Since We Last Met, page 8
Maybe he hadn’t left it at that. No way was this a coincidence. As if Carmen didn’t have enough people meddling with her life, with almost her entire extended family living within metres of her apartment.
‘Carmen?’
And again she’d drifted off into the recesses of her brain, saliva pooling in her gaping mouth, while he looked down at her, all the more attractive for the fact that he was real and not just the smoothed-out avatar of a memory. She wanted to close the gap between them and inhale him—for starters.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘This is all a little …’
‘Believe me, I know,’ he said, nodding in solidarity.
Believe me, you don’t.
‘I need to get back inside,’ she said, pointing like he didn’t know where it was. She didn’t need to, of course. The family had been talking in circles for hours. Really, she should get to bed—thoroughly alone—because what could the family hash out at this time of the morning that they hadn’t spent most of the day discussing? ‘Did you say you need to use the internet?’ she said, rewinding to the moment before her world had upended.
He grimaced, glancing at the pavilion in what could potentially be well-founded fear of her family. ‘It can wait.’
‘Don’t worry about my cousins,’ she said, remembering with mortification how they’d stared down the poor guy like he’d chosen to abandon Carmen and his child. ‘They can be overprotective.’ It was lucky Rosa and Mika were safely asleep in their beds in the staff quarters, the door open between the interconnected apartments. Carmen’s mother didn’t have a poker face, and Mika had developed an embarrassing habit of assessing any solo male as a father prospect. Which was even more awkward than the phase when she’d called all of Carmen’s male cousins ‘Daddy’.
‘I respect that.’
Bruno didn’t need to know the reasons for that protectiveness—not yet. He was here for at least a few more days. She officially decided to wait a little longer before dropping the bombshell. She was comfortable with that. Making a decision always made you feel calmer, even if it wasn’t the neatest of choices. It would be prudent for her to get to know the father of her child before initiating him into the family, to find out whether the news would be welcome or not, because she’d got the impression in Chicago that he wasn’t a stayer. And yes, those kinds of precautions would have been wise before she’d got pregnant but it wasn’t a perfect world—and hallelujah for that, because if it was, she wouldn’t have the precious little girl who was her everything. Aside from a weak moment or two when she’d first discovered the pregnancy, she’d never regretted that night, and she never would. She just regretted refusing his contact details.
And now she had the chance to rewrite that part of her history, albeit several years later. Her daughter could have a father.
But not just yet. Like all things, it had to be done right.
‘I’d love to see you again before I leave,’ he said, with a growly voice, and a suggestive smile, and an intense look in his eyes that blended to create exactly the same reaction inside her that had put her on the path, all those years ago, to this knotty moment.
She chewed on her lower lip, and his gaze dropped to that spot, and he seemed to be interpreting it as flirty coyness rather than a very real internal battle, but somehow that gave her the nerve to step a little closer. She tilted her head so her lips were just short of his, and the air seemed to get thinner. He had that salty scent you got after swimming, mixed with a light spray of a fresh cologne or deodorant. She could only vaguely remember what it had been like to kiss him, but she knew it’d been good.
‘I’d like that,’ Wild Carmen murmured, her voice gaining confidence. Bruno rested a warm palm on one of her hips but she twisted away, which was somewhere between Wild Carmen pretending to play hard to get and Real Carmen freaking out at what his touch lit in her and thinking about how much her body had changed since the last time he’d put his hand there.
‘Tomorrow?’ he said, again with that electric grin.
Real Carmen had the urge to whip out her calendar app and make concrete plans for the what and where and when and how they would ‘catch up’—well, maybe not the how because even Real Carmen wasn’t that pre-programmed—but Wild Carmen ordered her to chill.
It makes it sexier if there’s an element of the unknown. Yes, we are so going there with him, but not knowing the details is half the fun.
No, we are not going there with him. We are going to get to know him in a platonic way and then gently and maturely break the news to him about his daughter.
How in Hades did I get landed with you as an alter ego?
