How to Honeymoon Alone

“Phillip,” I call. “What-? Oh God.”

Phillip’s eyes are trained on the man. When the distressed man resurfaces another time, panic clear in his ragged breaths, Phillip tears off his mask and tosses it in my direction.

Then, he sets off, cutting through the water in a crawl.

I scramble to catch his snorkel before it slips beneath the surface and watch Phillip’s rapid advance. I pegged him as a competent swimmer in the pool that night, but it’s nothing to what he’s doing now.

He’s halfway to the panicking snorkeler before the tour guide from the other boat reacts.

I swim closer, but while I can breaststroke with the best of them, it’s no championship crawl. I watch as the man dips below the surface again. Phillip doesn’t stop. He barely even looks up. He just parts the water like he’s made for it.

Phillip reaches the flailing tourist before anyone else. He twists smoothly in the water and shifts into a rescue, holding the man up by his elbows.

“Wow,” I whisper, watching him swim them both back to the other snorkeling cruise.

Ten minutes later, we’re both back on our boat. In the distance, we can see the commotion on the other boat’s deck. I can just about make out the man Phillip helped on the deck, sitting down with a towel around his shoulders.

Phillip is toweling off beside me. Agitation is clear in his form and his quick movements. “Foolish,” he says. “Snorkeling cruises always offer life vests and noodles. Use them if you’re not a strong swimmer.”

“Did he say what happened?”

He shakes his head. “He was too panicked. Not unusual, all in all.”

“Good thing you were close by,” I say.

Phillip drops the towel and sits down on the bench. His bare feet are tan against the light wooden deck. “Yes,” he says. His mouth is set in a grim line. “Not the first time I’ve seen that with tourist cruises.”

“Oh?”

“No.”

I put my hands on his shoulders, curving them over the muscles that connect to his neck. His skin is already sun warm. “Not the first time you had to play a knight in shining armor, either?”

He grows still as a statue beneath my hands, but it still takes me another second to realize what I’ve done.

My hands freeze on his shoulders. “Gosh, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” he says. He looks up at me with serious blue eyes, and my brain short-circuits. He’s so close, and I’m only in a bikini, standing right in front of him. And he’s only in his swimming trunks.

My thumbs dig softly into his muscles. “It was an instinct.”Ccontent © exclusive by Nô/vel(D)ra/ma.Org.

“Yeah,” he says. His voice has deepened. “I get that.”

“We should-”

“I got you some bottles of water,” our tour guide says. He pauses with a bottle in either hand, his smile grows brighter when he sees us. “Right! You two are newlyweds. Can I get you anything else?”

I drop my hands from Phillip’s shoulders like I’ve been caught shoplifting. Not that I ever have been. Shoplifting, that is, not caught. “Thanks.”

“That’s all,” Phillip says and gets up to accept his water. “Thank you.”

“Anytime!”

I focus on unscrewing the tight cap of my water bottle. “Sorry.”

“Eden,” he says and takes a step closer. A notch appears between his eyebrows, giving him a look like there’s something he wants to say. My fingers stay locked on the tight cap, my body stone-still once again.

“Yes?”

His mouth softens. “The rum tasting is tomorrow.”

“Oh. Yes, I remember.”

“Good,” he says. “Don’t forget.”

It sounds like a promise.

“I won’t,” I say.

I check my watch. It’s ten minutes past our meeting time, and he’s not in the lobby. I shift on the sofa and grimace at the chafe. Despite my diligent use of sunscreen and Phillip’s help on the boat, I’ve missed a few spots. The backs of my thighs and my backside are a lovely shade of pink. Tomorrow it’ll be deep red.

There are just some areas a girl struggles to reach, and asking Phillip to help there too had been… well.

Better to burn.

I glance at my watch again. Phillip hadn’t been at the restaurant last night, after our boat trip. And this morning, the breakfast buffet had been as full as always… with him just as absent. It still feels like a crime not to indulge in that spread.

In the absence of my illusive companion, I’d spoken to a lovely middle-aged couple from Manchester instead. They are here to watch the cricket tournament, which necessitated a deep-dive online into cricket, and then refining the search term for sport after I got pictures of insects.

I get up off the couch. Maybe I should check outside, in case he decided to wait there.

Just then, the large wooden doors to the lobby open, and Phillip comes walking in. He’s wearing tan chinos, a blue linen shirt, and a scowl.

“There you are,” he says.

I smile. “Hey.”

“I’ve been waiting.”

“Oh, you have? Where?”

“In front of the lobby.”

“Gosh, I’m sorry,” I say. “But I thought you said to meet you in the lobby?”

“No, in front of. Let’s go,” he says and turns to walk back toward the parking lot. The man from yesterday’s boat ride feels miles away.

I follow him with a frown. “It was a misunderstanding. We’re only ten minutes late.”