Behind her, Frankie’s brothers all stared at us. Rico winced as I took my verbal beating courtesy of his sister. Diego tried to suppress laughter, apparently thinking me getting my ass handed to me was funny. Miguel looked completely embarrassed by the whole situation, and Solo and Beto looked like they wanted to rip my head off for pissing their sister off and getting them involved in it.

  “You’re absolutely right, I shouldn’t have—” I put the flowers in her arms and, surrendering, held my hands up. “I’m sorry.”

  “No. You shouldn’t have.” She shoved the flowers back in my arms.

  The push caused me to stumble backwards, and the back of my heel caught on a dock cleat. The next thing I knew, my originally-priced-at-seventy-five-dollars flowers went sailing through the air as my arms flailed. And in one huge splash, I landed in the cool harbor water.

  I sputtered up to the surface for air. Water dripped from my once perfectly coiffed hair onto my nose as Frankie looked down over the dock at me. She shook her head. Whether it was a look of disappointment or anger or sadness or all three on her face, I wasn’t exactly sure. She let out a sigh.

  “It’s not our time, Danny. And I don’t know if it will ever be our time. I’m going back to work. Don’t ever pull something like this again.”

  31

  Cradling my head in my hands as I sat down at the Seacoast Majestic’s swim-up bar a couple hours later, I grunted at the bartender, “Hit me again, Manny.” A plucky steel drum version of Under the Sea played on the bar’s speakers, trying to cheer me up, but I refused to so much as tap my toe. I was far too miserable.

  “Look, kid, I don’t wanna say I told you so, but—”

  I swiveled around to stare at Al. The twinkle lights hanging from the thatched roof of the bar shone around his head in the darkness, making his bald head shine like the roof of a freshly washed car. “Then don’ say it.” My tongue was heavy and thick and didn’t move right in my mouth.

  Al turned his own chair so he wasn’t looking at me anymore. He took a sip of his beer. Putting the bottle down on the bar, he shrugged. “But I did tell you.” He shook his head sadly. “You should’ve listened. I might be an old man, Drunk, but I know what I’m talking about.”

  “Manny, can you kindly tell Al to shut it?”

  Manny let out an almost inaudible groan. “Oh, come on, Drunk. It’s not Mr. Becker’s fault you got shot down.”

  “I know. But it’ll make me feel better.”

  “No, it won’t. It’ll make you feel worse. But here.” Manny slid another shot of tequila across the bar. “This’ll dull the pain a little more.”

  “Thanks.” I lifted the shot glass to my lips and threw back the clear liquid. Pursing my lips as the biting liquid went down, I shook my head. Even in my drunk stupor, I was still in shock. “I don’t understand, guys. What am I supposed to do now?”

  “You move on. That’s what you do now,” said Al.

  I looked at him. “But you don’ unnerstand. She was my endgame. Without her, what’ve I been working towards?”

  Manny sighed and leaned over the bar on one elbow, looking me squarely in the eyes. “Nah, man. You got it all wrong. She wasn’t the endgame. Women aren’t the endgame. You live on a fucking Caribbean island, Drunk. You got a great job. You got good friends.” He stood up straight then and held his arms out and shook them in the air. “This is the endgame.”

  I closed my eyes and sighed. When I opened them, Manny was leaning across the counter again, staring at me.

  “Look, Drunk. I don’t get it. You’re a good-looking guy, and you got game. Women love you. Why you wanna end it all and hook up with one woman?”

  I rolled the end of my shot glass around on the bar. It wasn’t that I’d been convinced that I needed to marry Frankie or anything. I wasn’t that far gone, but I had somehow convinced myself that cleaning up my act meant that I’d won her. Like she was my prize. How could’ve I been so stupid?

  “I don’t know, Manny.”

  He poured me another shot of tequila.

  I downed it and slid the shot glass back over to him. I wanted another.

  That was enough to send Al swiveling back around again. “Oh, for crying out loud, kid. Pull it together. You’re being ridiculous. You got shot down. Do you know how many men get shot down?”