I think that’s why they call it an alter ego.
Would you just shut up and kiss him?
‘I know where to find you,’ Carmen said, turning back to the pavilion before Wild Carmen made her kiss him. She looked over her shoulder and gave him a head-to-toe-and-back-up body scan that was fifty per cent Real Carmen recommitting the fantasy to memory and fifty per cent Wild Carmen flirting, took a gasping inhale that neither Carmen had intended, and headed to the steps without looking back.
By the time she walked into the pavilion, Real Carmen was a hundred per cent back.
Every head turned in her direction, the conversation fading out.
What the hell was she doing? Keeping secrets ate her up from the inside, especially guilty ones. And now she’d have to keep two secrets from Mike—Bruno. One, that she was the antithesis of Wild Carmen, and two (the doozy), that Real Carmen had a child who was half his and just a few hundred metres away, conked out in her brand new big-girl bed.
And, far riskier, until she’d had a chance to break the news, she’d have to rely on her family to keep their mouths shut.
9
Cody
The invasion began at dawn—by ferry, rent-a-yacht, private vessel, charter boat, helicopter, seaplane, and a raft made from rubber ducks, though that last one had been intercepted by Marine Rescue two hundred metres off the mainland. By mid-afternoon Cody had flown nearly all his hours for the day and brought in a reserve pilot from the mainland while he hunkered down in the office, helping Carmen call around her database of casual hospo staff. He’d made a few attempts to bring up the arrival of her baby daddy but she’d shut him down, and he wasn’t game to push it. She was stressed enough dealing with the love tourists. Even Lena was showing the strain, having counted the clean sheets in the supply room and realised they didn’t have enough for the night’s bookings—the laundry barge wouldn’t arrive from the mainland until the next morning.
The guests came singly, in pairs (but not couples) and in groups; men and women and a few who might identify as other; in their twenties, thirties, forties, fifties and beyond (way beyond, in a couple of cases) and one or two who’d be getting their ID checked at the bar; from across the country, New Zealand, Asia, the Americas—and the booking software promised landings from farther afield. Some had brought children, who were being inducted to the kids’ club by a hilariously self-important Mika. By midnight, every villa and apartment would be full, every overnight mooring taken, and Juno Beach’s cabins, campground and glampground at capacity.
Aunt Tam was spending her day trying to strike a balance between securing positive publicity and pimping out her children. Cody’s mother, Jaz, as health, wellness and spa manager, was ordering emergency supplies of wax and calling in freelance beauty therapists. She had waxes booked solid for the next two days and was running between ripping off pubes in the spa treatment rooms and helping Aunt Rosa with her concierge and bookings duties. Cody could only hope she was washing her hands in between.
‘Holy shit, Cody,’ Lena said, flinging open the office door so violently that it rebounded off the wall and she had to catch it before it slammed into her face. The noise from reception flooded the little room. A trio of guests peered through the doorway like they were celebrity spotting.
‘Shut the door, sis,’ he hissed. Even he wasn’t used to this much attention. ‘Why are there guests in the staff hallway?’
‘No room elsewhere! I’ve never seen reception this full. Luka can’t keep up with the welcome cocktails, or the questions about his marital status, though he is managing to keep up a running commentary.’ Lena slammed the door with as much force as she’d opened it, prompting Carmen to put her palm on her chest and gasp.
‘What happened to keeping your head down, Cody?’ Lena said, hinging open the laptop she was carrying.
‘Uh, what do you think I’m doing right now?’
‘Then what do you call this?’ She laid the computer on the desk Cody was sitting at and pressed play on a video. It froze, buffering. She swore. ‘We need to do something about this internet access. It’s like 1999 out here, and we’ve got a trillion guests hooking into the wifi, trying to post selfies.’ She hammered the space bar multiple times before Cody caught her wrist.
‘You know that doesn’t help, right?’
The video got off to a shuddering start and then paused to buffer on a frame of Cody in the helicopter, shot from the passenger side, coming in to land on the resort helipad.
