Diving In (28 page)

Smiling pityingly at him, she patted his arm. “Sure they are.”

“I thought you knew better than that,” he said. “At least about yourself. Since when did you get humble?”

“Just being realistic.”

“You think you’re no better than anybody else?” he asked. “You? Diane Gambau, power human?”

“Maybe I’m tired of trying to be perfect.”

“We all have our crosses to bear,” he said.

“I’m ready to find some meaning in my life.” She combed her hair with her fingers and then frowned at a loose strand she’d pulled out. “I’m glad I got laid off. It made me realize I was spinning my wheels, just a hamster in a cage, going nowhere.” Her voice caught.

He looked for tears, alarmed at the thought of Diane without a steady income. Entirely self-made, oldest daughter of a single mom who still worked on commission at a discount furniture chain, Diane was insufferable if any hint of poverty was snapping at her heels.

Why had she flown out to see him if she’d just lost her job? “This trip,” he said. “Taking the time, the money…”

“I don’t want to talk about this anymore.” She turned to him, chin raised. “It was just a job. I’m here to see you and have a nice time, and that’s what I’m going to do. Today, we’ll have an early lunch and tour the island. Rent a board, get a drink, be irresponsible for once.”

His worry deepened. That didn’t sound like the Diane he knew. “Let me pay for the condo. I don’t know exactly how much this place costs, but…”

“You’ve got less money than I do now, and I’ve already paid for it, and I am
not
going to talk about this anymore.”

He knew that tone. She was freaking out but refused to admit it. “I’m not broke.”

“You are for a while. Look, Ansel—you want to do something for me, spend the day with me. Put on something decent, and let’s pretend we’re young again.”

“We are young.”

“You know what I mean.” She walked to the front door. “I’ll be ready in twenty minutes. We can take my car. I’ve already made reservations for lunch. Okay? Great.”

* * *

They didn’t get back to the condo until after seven that evening. Diane was drunk; Ansel was sober but exhausted. Late night, bad sleep, early morning. And all he could think about was:
what’s Nicki doing right now, and how can I do it with her?

Slumped in the corner of the elevator, Diane stared at the ceiling, singing a pop song in perfect pitch with a smile on her face. She was barefoot and dangled one sandal from each index finger. Her black sundress had slipped off one shoulder, exposing a lacy gray bra strap.
 

He’d seen her this wasted a few times before, usually after a bad breakup, but during those times she hadn’t been so
cheerful
. All day today she’d been laughing and telling jokes, the first to run out into the sand when they got to the beach, the last to want to leave when the rain started.

And of course she’d had to order everything on the menu that had an umbrella stuck into it, which, at a tourist bar in Maui, included even the broccoli.

Ansel wanted to get her safely tucked in bed as soon as possible so he could get back to Nicki. When they reached their floor, he banged on the door open button impatiently.

“You already slept with her, didn’t you?”

He spun around to find Diane standing right behind him. She was petite, only a few inches over five feet, which contributed to her presently excessive blood alcohol level, and he had to press his chin to his chest to look her in the eye. She edged closer. “I thought you said you were going to fly solo for a while,” she added.
 

He stepped out of the elevator and held out an arm for her. He’d been waiting for her to ask about Nicki, but she never had. Now was definitely not the time. “Let’s get you in bed.”

“Not with you,” she said, scowling the way drunk people do to prove how sober they really are.

He paused near the stairwell. “Nope. All by yourself.”

“Because you want to be with
her
.”

He was glad they were alone. This was just Diane being possessive, the way a child would be of her favorite toy—nothing more. “No,” he said slowly, “because you and I are friends.”

“I like friends.” She sighed.

“I like friends, too.”

“I have lots of friends,” she added.

“That’s good.”

“You’re not like them, though.” She leaned one shoulder against the wall and gazed up at him.

He blanked. Could he possibly be wrong about her? She’d never hinted, not once, that she wanted to sleep with him. Even in college, it had been his idea to have sex; afterward, she’d been so unimpressed with him, she’d refused to see him under any circumstances for a few weeks. Only after he’d promised he wouldn’t try to have sex with her ever again did their friendship resume. His ego had taken six months to recover.