  I shrugged. It didn’t matter. I generally wasn’t one of those men. Of course, I didn’t generally try very hard. I didn’t have to. Manny was right, I was a good-looking guy. Women generally came on to me. And I rarely met a woman that I wanted to try very hard to get. So to actually get shot down by another woman so soon after Pam—it stung. It felt like I was doing something wrong. Like I was the broken one.

  “A lot of men get shot down. I think I might’ve even got shot down once.” Al paused for a moment and frowned. “To be honest, I don’t really remember it happening. But I’m old and that’s the point, you know? It really doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things.”

  “Jeez, Al. It just hurts. Fuck. Can’t you be a little nicer?”

  “I’m your friend, kid. Not your mother. Now the way I see it, I think this is more about your wounded pride than it is about Francesca.”

  “No, it’s not,” I insisted. “You didn’t see her face, Al. She’s pissed at me. She was one of my best friends.”

  “Fine. She was your friend. If she’s a real friend, then she’ll forgive you.”

  I shook my head insistently. “No, she won’t. I treated her like all the guys down at the station have ever treated her. Like because she’s a woman, her job doesn’t matter. What the hell was I thinking? I knew better than that! Why didn’t you stop me, Al?”

  Al’s watery blue-green eyes widened. “Stop you? I tried to stop you. You wouldn’t listen to me!”

  “Well, obviously you didn’t try hard enough.” I took another shot of tequila.

  Al’s hand shot out and he took hold of the shot glass and sent it sliding across the bar. Then he pounded his fist down on the bar. “Quit feeding this guy’s pity party, Manny!” Then he looked at me sternly. “Now look, you need to snap out of this, Drunk. Like I told you before you left on this cockamamie mission, it was too soon.”

  I let my head fall into my hands again. My hat fell off onto the bar, and I massaged my scalp with the pads of my fingers. I didn’t know how to fix the problem. I was annoyed at myself for two reasons. First, I felt like I’d put all my eggs in one basket, and after Pam, I’d sort of promised myself I’d never do that again. And second, I felt like I’d humiliated myself. Not only in front of Frankie, but also in front of her brothers. It’d take forever to live that shit down. All I wanted to do was to get drunk and maybe find another woman to help dull the pain of losing Frankie.

  I looked up and nodded at Al. “Fine. It was too soon. You were right. Is that what you wanna hear?”

  “It’s a start,” said Al, nodding.

  “Good.” I tapped the bar with my fingers. “Now gimme another drink, Manny. I’m gonna drink until someone around here looks hot.”

  “Good Lord,” sighed Al, rolling his eyes. “Of all days to wear my good shirt. Manny, you gotta quit serving this kid. At the rate he’s tossing ’em back, it’ll be me he’s hitting on soon.”

  Manny looked at me cautiously, like he agreed with Al. “Look, Drunk, I hate to cut a man off when he’s wallowing in self-pity, but I don’t think I like the sound of that.”

  I threw my hands up in the air. “Ahh, you two. You’re just the same—always trying to ruin a man’s good time. Fine. I’ll go drink somewhere else, then.” I stood up off the bar and realized my legs weren’t quite as steady as I thought they’d be. My knees and ankles buckled at the same time, and I tipped sideways, crashing into a pole holding a speaker. I held out my hands. “Oh, excuse me, sir,” I said to the pole as I got back on my feet.

  Al palmed his forehead. “Come on, kid. I’m taking you home.”

  “But you’re not hot yet,” I mumbled. “And you’re not my type. I like my dates younger and female.”

  “You’re not exactly my type either, kid. I like my dates sober. Now come on. I’m giving you a ride to your place and you can sleep this off.”

  But my feet and pelvis had other plans. They propelled me forward, like I was the dead guy walking around in the movie Weekend at Bernie’s. I stumbled down off the concrete and into the sand. I wasn’t completely sure if I’d come to the bar with shoes, but now the sand slid through my toes and made me stumble a little. I ran straight into a hammock suspended between two trees, and it threw me backwards onto my ass.

  “Shit,” I breathed. I rolled onto all fours and managed to get back on my feet. Walking around the trees, I headed down for the beach.

