Roatan Plunge | Love Travels #2

Six - Óscar

We make it to West End, but all I can think about is the woman's brown hair clinging in clumps to her face and her neck and her shoulders. Marcia rushes me through the rest of our day, trying to convince me to take this meeting or accept that sponsorship, but I focus on the woman's piercing eyes and the sound of the waves washing up on the shore.

In my current state, I really shouldn't be answering Marcia's questions, because I have no idea what I'm agreeing to. But if I don't, she'll notice something is up and make me take my focus off the woman at the Corona Cabana. What was so interesting about her? What had possessed me to dive off a wharf to chase her down?

I try to convince myself it's because she can't swim. Or that she is afraid of the ocean. And I try to convince myself it had nothing to do with her laugh or her light. But a part of me knows I'm lying. All of me knows I'm lying. I hadn't known any of those things before I jumped in after her. It's like a foreign entity took over my body.

"And I still need you cleared by a doctor," Marcia sighs as she pulls me away from another crowd of fans. "¿Qué estabas pensando? I cannot believe you risked your career for her and won't tell me who she is to you."

Because if I tell you she's no one, prima, you will absolutely blow your top.

"I will figure it out eventually–ya tú sabes. You don't pay me enough to stop me from digging into that."

"Más te vale. I would expect nothing less. But for now let's get through this day. We have to be back to Sunset Bay before seven for Enrique and Bianca's rehearsal dinner. The family are all coming in today and I'm already going to get reamed out for not being there to greet them."

The smell of a charcoal barbeque grilling chicken wafts out of the bright yellow and blue restaurant as we pass, and my mouth waters. The window to take orders is crowded three rows thick with would-be customers, but I slow almost to a stop. It would be so worth it. The outside is just as I remember it except there is a new oceanscape painted on the side of the patio and the roof has been newly covered with dry palm leaves held in place by the fishing net that's seen better days.

Marcia stops dead in her tracks. "No," she whispers, staring down at her phone.

I pull her away from the crowd under a small patch of almond trees and make her sit on a nearby log. Even sitting down, her face is pale and clammy. My nerves are shot after this morning and I have no idea what to do. "¿Qué pasa? Marcia, do you need a doctor?"

She blinks a couple times and then hands me her phone, pulling open her purse and rifling around.

I keep one hand on her shoulder to make sure she's stable and then look down at the screen, currently open to a text message from her jerk of a boyfriend, Abel. The first line is some stupid update about his being promoted. Vomit. But the second...

"He's coming?"

She nods.

"To Bianca and Enrique's wedding?"

She nods again, head still buried in her purse. Finally, she comes up with a piece of candy she must have been looking for because she pops it in her mouth and then gestures to the phone. "Hay más. Keep reading."

He hopes coming to the wedding as she wanted would make up for the fact that he... I didn't know it was possible to see red until this moment.

"He stole your personal computer, found the information for Sergio and then hired your favourite employee from under your nose and thinks one day at a wedding will make up for that?"

"¿De veras? That's what you're mad about?"

"Is that not what I should be mad about? Marcia, he's always doing stuff like this. Siempre. And I leave it alone because you have a right to decide who you date but look, this is too far. He hacked your phone. He stole from you. And now he expects to come here and be your date to a wedding? Dime, how can you not be mad about that?"