“I’m not like them, that’s true,” he said to her now, trying to lighten it up. “I’m better. That’s what you mean. I’m the most awesome.”

She nodded. “I think we should get married.”

Chapter 23

“O
H
MY
G
OD
,” A
NSEL
SAID
under his breath. He took Diane’s arm and tried to haul her around the corner to their hallway. “You need to sleep this off ASAP.” Get married? What had they put in that lava flow?

She wouldn’t move. Her barefoot toes gripped the tile. “Alone?”

“I don’t know who else you know in Maui, but I won’t be there,” he replied. “And you don’t want me to be.”

She tilted her head back and looked down her nose at him, frowning the drunk frown again. “It might help you sleep better. Your insomnia really gets out of hand, Ansel. I wish you’d see a specialist.”

That was the Diane he knew and loved.

As a
friend
.

“One thing that helps,” he said, pulling out his phone, “is keeping to a schedule. Boy, it’s late. I should be hitting the hay right about now.” He flashed the time at her, pretended to yawn, then followed it up with an even larger real one.

“Yeah,” she said, yawning too. “It’s the middle of the night in California.” She yawned again and slumped against him. Then she did let him guide her around the corner, no more talk of marriage.

She was drunk, that’s all.

God, he hoped so.

Because he kept a wary eye on her as they started walking again, he didn’t recognize the man in the hallway until they were about ten feet away.

Leaning against the wall between both of their doors, cell phone in one hand, suitcase at his feet, Brand Henry Warren looked up at them and scowled. “Where the hell have you been?”

* * *

Her next blog post would have to skirt the real issues, Nicki decided. What she wanted to write was:
Sex is great, you should try it, the end.
Instead, she wrote about wet suits and the importance of mastering the dead man’s float.

Her heart wasn’t in it. Would anyone notice? Who read this stuff, anyway? Fellow anxiety sufferers or just random bored people on the Internet? She didn’t allow comments on her page, for her own sanity—she didn’t need strangers to tell her she was nuts—but sometimes she thought she wasn’t helping anyone, just setting herself up as comic relief. A bad example to soothe the insecure.

While she typed the last word—which described the moment of triumph when she returned to the boat, not when the water pitcher fell to the floor and she took off her clothes—she heard the condo’s front door creak open and slam shut.

Finally. It was 9:43 p.m. Distracted by the thought of him, she’d been trying to write a single blog post for two hours.

He tapped on the door. “Nicki?”

Her lungs emptied and shut down.

“Nicki?”

Reboot. Inhale. “Yeah?” She tried to sound casually interrupted, not in the midst of erotically-charged cardiac arrest. “You can open the door.” Because God knew her legs weren’t ready to support her weight.

He peeked in. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“For disappearing all day. Diane had a bit of an emergency. Since she came all this way…”

“I figured.”

“Look, I was about to make a drink. Would you like one?”

The look on his face was grimmer than she’d ever seen him. She sat up taller. “Are you all right?”

“Not really,” he said.

She got off the bed, readjusting her satin robe. She was glad she’d gone shopping before her trip, otherwise she’d be wearing her dad’s forty-year-old college sweatshirt and her oldest pair of XL granny panties. “Diane?” she asked.

He leaned against the doorway and tilted his head back. “Yeah, that too.”

“Tell me about it while you make the drinks.”

He sighed. “Okay.”

In the kitchen, he got out a carton of juice from the fridge while she climbed on a stool across from him at the breakfast counter. The blender was already out, its lid off, sitting next to a bunch of speckled bananas. He got out other cans and bottles from the cupboards, two hurricane glasses, a box of paper umbrellas, and dumped ice and various liquids into the blender without measuring. He looked like a tourist’s favorite bartender.

“I just offered my room to Diane,” he said, right before he stabbed the blender on at the jet blast level.

Her worst fears surfaced like fart bubbles in a bathtub. When the blender stopped, she said, “Oh.”

“She lost her job.” He rubbed his face, eyes closed. “That’s really bad.”

“Yeah.” She’d used up what verbal skills she had that night on her writing.

“She won’t take it, though. She wants her own place. Even with Brand showing up and insisting on taking her second bedroom.”

“What?”

“My partner.”

“I know who he is. I mean, why is he here?”

