the road, I couldn’t look away. That hairy line of fur, which presumably had started somewhere up his back, disappeared between the whitest butt cheeks I’d ever seen.

It wasn’t until he’d extracted about two inches of his body out of the water, that my eyes diverted back to the task at hand. It had been a gallant effort, but after twenty seconds of trying, Tony sank back down into the water like a seal sliding off a buoy. “Yeah, sorry, Jake. It’s not happening. I need a damn forklift.”

Was he using my name like we were old buds? Minutes earlier he’d been chasing after me like some creeper. Tony swiped his hand over his polished head. Still sporting tufts of hair on the sides, he was the type of bald that wasn’t fully committed to the cause.

“You’re going to be fine, Tony,” Casey said soothingly, before turning to me and lowering her voice. “He’s going to drown, isn’t he?”

“No, he’s not going to drown. If I have to, I’ll drag him through the water.”

“Why don’t you just wait with him and get the pictures out of the way, and I’ll go get help?”

“Pictures?” My voice raised a pitch. I was saving his life. Wasn’t that enough?

“For his daughters. Geez, Jake. It’s his anniversary. Just wait here. I’ll be back soon.”

“No way. What if you fall in? There are fish in the water, remember?”

“Fine. Then I’ll wait and you get help.”

“I’m not leaving you with some stranger.”

“He’s not a stranger,” she protested. “It’s Tony.”

“No. He’s definitely a stranger. Jesus, Casey. How have you survived this long?”

She rolled her eyes at me as if I were the unreasonable one.

“Anyway, we stick together or let him drown. Your choice.”

“Um…hello… hi,” Tony waved from his sunken position. “I can actually hear you.”

“Relax,” I said. “She picks you.”

After a comedy of errors, which included me jumping into the ocean and attempting to forcibly shove his ass up and out of the water, I devised a new plan. With Casey holding onto my jetski, I transferred over to Tony’s. Standing up for better leverage and height, I leaned down and offered him my hand. “On the count of three, lift yourself up.”

By the time I said three, I’d yanked him up, but instead of getting his leg over the seat, the man face-planted directly into my dick and balls, forcing a wail from my mouth as loud as a mating whale.

His muffled voice was blocked by my package as he asked, “Would this be a bad time to ask for your autograph?”

* * *

Tony’s wife Teresa was waiting for us on the dock. She was all hair and makeup and loud exaggerated talk. When we brought her water-logged husband back to dry land, you’d think, given they were celebrating their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary, that her concern for his safety would be paramount. Think again. After Casey explained to her what had happened, not only was Teresa not the least bit concerned over his predicament but she smacked Tony upside the head and chastised him for eating the chimichanga platter the night before. As if an extra pound here or there would have made such a huge difference when it came to hauling his ass out of the water.

Not to be outdone by her nagging, Tony went to town in an attempt to embarrass her by making an off-colored joke about the incredible amount of biking, hiking, and fornication the two had been doing since arriving in Cabo. Teresa pursed her lips and circled her finger by her ear in the universal signal for ‘He’s cuckoo.’

Casey and I were spellbound; our eyes swiveled back and forth between the bickering lovebirds as if we were watching a heavyweight prizefight. It took less than a minute for us to become fully vested in the relationship of these two outspoken strangers. So amused were we by them that I was even reluctantly persuaded to accept their offer of a thank you drink. Well, one drink turned to plenty, but it was only after Teresa offered up a nightcap back in their hotel room that I motioned for my bodyguard to take us away before we got drunk enough that a night of swinger sex with Tony and Teresa began looking like a good thing.

While I was okay with never seeing our drinking buddies again, Casey was drunkenly exchanging phone numbers with Teresa. Had I not been so wasted myself, I would have warned her against being so damn friendly all the time. Okay, I’ll admit, they were a fun couple, and yes, Tony turned out to be a cool dude when he wasn’t bobbing for my dick, but couldn’t she meet someone and just for once not become lifelong friends with them? I’d need to talk to her about that… just as soon as I found a toilet to throw up in.

