“It’s been pretty damn great,” she said, shrugging. “I’m actually a little embarrassed at how much it suits me. I don’t want to turn into one of those people who get too used to living alone, you know? But then again, maybe I just really needed a vacation.”
It was not this particular breakup that upset her as much as the fact that it was one in a long line of them in the years since she’d graduated college. Every time her phone rang and it was a friend she hadn’t heard from in a while, she knew even before answering that it was another call to announce an engagement. Violet would manage the customary squeals over the proposal stories and summon genuine enough happiness as she wished them well, but she couldn’t do it without mentally tallying her list of engaged friends versus those whose boyfriends were getting serious. And then there was Violet, alone in the “completely single” column, where every prospect turned out to be a false hope just a few months in. She had never been one to feel she needed a boyfriend, or a fiancé, or a husband to be happy, but it was enough to give anyone a complex.
“I admire that,” he said, and she braced herself for the setup of another joke. But none came. “Independence. Half of my friends still go on vacation with their parents. Their parents! They meet a girl and you think they’ll go on some couple’s trip instead, but nope, they all go to the time-share in Marco Island together.”
She laughed. “And who are you here with?”
“A bachelor party, actually. This guy George is marrying my good friend Caitlin. I’m more of a male bridesmaid than a groomsman, but he invited me along.”
“Let me guess. You’ve got eight guys crammed into a room with two double beds at the closest hotel you could find to the booze cruise dock.”
“That would be a good guess if we were on my budget. This particular guy is loaded. I mean, his family is. It’s more of a penthouse. With a booze cruise in the form of its own yacht.”
Violet had seen the over-the-top Trump hotel down the strip and wondered if he was staying there. Then again, there was no shortage of luxury accommodations this close to Miami. She’d been eyeing them all week in spite of herself. “Lucky you,” she said.
“Lucky Caitlin. It’s actually a little awkward for me. I don’t really know anybody there very well.”
Violet wondered what the Caitlins of the world were doing right that she was missing.
“Well, cheer up. I’m sure next time, you’ll vacation someplace far less gilded. You know, with your parents.”
She could see that she’d picked the wrong joke. He looked away from her, out to sea.
“My parents died a few years back. A heart attack and an aneurysm, respectively. I’m afraid I don’t have very good genes.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry.” She touched his arm gently. “I shouldn’t have said that. I was raised by my grandmother—I should know better than to assume.”
“Don’t be sorry. I set myself up for it with that joke about everyone else’s parents. It may be that part of my annoyance with everyone else and their family vacations is that I’m a little bit jealous.” He gave her a shy grin, and she relaxed a little.
“I’m not usually too discriminating with my vacation envy,” Violet said. “I mean, I’m on vacation right now, and I’m still envying your penthouse and your yacht.”
He laughed. “It wouldn’t matter if I was in a run-down motel—in the moment, I always think every vacation I’m on is the best ever. I go home plotting to move to wherever I just visited.”
“Ah, a dreamer.”
“Do dreamers go so far as to look at job openings and check rental prices?”
“At a minimum.”
“Guilty.”
“And then what happens?”
“What do you mean?”
“What makes you decide not to move? Ties back home?”
He blinked, as if surprised by the question. “No. Nothing. I have no idea. I just get caught back up in regular life, I guess.”
Violet thought of what might be seen as her own lack of ambition. She’d always been so eager to please Gram, to not be a bother to anyone, to do the responsible and expected thing. She’d never really arrived at a logical point to pause and think about what she might want beyond any of that. In truth, she was happy enough with her duplex town house adjoining Gram’s, her stable and decent-paying job, her respectably sized group of respectably close friends.
“I may be the living definition of being caught up in regular life,” she admitted, and a moment of not uncomfortable silence descended between them.
Finally, he broke it with a little laugh. “I have no idea why I told you any of that,” he said. “I must like you, Pickiwicki. What are you doing later?”
She felt the color rush into her cheeks and was glad of the absurdly giant sunglasses that concealed no less than a third of her face, even though Gram had rolled her eyes when she’d bought them. “I am unable to fathom,” Gram had told her, “how such a ridiculous trend from my own youth is back again.”
“I … I should tell you I’m flying home in the morning. I don’t want you to waste your time with me.”
She thought she saw a beat of disappointment flash across his face, but he concealed it well. “This is the best conversation I’ve had since I got here. I don’t see how that can be a waste of time. Where’s home?”
“Cincinnati, actually. Pickiwicki was a bit of a haul for summer camp—Gram only sent me there because a friend of hers knew the owners. You still in Pennsylvania?”
He squinted at her. “Are you pulling my chain?”
“Um. I don’t think so.”
“I live in Cincinnati now, too.”
“No, you don’t.”
“I do. I went to college there, and then I stayed.”
“Prove it.”
“Well, I don’t carry my license in my swim trunks.”
“Where do—”
A child’s high-pitched scream from just behind them made Violet startle in her seat. Something in the tone indicated that this person was not playing, and she jumped to her feet. A few beach towel lengths behind her, a boy was standing with tears running down his face. “Help, please,” he sobbed, looking frantically around. His eyes settled on Violet’s. “Help!”
Her handsome stranger was on his feet now too, and together they rushed toward the child. “What’s wrong?” Violet called, trying to sound calm. “Are you hurt?”
“My mommy. My mommy,” he sobbed, and that’s when Violet saw the woman behind him in the pop-up beach tent. She was lying on her side, writhing and wheezing, her face and lips almost cartoonishly swollen.
Violet looked at her companion in horror. “Shit,” the man said. “A seizure? No—some kind of allergic reaction?” Then he snapped into action. “I’ll get the lifeguard!” he yelled, and took off running.
Violet fell to her knees beside the woman. “Ma’am? Can you speak?” The woman just looked at her with pleading eyes. Violet turned and took the little boy gently by the arms.