Author: Priscilla West

“Promise?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said, smiling, “I promise.”

I beamed. Vincent, as if coming to a sudden realization, jumped up and went to the counter. By the time I turned around to track him, he had a camera up and snapped a picture.

“Perfect. I’d been meaning to get a good picture of you as a keepsake.” He looked at his handiwork on the camera’s screen. “Take a look. I think it’s a great shot.”

He came over and handed me the camera. He had caught me smiling wide and staring right at the camera. I was a little teary-eyed but I still looked happy. He was right, it was a perfect shot. Candid but well-framed. A professional photographer would be proud.

“I’m getting two copies. One for the cabin and one for my condo. You don’t mind do you?”

I shook my head. I pondered the significance of my portrait sitting next to his cherished photos including the one with his sister. Mine would be the only one with a single person in the photo.

“I’d get one for my office desk. But I don’t want to put your job in jeopardy if your employer finds out we’re together.”

Night fell and we curled up outside in the beach tent watching the stars, which were much more numerous than they were in New York, where you were lucky to see any. I had put on the black lingerie I brought and we had sex that night but it was more slow and intimate than the lustful frenzy the night before. My clothes weren’t torched and there wasn’t any chocolate involved. Vincent came once again inside me and we cuddled afterward for the remainder of the night, sharing tender kisses and small irrelevant details about our lives.

The next day was spent packing up for travel and then traveling. It had been a mostly relaxing trip, and as we landed at JFK, I wished it could have lasted just a little longer.

Chapter Eight

By the time the cab dropped me off at my apartment, it was almost eleven p.m. Exhausted, I walked in and found Riley watching Keeping Up With The Kardashians. She was drinking a diet coke as always and wearing yet another pink and blue sorority t-shirt and shorts combo from when she was in college.

Riley paused her show and got up off the couch. “You’re back! I didn’t know if you’d be home tonight. How was the trip?”

I put my stuff down on the counter and opened the fridge hoping for something to eat. Thankfully, there was some string cheese that was mine. I grabbed it. “It was good. He has a private island with a cabin that we stayed at. The entire area is gorgeous.”

“A private island? Are you fookin kidding me?” Riley took a seat on a stool in the kitchen, where I was standing. “I’m so jealous. Look at that tan you’re getting with all these trips. I need to find myself a billionaire to jet me down to the Caribbean on the regular.”

I looked down at my forearms. It hadn’t even occurred to me that I would be tanning, but I was getting some pretty good color. “Dating a billionaire has its perks, I have to say.”

She laughed. “Things have been quiet here.”

I unwrapped my string cheese and pulled off a strand to eat. “You seem to be feeling better at least,” I said, chewing.

She nodded. “That I am. Better to be bored than sick. So how is Vincent, anyway? Have you two had the talk?”

“The talk?”

“You know, boyfriend/girlfriend, that kind of thing. It’s getting to be about that time, right?”

Could everyone see through me this easily? How would I ever keep dating Vincent a secret when people could read me like a book? I needed to remind myself to never, ever play poker. “We did, actually.”

“Oh yeah? How did it come up? Did you start it?”

I grimaced at the memory of the previous afternoon. It had ended well, but there were some bumps. “Kind of. We actually had a bit of a fight beforehand. While we were down there we ran into an ex-girlfriend of his.”

My roommate’s eyes widened. “On his private island?”

I shook my head. “No, we were on a bigger island nearby grabbing lunch and supplies for the cabin.”

“Oh okay. That sucks. Was she hot?”

I threw my hands up. “A little sympathy would be nice!”

She shrugged. “I’m finding out how much sympathy you need. Judging by your reaction I’m guessing she was a knockout. Sorry, that sounds brutal.”

I grimaced. “She’s a pro surfer. She was down there modeling, actually.”

Riley’s eyebrows shot up. “Did she flirt with him?”

“Oh yeah. Vincent said he thought she was testing me.”

It was her turn to grimace. “How did he react?”

Remembering Vincent’s reaction, or lack thereof, to Ariel’s flirtations brought a fresh bubble of nausea to my stomach. “He went along with it. Didn’t seem to think it was a big deal.”

“I can see why you had a fight. What’s this surfer chick’s name?”

“Ariel Diamond. And yeah, but the talk we had about it ended up being good.”