‘What’s this?’ he said. Most of his passengers videoed their flight, and half of them posted the videos online. He was wearing his resort polo, as always. His hair was ratty. He touched the actual hair on his real head. Ratty.
‘From yesterday,’ Lena said, again drumming on the space bar. ‘It was working two minutes ago.’
He pushed his chair away from the desk, almost crashing into Carmen, who’d come to stand behind him. ‘Shit,’ he said, realisation dawning. ‘Shit.’
‘What is it?’ Carmen said. ‘What did you say?’
‘Nothing.’
Carmen raised her eyebrows.
‘Seriously, I said nothing to her at all.’ Cody linked his hands behind his head. ‘They filmed it?’
‘Filmed what?’ Carmen said. ‘And who’s they?’
Lena leaned over her. ‘It’s not so much what he said.’
‘Oh no,’ Carmen said. ‘That’s all we need. How bad?’
‘Words cannot express,’ Lena said. ‘I only just had a chance to get back online and it was everywhere. Apparently they’re huge social media influencers, just flown in from Singapore, where they posted selfies with legit European princes.’
‘Filmed what?’ Carmen said again, getting antsy.
‘It was nothing,’ Cody said. ‘Shit.’
‘If it was nothing, why are you swearing?’
The video started playing, but haltingly, freezing every few frames, which made it all the more painful. It was the Spanish woman doing the filming, standing on the helipad, panning around and narrating her arrival at Curlew Bay. Out of shot, a woman’s voice said, ‘Excuse me.’ A Canadian woman’s voice. Any second he and the Canadian would be in shot.
‘You might not want to see this anyway, Carmen,’ Lena said. ‘It’s not the kind of thing a relative wants to witness.’
‘What is it?’ Carmen said, jumping a little on the spot.
‘Plot spoiler: Cody kisses the woman’s friend. And when I say kisses her, I’m talking a Rhett Butler in Gone with the Wind ravishing.’ Lena shuddered. ‘Disgusting.’
‘How do you even know her?’ Carmen said to Cody.
‘I’d never met her before. I hadn’t even talked to her, other than the safety briefing.’
Carmen double-blinked. ‘We cannot possibly have any DNA in common.’
A point Cody had made many times. ‘And I did not kiss her. She kissed me.’
‘I totally believe that,’ Lena said, disbelievingly.
‘Of course you do—because it’s true. I turned around and she was right there, and she grabbed me. You’d see that in the video, right? She basically yanked me down by the ears.’
Lena screwed up her face, thinking. ‘Nope. The camera pans and there you guys are, and you’re looking down at her and suddenly you kiss her. Even if she did start it—and like I say, I totally believe that—you looked pretty keen on finishing it, and not in a walking-away way.’
‘I was being polite!’ he said, and Carmen’s eyebrows hiked even higher. ‘At first.’ He pointed at Carmen’s face. ‘Stop doing that. Your eyeballs will pop out.’
‘You and I have very different definitions of politeness.’ She turned to Lena. ‘So when you say huge social media influencer …?’
‘Followers in the seven figures. She’s promoting a new lip gloss called Kissification. Now sold out across all her stockists.’
Cody threw up his hands. ‘Where do I send my invoice?’
Lena shrugged. ‘Girl knows how to market.’
The door banged open again. Luka charged in, shut it, and leaned on it, as if to keep out the walking dead.
‘It’s nuts out there.’ He looked at the laptop screen, where Cody was paused with his eyes closed and his mouth open, going in for the kiss, and laughed so forcefully his head hit the door. ‘How’s it going, hashtag CaptainAustralia?’ he said, rubbing his crown.
‘Hashtag what now?’ Cody said.
‘Captain Australia,’ Lena said. ‘That’s what they’re calling you out there.’
‘They?’
‘Everyone.’
‘You mean out there in reception, right? Not out there, out there?’ He pointed in the direction of the ocean.