It wasn’t until I woke up in the morning with a massive hangover and saw the anxious text from my mother that I understood the extent of Tony’s gratitude. He’d gone straight to social media to tell his amazing rescue at sea story. In his version of events, Casey and I came off as modern day saints… heroes who’d risked life and limb to save a stranger from a murky death. I was finding his storytelling quite entertaining until I clicked on the accompanying video Tony had apparently taken of us without our knowledge or consent. It was all over the Internet.

“I still can’t believe he was taking video the whole time we were out there with him,” I complained, pointing at my phone’s screen. “I blame you for this. I wanted to let him drown, but nooo… you just had to go pluck him out of the water.”

“Tony’s only trying to make you a star.” Casey lifted her head off the table to groan.

“I’m already a star,” I answered, wiping a dollop of drool from my lip. “I don’t need Tony’s help.”

“Okay, whiny boy. You’ve had enough googling for one day.” Casey plucked the phone from my hand. “Besides, there’s worse press you could be getting. Just be happy that the video is of you saving Tony and not of you jetskiing away. You can thank me now.”

Unable to keep her head up, Casey laid it in her outstretched arm. I dropped my head next to hers. We were a pathetic pair.

“Thank you,” I whispered.

“You’re welcome.” She reached up and rubbed my temples.

Casey’s phone went off with a rapid succession of buzzes. “Who keeps texting me?”

“Um, I’m thinking Teresa.”

“How did she get my number?”

“I’ll give you one guess,” I said, pointing my finger at her in accusation.

“Well, you should have stopped me,” she said, burping up a party favor. Her face turned green, and she sat for a brief moment, no doubt trying to establish which direction the contents were going. Once the determination was made, she sprinted off to the bathroom.

* * *

The last couple days of our honeymoon were spent sequestered in our suite. We’d had enough adventure for the week and were content just to float in the water and enjoy the time we had left alone together. On our last day in paradise, I swam while Casey lay by the pool’s edge and soaked up the rays. Diving down under the water line, I kicked off the side of the wall and torpedoed myself underwater, surfacing just above Casey.

“Well, hey there, hunk,” she said, recovering nicely from my sudden, watery intrusion into her peaceful nap.

“Hey there, girl in the yellow bikini. You wanna get naked with me?”

“I might be able to be persuaded… with the right foreplay.”

“How about an upside down soggy kiss? Will that do it?”

“I don’t know. Why don’t you give it your best shot?”

I leaned in, dangling over her, my hair fanning out and tickling her face as I held my lips just above hers, not yet touching. Her eyes met mine and I could see the desire already flowing through them. I knew her body well, and making her crazy with lust was currently my only mission. Lightly trailing my tongue over her bottom lip, Casey parted her sexy pout to allow me in, but I didn’t plan on taking the easy way. Keeping her wanting… that was me giving her my best shot, and judging by her tiny little moans of pleasure, I was succeeding.

Her body trembled as I reached down to her bikini line and traced my wet fingers up her tan stomach, between her springy breasts, over her angled collarbone, and up to her sleek neck. Casey wriggled in place as my hand made its way back down and disappeared under her bikini bottom. Arching her back, Casey groaned as she reached up and grabbed both sides of my face and pulled me down until our lips met and her tongue invaded my mouth.

We were in the strangely erotic upside down kiss long enough for her to break away and say, “Stop. Not yet.”

I pulled my hand out from between her legs and slid her body along the sunbathing mat she was lying on. Her skin was like silk as the warm water mixed with her lotion, creating the most sensual feel for my wandering hands. Resting her head on my shoulder, Casey floated on her back as I slid my fingers over her slippery flesh. I left no part of her untouched, and just as I’d been challenged to do, I had my wife naked and wanting.

“Jake, please.” There was no need for her to finish her sentence, as I was already taking care of her need. Turning her around, I held her up against the side of the pool. Casey wrapped her legs around me as I entered her. Our eyes locked and we stared at each other in lust. It wasn’t possible to want her more. She was it for me, my final stop on a long and harrowing journey. We held each other tightly, consummating our marriage for the last time in our honeymoon paradise.