While I was talking, Riley had whipped her phone out and was tapping and swiping at the screen. Her mouth made an ‘O’. “Look at those abs, Jesus. I’m really sorry Kristen, having a girl this hot hitting on your man had to be excruciating.”

I snatched her phone from her grasp. “Riley, you’re really not helping!”

She tried to grab her phone back, but I pulled it away. “I’m just getting a grasp of the situation, Kris! Give me my phone back. I promise I’ll stop checking this girl out.”

I shook my head. “You haven’t even listened to the part that was good yet.”

She made one last attempt to grab her phone away, but I was too quick for her. Finally, she put her hands in her lap. “Okay, fine. So this borderline sea nymph with abs out of an anatomy textbook shows up. Then what happens?”

I snorted. She was going to be petulant about this. “Fine. here’s your phone, but no more comments about how hot Ariel is, okay? Or her body.”

Riley smiled and took the phone like a child receiving candy. “Thank you. So you ran into this woman and then what?”

“Well, we were in this little general store and she comes in. Everyone is staring because she’s wearing a bikini.” I watched my friend carefully, but she had a better poker face than mine. “She walks up to us and calls him ‘Vinny’ like they were lovers.”

At this, Riley laughed. “‘Vinny?’ Do you call him that?”

“No! I don’t think it fits him at all.”

She shook her head, still laughing. “Me neither.”

I told her about their dating history, leaving out the part about the tattoo. Riley nodded attentively. “So it sounds like they’re just friends now, right? Obviously their personal connection is helpful professionally, but he’s not actually into her now.”

I tapped my finger on the counter, thinking whether I should spill about the tattoo. “Well, there is one weird thing. He had a tattoo of a diamond on his ribs.”

I watched Riley process for a second before her mouth dropped. “Wait. Is it for her?”

I nodded. “He got it when he was twenty.”

Her mouth puckered as she considered. “He’s like thirty now, right? That’s a long time ago.”

“Thirty-one, yeah. He says there’s no reason to get it removed because they’re still friends. It’s not like things are ugly.”

“That’s fair, actually. If he still loved her but couldn’t be with her, it would hurt to look at that thing every time he had his shirt off. I know when I’ve a bad breakup I have to get rid of everything that reminds me of the guy.”

I rubbed my pinky. Sometimes you can’t get rid of every reminder.

“I guess you have practice,” I said.

Riley smiled. “I even throw out the underwear I’m wearing when we break up.”

“What?”

She half smiled. “Sorry, TMI?”

“Good lord, yes! Why on earth would you do that?”

She closed one eye, chuckling. “Do you really want to know?”

I thought about it, but shook my head. “You’re right, I don’t.”

She continued laughing for a minute before getting a hold of herself. “Anyway, he has this tattoo. You said there was a good part.”

I told her about how Vincent had assured me, as well as the picture he took. She was impressed that he would want a photo of me for his cabin and condo. Seeing how she reacted to the story made me feel better about my reaction to the situation. It had been a bit of a shock to see him around Ariel, but all in all things had ended up in a good place.

“Well that all sounds good,” she said. “I’m super happy for you. How’s the other part of your relationship going?”

“Which part?”

“The sex, silly.”

I blushed. Riley’s mind was never far from the gutter. “It’s going well.”

She waited, her blue eyes urging me to go on. “‘It’s going well?’ You can’t date a man that gorgeous and leave me with that. I’m watching reality television and chugging diet coke over here.”

I shrugged. It wasn’t something I liked to talk about, even with Riley.

“You were on his private island. If you stayed inside and did missionary before bed, I’m going to smack you.”

More heat rose to my cheeks as I thought about how far from reality Riley’s insinuation was. I knew she was trying to get a rise out of me. She knew being so blunt about sex would throw me off balance. “We didn’t stay inside all day, I’ll say that. But that’s all I’ll say.”

Riley jutted her lip, pouting. “Can’t you throw a girl a bone?”

She was doing a good job of looking pathetic, but I held strong. “Sorry. I just don’t like to talk about that stuff. You know that.”

She sighed, shoulders slumped. Sitting in her sorority outfit with her blonde hair in her face on a kitchen stool, she looked almost comical. “Fine.” she said after a moment. “But things are going well, all in all?”