‘Well, yes out there in reception,’ Lena said, ‘but also out there in the entire bloody world—the half of it that’s awake. I’m sure the other half will catch up soon. Kissification woman is getting likes up the wazoo.’
Luka drew his phone from his pocket and unlocked it. Cody had switched his own phone off hours ago. Even he couldn’t handle that much attention. Luka held the screen in front of Cody. Someone had photoshopped Cody’s face onto whichever Chris it was who played Captain America in the movies, but with the Commonwealth star on the shield instead of a five-pointer, and made it into a movie poster: THE LOVE AVENGER.
‘I have a way better body than that guy,’ Cody said.
‘You have a parody Twitter account already,’ Luka said. ‘It’s hilarious. Listen to some of these posts …’
‘I’m good, thanks!’ Cody grabbed Luka’s phone and tossed it into the bin. ‘I don’t even have a real Twitter account.’
‘It’s not all bad news, bro,’ Lena said. ‘The influencer said it was hands-down the hottest kiss of her life.’
‘Though she credited her lip gloss and not you,’ Luka added, shaking with the burden of trying not to laugh. ‘She said it gives her “irresistible” lips.’
‘I feel violated,’ Cody deadpanned, though he did in fact feel weird. ‘But honestly, what’s the big deal?’
Lena snatched the phone out of the bin. ‘This is the big deal,’ she said, jabbing at the screen. ‘It has more than 300,000 hits. You’re even outpacing Nan’s one-night-stand gif in notoriety.’
‘Thank the stars for that,’ Carmen said. ‘Wait—how many hits has Nan’s gif had?’
Luka angled his head towards reception. ‘Poor Aunt Rosa is out there trying to politely fend off all the proposals—marriage and otherwise—when she really needs to be redoing the rosters. I was supposed to be out on the reef today, checking storm damage, but I’m stuck on bar duty—and tomorrow I have to run the snorkelling cruise, which is now a “singles” snorkelling cruise and is going to be seventeen different kinds of hell.’ He stood. ‘Speaking of hell, I need to get back. Oh, and Lena, can you order paper straws? They’re drinking mojitos quicker than I can make them, which isn’t quick, and we keep running out of metal ones, and there’s no one free to wash them. Oh, and Cody, your reserve pilot has been called back to Hamo—apparently they’re picking up our overflow, so break’s over, bro.’
‘They’re getting our overflow?’ Carmen said. ‘That hasn’t happened in a while.’
‘And your chopper bookings are going off. The ferry drivers are complaining about your anticompetitive business practices.’ Luka backed out the door, giving Cody a sharp nod and mock-saluting. ‘Later, Cap.’
‘He’s cheered up,’ Cody said as the door closed.
‘I have to go too,’ Lena said, also snapping to attention and saluting. ‘Speaking of boats, I need to magic up an extra one for this afternoon. All the scheduled ferries are full. And I may need to borrow linen from Hamo. If that fails, we might have to sneak in and steal it again.’
‘And double the melon order, please,’ Carmen added.
‘I already did.’
‘Double it again.’
‘Seriously?’
‘No one would dare joke about Carmen’s melons,’ Cody said.
As Lena left, Carmen groaned and sat back on her chair. ‘I keep thinking this can’t get any crazier, but then it does. And you and I are the poster boy and girl. Well, you’re literally a poster boy.’
‘Don’t worry about me,’ Cody said, standing, ‘I don’t give a shit.’ Every woman within a hundred-kilometre radius already had him pinned as the guy you went to for a night of fun and nothing more, for better or worse. The geographical borders had extended, that was all.
‘I don’t know if you realise what a big deal this is. We’re laughing-stocks.’
‘Speak for yourself.’
‘Well, yeah, while you get to be Captain Australia, I get to be the fallen woman. How’s that for a gender double standard?’
‘Carmen, as usual, the person being most critical of you is you. Don’t be so hard on yourself.’ How many times a day did they all say that to her? ‘Can we make a deal not to take any of this seriously? It’s all fucking crazy and it’ll blow over. In the meantime, we have an income again, so …’
