Saint Lucian Adventures of Lia (and Jack)

I know that this will somehow end up being blamed on me, that this is all my fault. Sure, I had taunted him about how it was funny that he’d prefer to be spending time with his “bro” friends in the Carolinas while I would be “trapped” in Caribbean-honeymoon paradise for two weeks of work. Did I tease? Of course. That was our thing – what we always did to each other. Did I tell him that I would be alone and wanted him to join me? Not a chance. 

I was a combined ball of exhaustion, anxiety, and starvation with a dash of dehydration by the time I descended the stairs from my commercial flight, crossed the tarmac at Hewanorra, and joined the countless international tourists ahead of me in the immigration cue. As my eyes panned the gateway to Saint Lucia, looking for a currency exchange counter, that wasn’t what I saw first. Nope. There, several dozen people ahead of me in line was who I expected least to see. Him.

While I continued to glare at the muscular sinews of his back that were all too visible through the just-tight-enough t-shirt he was wearing as he slowly snaked his way to the front of the immigration line, a pit formed in my stomach and grew larger and larger as I thought about what his presence might mean. He wasn’t supposed to be here. This wasn’t like my other business trips.

Before, he had accompanied me on work trips that took me to the most exotic international locales, but that hadn’t been a problem. On those trips, I had been traveling alone, sans any work colleagues who would notice that I was shadowed by my… friend with benefit? It was bad enough that I didn’t know who or what he was to me. Was I kinda, sorta, head over heels in love with the guy? Um…I suppose. Was there a label for our arrangement? Hell no. Did it add to the complication of it all that he liked to pretend that we were on our honeymoon and announce so loudly at check in each time we arrived at a new international hotel so that we’d get upgrades (and spend a few days acting like we actually were in love)? Fuck YES.

This trip wasn’t like those others. Though he and I had traveled to Saint Lucia months earlier on another of my business trips, I wasn’t meant to be alone this time. One of my peers, Klara, had arrived a day earlier to support with the first week of client meetings, while another, Dana, was set to trade places with her for the second week, bringing her husband along for company.

So there was the dilemma of Jack. How the fuck was I supposed to explain him? If he played his favorite “honeymoon” schtick, that would not go unnoticed by my coworkers. He was still several paces ahead of me, so I kept hoping and praying that my lovesick heart was making my eyes play tricks on me and that it wasn’t really the object of my affection and torment in line. There were bound to be other unnaturally attractive, tall, muscular, and brunette men of his stature that came to Saint Lucia on their honeymoons (for real). That’s probably what I was seeing. Someone else’s version of Jack.

I had almost deluded myself into believing that as I finally found myself at the front of the line and the male specimen I had been ogling from afar was long gone. Until I got to the baggage claim and saw him. Not only was he frozen unmoving in one spot, eyes scanning the crowd as it filtered around him, he had already retrieved my checked luggage as he had so many times before. The second his eyes lighted on me, his face broke out into the widest grin that I had ever seen.

“What took you so long, gorgeous?” He wrapped his rippling arms around me, pressing his lips to mine feverishly as my whole body stiffened. “I tried to surprise you, and I feel like I’ve been waiting for you forever since your flight was supposed to land.”

I was less than gracious as I pushed him off of me. “You’re not supposed to be here.” I glared at him, eyebrows raised, while he smirked back in response. “You’re supposed to be with your friends. In South Carolina. Not here,” I practically hissed the last part.

“What?” He chuckled. “And miss out on two weeks of honeymooning with my favorite girl?” He pulled me firmly to his side and kissed my head before taking my hand and leading me toward the Customs line to leave the airport. “Let’s find your car. It’s hot, and I’ve been here for too long already.”

As he continued to hold my hand, I dug my nails into the back of his hand until he released me. “You will not be honeymooning with anyone this week,” I growled through bared teeth. “I am here for work. With people I work with. And you were not supposed to come.”

He rolled his eyes, and our diatribe briefly paused as we provided documentation and simple answers to the Customs officer to be permitted to depart from the airport. He held his tongue and followed dutifully as I wound my way through the taxi stands, looking for the one affiliated with the car service that I had hired in advance to transport me from the southern tip of the island where the international airport was located to my hotel north of Castries in Rodney Bay. If I thought he was going to be better behaved after I snapped at him, I was very wrong. He pinched my rear the second the stand attendant ran off to retrieve our car, laughing wickedly when he made me jump in surprise more than pain. 

The hour and a half drive across Saint Lucia’s winding roads had me sitting silently while he refused to stop gabbing with our driver, Fabian, like they had known each other for a lifetime. Arms firmly crossed over my chest, I spent that time fuming at him while planning how I would deal with his unexpected presence, trying not to puke from the way that Fabian was speeding over the treacherous mountain passes at the same time. My carsickness was largely held at bay until my phone chimed, alerting me to a new WhatsApp message from Klara. She knew when I was scheduled to arrive and was messaging me to let me know that she would probably be making it back to the hotel that we were both staying at after an excursion by the time I would arrive, assuming I was already in Saint Lucia. The realization that it might be impossible to hide Jack’s presence in Saint Lucia from her did me in, and I hardly rolled down the window before retching violently out of it, spewing remnants of my quick airport breakfast equally across the foliage along the road and the side of the Lexus SUV that we were in. While I did, Jack patted my back, continuing to sip the bottle of local Piton beer that Fabian had provided him while telling Fabian that his “new wife” had a tendency to get carsick.

