“It was my pleasure,” Lincoln responds.
We’re walking toward the elevator and I’m trying not to seem like I’m lost in a trance. It’s almost unreal, what just happened. That kind of stuff doesn’t just happen. Then again, I should be thankful it happened.
“What were you thinking?” Macy asks.
“I wasn’t,” I answer, feeling like I’m a kid being scolded by her mother.
“Obviously. You’re lucky that guy was there.”
“Yeah, I was,” I answer, sounding a little more aloof than I should if I’m hoping to avoid questions.
“Alexa, what exactly happened over there on Lovers Beach? I mean, normally I wouldn’t assume much, but your cheeks are red, and there’s this weird shape to your lips, almost like you’re smiling or something.”
“Don’t accuse me of such a heinous act,” I jest.
“No way,” Grace jumps in. “Nope. I’ve known you way too long. There’s something you aren’t saying.”
I manage to drag out the questions and conversation all the way to our hotel room. When our heavy wooden door closes us inside, I fall against the wall. “He kissed me, which ... I know ... is totally ludicrous. I don’t even know his last name or how old he is, but that beach, it did something to my brain.”
Both Grace and Macy are in shock by the look of their wide-eyes and dropped jaws. “You kissed a stranger? Alexa would never do something so wild,” Macy retorts. Macy wouldn’t do something so wild either. She’s not one to talk.
“It was all that fear and adrenaline rushing through me I guess. I don’t know. He’s really sweet, and I fell, and I fell onto his lap, or ... he caught me I guess. There was this rock where unknown lovers etched their names. It just felt oddly, right.”
At the very same time, Macy and Grace press their hands over their hearts. “That is so romantic.”
“No. It wasn’t romantic. It was just awesome,” I correct them.
“Whatever you want to call it. That stuff doesn’t just happen,” Grace coos.
“Let’s put it behind us because we’re in Mexico. He lives in Mexico, and we’re going home in three days. It was just a kiss.” My heart thumps a bit at my words, my realization that something incredible happened, and there is no possibility of it being anything more than temporary.
Temporary or not, I put a little extra effort into my wardrobe, hair, and makeup while getting ready for dinner. The hotel is all-inclusive, so aside from our excursion tomorrow, we will be doing nothing else but sauntering around the hotel grounds.
“She’s got a crush,” Grace tells Macy. “She put on lipstick. You know things are getting serious.”
Macy studies my face for a moment as I’m painting on a thin layer of gloss. “For someone who doesn’t care about makeup, you were very aware of what that shade does for your blue eyes, weren’t you?”
“What are you talking about?” I ask, furrowing my brows at my reflection in the mirror.
“You enjoy dressing up, don’t you? You just don’t think you have a reason to do so most of the time,” Grace jumps into the conversation.
“Stop focusing on me, and go gush over there,” I tell them, pushing the bathroom door closed. Even with the door closed, I can still hear the incessant giggles.
“We need to find out more about him,” Grace not-so-quietly says to Macy.
“I’d pay him to move to Boston. With the smile on her face ...”
“Hi, um, psycho-friends,” I say, poking my head out of the bathroom. “One, I can hear you. Two, I’ve known the guy for an hour. One. Hour. That is not a good reason to ask a man to move across the country. Why am I the single one? Seriously. You two are nuts.”
6
Dinner has been casual, lacking conversation about swoony men, and focusing on a where we see ourselves in ten years, kind of conversation.
“I can’t believe we won’t be roommates in a few weeks,” Grace says with a sigh. She has been planning her wedding since before she met Rex. Her vision board comprises of decor and fixings for her country-style beach themed house she plans to buy, and she started that board at least a couple years ago. Grace will not miss us. She might say so, but playing house and getting married, having a family, it’s her dream coming true. “Are you guys going to look for a new roommate to replace me?”
Macy glances over at me with a longing look, one I can’t decipher.
Never mind, I have deciphered.