Abigail leans onto the bar toward me, and her eyes crinkle up with concern. “Girl, you are even mopier than usual. Which is disappointing, because for a little while there, you looked like you were finally having a little fun. Especially when you were dancing on the table with Paolo.”
“Yeah,” I grin. “That was fun. And I won the challenge. Got a phone number.”
“I saw,” she says. “The intervention looked like it went great. Until Angie and Fi ditched you.”
“Medical and booty emergency, in that order,” I admit.
Abigail laughs.
“It’s fine. I’m all good.”
“Then why all the sitting alone and staring at the ocean?”
“It’s what I do. Haven’t you noticed?”
Abigail spots somebody across the bar trying to get her attention.
“Be right back,” she says. And with a swish of her skirt, she’s gone.
I sit and stare above the bar where there are coconuts painted to look like monkeys. They’re cute. Some are smiling, some have thin, straight lines for mouths, and some of them look downright agitated.
They are painted in bright blues, oranges, greens and yellows and are lined up on a narrow shelf above the liquor bottles. And they are all staring back at me. It’s probably all the drinks from earlier, but the funniest idea pops into my head.
“Hey, baby,” I say, as I scan the painted coconut monkey faces. All of which, regardless of expression, appear to be significant upgrades to the last guy I dated. “Which one of you guys are free tonight?”
Laughing at my own joke, I then move even further into my self-pity psychosis by picturing all of them in my head jumping up and down shouting me, me! I decide that the fairest way to decide which one to choose is to randomly point at them and see which one speaks to me.
I point to the green and red smiling coconut monkey at the far left. “Nope.” I hear footsteps approach from somewhere behind me. It’s probably Abigail returning, but now I am engrossed in my own new game.
I sweep a finger to the next coconut, which is all red with white eyes and nose and a blue, frowning mouth. “Not you, either.”
Somebody pulls out a chair and sits down at the barstool next to me. I turn, still wearing a goofy smile, but the person sitting next to me isn’t Abigail.
It’s the grumpy, sexy guy I spilled a drink on earlier. Uh-oh.
Looking at him now only confirms my earlier impression of him. He is unbelievably sexy. To calm myself down I decide he’s probably wearing shoes. In beach sand. That is a big turnoff for me.
He turns his attention to where my finger is pointed. Then he stares with me at the coconut monkey faces. Hey, these coconut monkeys are taken. I was here first.
I can’t believe he’s right there next to me, with his handsome stubble and stupid suit, judging me about my coconut monkey boyfriends. Or even worse, trying to steal them away. Then I remember what is really bothering me about him. The shoes.
Well, is he wearing them or not? I have to know. It says something about a person. There are exactly two kinds of people in the world. People who go barefoot in the sand at the beach. Those are good, kind, and normal human beings. And the second kind.
Without a word, I push myself back from the bar slightly and tilt my head down to see what kind of footwear or lack thereof sexy suit guy is wearing. Yup, shoes. Ugh. I mean whew. Now I can blow him off easier. He’s a shoe-wearing tourist, Kaylee. Run away.
My body jumps into the conversation in my head and tries desperately to point out that my love life is currently in an awful rut and that he is unbelievably sexy. But only if I’m into shoe wearing tourists, I argue back. Which I’m not.
That’s when I realize he’s staring at me. Of course he is, I’m checking out his feet. I chuckle and turn back to the coconut monkeys.
That’s when he leans in and whispers, his hot breath on my cheek causing a heat to wash over me. “What exactly are you planning on doing to the coconut monkey when you choose one?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know,” I ask cheekily. With a wink. A wink. Are you kidding me? My body is such a traitor. Stop flirting with him.
Abigail comes back and re-takes her place at the bar. She’s doing her best to pretend like she’s not paying attention to what’s going on with me and suit guy and she’s failing miserably. I know that she’s clocking us and probably has been since he pulled up a chair.
Sexy suit guy rubs his stubbled chin with his hand. I notice that his hand doesn’t have a wedding ring tan line. Not that I’m interested, mind you. Checking for that kind of thing is a habit when you work at an exclusive beach front resort and get hit on a lot.
His expression melts into a delicious smirk that rises from the corner of his full lips. “I want to know what you plan to do with the coconut monkey, once you choose one. That’s why I asked.”
For whatever reason, he’s not acting like he’s still mad about the drink earlier. Did he forget? Or is he trying to be nice?
A quick glance in his direction confirms that he’s the same guy, since there are still yellow, sticky remnants of the drink on his white undershirt.
Suddenly I feel a little bad about earlier. And maybe if he doesn’t remember me from earlier, he should. That might make all of this a little easier. Maybe he’ll just walk away. “Hey, um, I’m sorry about bumping into you earlier. But I don’t date tourists,” I say flatly. That ought to send him running.
“No problem,” he answers. “And if you ask me, I like the green one that looks like it’s about to jump up and down,” he points at a coconut monkey