I felt too ill to do more than pinch Jack’s leg firmly enough to inspire him to yelp. Wisely, he went back to chatting with Fabian about other island nonsense and left off of any references to me, alleged “new wife” or otherwise. When we finally pulled up in front of the Harbor Club hotel, I thought I might have gotten lucky and put that ridiculousness behind us, and my queasiness began to abate. But that lasted for all of two seconds. At the same time that we descended from the vehicle, Klara came running out of the lobby to greet us. She was too distracted hugging me and rambling a million words a minute about her incredible tour of Saint Lucia to notice Jack or Fabian. Until Fabian unloaded our suitcases from the trunk and wished us a happy honeymoon with a firm pat on Jack’s back, that was.

As he drove off, Klara stopped talking long enough to look from me to Jack questioningly, noticing him for the first time. Her gaze changed to one of obvious appreciation of his physical attributes before she blinked her eyes several times, seeming to remember Fabian’s “honeymoon” comment.

“Um, Lia,” she paused, weighing her words carefully before uttering them. “Who’s your ‘friend’?”

I felt bile rising up my throat once again but choked it back long enough to blurt out the first thing that came to my mind. “My cousin.”

There was no part of it that was convincing. What made it even less so was the fact that Jack decided to comment at that same time that he was “her husband.”

Klara did a shitty job of disguising her amusement, assuming that was what she was trying to do at all. “Hello…” She grinned mischievously, raising an eyebrow and staring at him. “Cousin.”

Jack opened his mouth to correct her, but I pulled him away and toward the front desk of the hotel before he could utter anything else stupid to embarrass me. “I’m exhausted. We need to check in. I’ll call you later so that we can prep for tomorrow.”

She was still mumbling under her breath as we walked away, with Jack rolling our suitcases and following me while I again hissed at him to keep his mouth shut and not get me into any more trouble. He started to open his mouth when we got to the front desk, and I gave him a look that could kill, forcing him to shut it abruptly before uttering anything about being on our honeymoon, that I just knew he was dying to do.

Wisely, he remained silent until we were hidden away in the privacy of my room — with a single king size bed — on the second floor overlooking the marina. “Cousin, huh?” He snorted as I rolled my checked bag to the bed, dropping it on top with a groan and unzipping it.

“You are not supposed to be here.” I repeated it for what felt like the millionth time, as it had been looping in my mind since our encounter in the baggage claim area.

“That’s no way to thank me for cutting my boys’ trip short and surprising you,” he chortled, hugging me from behind and kissing my neck as I tried to unpack my work frocks.

“I never asked you to do that.” I spun around and glared at him, his arms tightening behind me as he held me closer. “I have real work to do and don’t need any ‘surprises’.”

He backed away, pretending to be hurt. “Why, Ophelia,” he pouted. “You don’t want me here?” His cocky grin melted away when my steely gaze did not soften to match his playful tone. “Wow,” he huffed. “You really don’t, do you?” He looked absolutely crestfallen as he shook his head. “I misread everything that you said when you were talking about being here alone. I shouldn’t have come.”

No matter how much professional me was worried about being embarrassed in front of my coworkers if they caught me and Jack cavorting as we tended to do when we traveled together, the other side of me — the one that I was outside of work — was more disgusted with herself for hurting someone I cared so deeply for when he had tried to do something nice. I watched with uncertainty as he reclaimed his suitcase from where it had been rolled into the room and headed to the door, ready to leave.

“I’m sorry, Lia,” he mumbled with his hand on the doorknob, not even bothering to turn around and face me. “Good luck with your meetings. I’ll try to grab the first flight out of here.”

As he made a half-hearted display of opening the door, I gently removed the handle of his suitcase from his hand and pulled him into the middle of the room. “You don’t need to leave.” I wrapped my arms around him, squeezing tightly as I rested my cheek against his chiseled chest and closed my eyes. “I’m stressed out and have so much work to do, but you don’t need to leave.”

“We had such a good time the last time we were here,” he whispered, stroking my hair. “I thought this would be a chance to do that again but for longer.” His sad smile as he said it only broke my heart further.

“Listen,” I gently pulled his face closer to mine, encouraging him to lock eyes with me. “Nothing is more fun than pretending to be honeymooners with you. But I don’t need to tell you how that would complicate things in front of my peers.” He nodded solemnly. “How about a compromise?”

He smiled and continued to nod. “I could be down for a compromise. Depending on what that compromise is, of course.” He winked, giving me a firm pat on my backside that made me narrow my eyes at him.

“In private — when it’s just the two of us — we can play your favorite charade.” He raised an eyebrow and waited for me to go on, a devilish grin on his face. “But…”

“Let me guess. In front of anyone you know, I’m your ‘cousin’.”

I nodded my head. “You got it, champ.” My phone chimed with a new WhatsApp message from Klara about meeting up to review presentations, and I pulled away from him, typing out a quick message in response before going back to my open suitcase.

“Secret wifey,” he called from the door to the balcony, where he was looking out over the water. “In case I forget about our ‘compromise’ after we leave the room, what part of the dirty south is our ‘family’ allegedly from?”

I was only half listening to him as I struggled to hang all of my work dresses on the handful of hangers provided in the room, unsurprisingly finding myself with more dresses than hangers. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You know,” he smirked. “In case I accidentally find myself kissing you in public.”

“Jack…” I turned to glare at him, but I didn’t have time to say anything else before he had one arm around me, his other violently pushing my suitcase off of the bed and sending my belongings inside flying.

As he pinned me to the bed and again pressed his lips to mine, I gave up and relaxed my furrowed brow. This man was going to be the death of me. There was no telling what kind of trouble he would get me in, but I was sure that this work trip would be as long as it was unforgettable.