  “For crying out loud, kid. Where you going?” I heard Al yell after me.

  “I’m going where the women are hot!” I hollered back.

  My pelvis aimed itself like a pointed arrow at the Crystal Point Resort. It was as if my brain had quit working for the evening and Little Drunk had taken over. I’d gotten to the first pair of lounge chairs along our beach when I saw a ghostly figure appear out of the darkness.

  I stopped walking and stared, wondering if it were a mirage or really a person. I rubbed my eyes with my fists, and when I removed them, I saw her white halter dress glowing against the backdrop of her dark skin, making it seem as if only the dress were floating in the air towards me. My breath caught in the back of my throat, and my eyes bulged as I watched the figure come towards me. Long, slender legs poked out of the skirt’s short hem and moved gracefully through the sand. My eyes traveled upwards, around the hips, to the breasts and bare shoulders. And then the face appeared from out of the shadows, and I realized it was none other than Erika Wild.

  She was out of uniform, and for a second, I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me. The Erika Wild I knew didn’t look like that. The Erika Wild I knew was cold and hard, and any small amount of sex appeal I’d seen in her when I first met her had completely vanished when I’d gotten to know her true personality. I rubbed my eyes again as she came towards me.

  “Wild? Is that you?” I asked her.

  “Well, it isn’t Sly Smallwood, now is it?” she asked.

  Yup. It was her all right. Smart-ass and all. “What the hell are you doing here?” I muttered. But instead of focusing on her face, my eyes trailed down to her body and those legs! I had to admit she had phenomenal legs. They were long and slender, and the way they moved…

  Uncontrollably, my head tipped sideways slightly, watching them move towards me. They looked graceful and sexy. My mind wandered to how they’d look sprawled out across the sheets of my bed. Who knew she’d actually been hiding a female frame behind those boring business suits?

  “I’m up here, Drunk. Hello,” she said, breaking my daydream.

  My slow-moving, highly intoxicated eyes slid up her body to look her in the face. “What are you doin’ here?”

  “I just came to check out the view over here without that bloody ship standing in the way anymore.” Barefoot, she turned in the sand and propped her hands up on her hips, and stared at the horizon.

  I stared at her side profile hard. The straps of her halter dress cut across her chest and tied behind her head. Standing there with her hands on her hips like that, her dress puckered slightly, giving me a clear shot of the sides of her breasts. They were deeply tanned without a hint of a tan line. They weren’t overly large, but they looked firm, and with no bra to hold them up, they seemed to manage just fine on their own, thank you very much. Blood flowed south as the cogs in my brain chugged along slowly.

  When I looked up at her face, she was looking at me. “What are you looking at?”

  I swallowed hard, trying to moisten my suddenly dry mouth. “You’re a girl,” I whispered.

  “I prefer woman, but yes,” she sighed. “I do possess female DNA. You’re just now figuring that out?”

  “I never really thought about it? You just looked like a bitch before,” I said. I hadn’t really intended it to come out as an insult, but it was the first thing that popped into my head, and the alcohol seemed to be controlling my words and body now.

  Her eyes narrowed and her lips puckered. “Are you drunk?”

  Smiling, I ticked a finger in the air at her. “Oh no. I’m not playing that game again. I already answered that question once. Yes. I’m Drunk. Mr. Drunk to you.” My head bounced once and I pointed at myself and then I poked my finger into her chest, in a little spot of her dress where a triangle had been removed from the fabric revealing a small bit of cleavage. “An’ you’re Wild. Haha. Drunk an’ Wild. Sounds like a spring break porno, doesn’t it?”

  She looked down at my finger pressed between her cleavage and then tipped her head sideways as she swatted it away. “You are drunk. Good Lord. I didn’t think you could be any more of an asshole, but now I see you can. Just add alcohol and stir.”

  “You know what? You’re wound too tight. When’s the last time you got laid?”

  “I don’t know. When’s the last time you got your ass kicked?”

  My eyes rolled back in my head a little as I gave that thought a second. “Mmm, Thursday.”