“Brand Henry Warren has decided I’m incapable of making big manly business decisions without him holding my hand.” He poured the frothy drink into two glasses. “And he’s out for revenge.”

She accepted the glass he held out and tried to focus. “He’s that mad just because you don’t want the same building he wants?” He’d mentioned the properties when they’d driven back from Wailea.

“Not revenge on me. On Diane.” He unfurled a paper umbrella and impaled a small wedge of pineapple before dunking it in her glass.

After a sip, she admitted, “I’m confused.”
 

“He’s still bitter about a fling they flung a few years ago.”

“Ah.”

“He’s taking her second bedroom. She refused to take mine. So I left.”

“Maybe she wants him to be there,” Nicki said.

“I don’t think so. She was just too drunk to argue.” As he stirred his drink with a long spoon, his voice fell. “We’ll find out tomorrow when she sobers up.”

He looked unhappy again. She took a longer sip, wondering what to say. It was sweet, more of a smoothie than a drink. “Is there any alcohol in this?”

“Oh. No. Sorry.” He reached up into a cabinet and gazed up into it, his back to her. “What do you want?” His gray shirt pulled across his broad shoulders, making her hesitate for a moment.

She put her nose in her glass. “Whatever you’re having.”

“I’m having a virgin.” There was a pause. Grabbing a bottle of rum, he turned, smiling faintly, and leaned against the counter. “How about you?”

Shivers tickled her spine. “I’m fine.”

“Some people think they’re too sweet.”

The glass wasn’t nearly big enough to hide her face in. “Not always.”

Nodding, he put the pitcher in the sink. “Sadly true. They do have their own way of making you feel like crap the next morning.”

She gulped down a rich, frothy mouthful. “But you get over it.”

Another, longer pause. Staring at the counter, he took a drink and wiped the foam off of his lips with the back of his hand. “Not necessarily.”

Her glass made a loud noise when she dropped it on the counter. “Oh, please. You didn’t even recognize me.”
 

“You dyed your hair.” He pointed at her, serious now. “And you were wearing glasses.”

“What are you, Lois Lane? Suddenly a pair of glasses is an impenetrable disguise?”

His frown turned into a sheepish laugh. He took another drink. “Good one.”

“Thanks.”

His gaze dropped to the opening of her robe. “I’d be over there right now ravishing you, but I’m tired and pissed off, and I thought you’d be better off without me.”

“That’s not it. My hair’s down, so you didn’t know who I was.”

He laughed. Then they gazed at each other over the counter for a few hot seconds.

“I know who you are,” he said in a low voice.

She slid off the stool. “Took you long enough.” Then she took his hand and pulled him into her bedroom.

* * *

At 3:34 a.m., Ansel watched Nicki sleep, wishing he could do the same.

Diane was right: having a warm body next to him helped. But tonight, thinking about the woman who owned that warm body was keeping him awake.

He’d inherited insomnia from his maternal grandfather. His mom said it must’ve skipped a generation, since she and her sister never had any problems sleeping at any time whatsoever, but that their dad had always complained about sleeping troubles.

It wasn’t usually this bad. The last time Ansel had had this many bad nights in a row was in college. But it wasn’t getting bad grades that killed him then; it was giving up the partying. He’d given
that
up the night he’d almost slept with a girl—again—who was almost as drunk as he was. He’d left the fraternity a week later.

Mickey, he’d thought her name was.

He rubbed a strand of her hair between his fingers, tempted to wake her for more sex. Laughter. The sound of her voice.

Grandfather Jury hadn’t only been an insomniac. His mom didn’t like to talk about her childhood much, and with the arrogant optimism of his own happy existence, he hadn’t thought much about it until she told him one morning, when he was just eighteen, that he’d better be careful. “You take after him in some ways,” she’d told him. “Lots of good ways. But maybe not all good.”

She went on to say a lot of nice things about Grandpa’s intelligence and charm, but all he heard was the bad stuff. Even Ansel, with only photographs to go by, could see he was the spitting image of the old man—their build, the gray eyes. And this was the same man that, for as long as his mom could remember, had drunk himself to sleep. Every night. As her father got older, the nights and days became less distinct; family life deteriorated.