  Her dark hair swayed as she shook her head. “I don’t know what women see in you. I really don’t.”

  I grinned lasciviously. “I can show you if you want. But not out here. Artie frowns on that—Sex on the Beach is a drink, Drunk, not a hobby,” I said, mocking the lecture Artie had given me once after a housekeeper and I had gotten frisky on the beach late one evening when we thought we were alone. But that was not long after I’d gotten to the island. I was a better man now. I took hold of her hand. “Come on. We can go back to my place.”

  She groaned and pulled her hand out of my grasp. “How does anyone take you seriously around here?”

  I frowned at her. “You thought I’s jokin’? I’m totally serious. You needa get laid and I needa distraction. Is a win-win. We can hate each other again tomorrow.”

  “You think me sleeping with you is a win for me? Maybe it’s a win for you, but it’s certainly not a win for me.”

  I ignored the disgusted look she gave me. None of this was making any sense to my drunken brain. “Then why’d you come over here to my beach lookin’ like that if you didn’t wanna sleep with me?” My eyes narrowed and I wagged my finger in her face. “Wait a minute. Did you come over here to pull another prank on us?”

  “I did not. I came to check out the damages. You know, after the last prank you pulled on us, we had about half our guests check out. Things are really slow over there right now, thanks to you. There’s hardly anyone left.”

  I popped my hat off my head, curled it around in the air, and took a deep bow. “My pleasure, m’lady.”

  “Well, at least you got what you deserved. Your pirate ship is gone now. Serves you right.”

  I poked the air. Finally an admission! “Ah-ha! I knew you did it!”

  “As if I’d admit to you if I did. You’re really not very good at this game, Drunk. And the truth of the matter is, you’ll never win the war.”

  “Oh, we’ll win all right. In fact, I already won.”

  “Have you?”

  I nodded, grinning from ear to ear. “Only one of us has to sleep with you tonight, an’ I’ll give ya a clue—it’s not this guy right here.”

  32

  Hungover as hell, I stumbled into the lobby the next morning. It was the Mondayest Monday I’d ever Mondayed. Noises felt more pronounced than usual and made my head feel like a thinned eggshell with spiderwebbed cracks precariously close to splitting open. Even in the building with my sunglasses on, the lights still managed to hurt my head. I walked cautiously, as if I were walking barefoot across a path of Legos. And when I stepped in front of Mari’s half of the counter on my way to the back offices, she hollered at me, making me shrink.

  “Mr. Balladares isn’t in his office this morning, Drunk.”

  I stopped walking and pivoted. With raised shoulders, I hissed over the noise of the lobby. “Shhh!” Through squinted eyes, I looked up at her. “Where’s he at?”

  “The conference room.”

  I frowned. “The conference room? What for?”

  “It’s become the headquarters.”

  “Headquarters? Headquarters for what?”

  She grinned. “You’ll see.”

  I turned in the other direction and headed across the lobby and down the hall to the conference room. It was the large room we rented out when people were having events or parties. For so early on a Monday morning, I was surprised to see both doors wide open and people coming and going like a busy beehive. I was sure I hadn’t seen any events on the calendar for the day.

  “Artie? What’s going on?” I said as I rounded the corner.

  I stopped in the doorway and my mouth fell open. Booths had been set up around the room, each one manned by a person or a pair of people. The booths were all wedding-themed. One featured mannequins wearing penguin suits, another few were set up with wedding cakes and samples, another had flower arrangements, centerpieces, and bouquets, and in one corner of the room, an entire wedding dress shop appeared to have been set up, complete with a dressing room and a little platform in front of trifold mirrors.

  Val was there already, dressed in pink and wearing heels and another funny hat. Artie was there too, busily directing traffic and chatting with everyone that stopped to ask him a question.

  Val caught sight of me first and gasped before rushing over to hook my elbow with her arm. “Good morning, Drunk!” she purred.

  “Hey, Val,” I said gruffly. “What’s all this?”

  “Isn’t it wonderful?” she asked brightly. “Artie did thees for me!”

  I stared at everything around the room in confusion. “But what is it?”

 

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