His eyes sparkle, not the sparkle of sunlight over water or stars scattering the sky. There is nothing gentle or inviting in the look he gives me. It’s closer to flint sparking steel in the seconds before flame.
“You’re telling me writing our sex scene made you feel how, exactly?” he inquires. “I’m quite curious.”
I hold my head high. “My point is,” I say hotly, “it doesn’t mean anything.”
Nathan laughs. He steps backward up the stairs. “Work hard on that theory?” he asks. “I hope it helps you sleep tonight. You can tell yourself whatever story you want, Katrina. You’re a writer.” His mirth is dry, devoid of generosity or good nature. Spinning on his heel, he continues up the steps, footfalls heavy on the hardwood.
I slump back on the couch, feeling defeated. I’d meant my apology to Nathan genuinely, no matter the stiff unpleasantness of some of our exchanges since the café. His rejection hurts in ways I don’t want to acknowledge, not when they so obviously reveal how uncomfortable I am with everything spoiled between us. What’s more, he’s grabbed the shield I’ve used to fend off questions I’m tired of confronting—like where exactly my decision to lean over the table had come from—and thrown it into the ocean.
No, I think to myself. I won’t give him that satisfaction. I shove my bookmark carelessly into the pages of the book I wasn’t reading. Upstairs, I hear the hiss of Nathan’s shower. When the images come to my mind of him undressing, stepping into the steam, I let them. I don’t care if he smirks or plies me with glib questions. I’m right. This is only the fevered product of our writing. Transference.
It’ll fade.
31
Nathan
• FOUR YEARS EARLIER •
It’s seven in the morning. I’m sitting grumpily on one of the striped towels we found in the house, squinting out over the ocean. Katrina’s next to me, putting on sunscreen. It’s humid—muggy, really—threatening the thunderstorms predicted for today. The beach, unsurprisingly, is empty.
My cowriter, having read the weather report, dragged me out of bed at five minutes to six, insisting we spend some time in the water before we’re cooped up indoors. I’m sandy wherever I even glancingly touched the beach—the tops of my feet, the edges of my hands. It’s everywhere. I don’t want to be here, under the clouds folding their ominous blanket over the sun. Even though it’s Sunday, I want to be in the house, writing.
We’ve spent the past two days on the same scene without any forward movement. The lack of progress frustrates me. I don’t just dislike writer’s block—I don’t believe in it. Writer’s block is nothing but the point where you’ve forgotten what your characters really want. The solution isn’t sitting on the Florida sand in the wet early morning, it’s getting back to work.
Something cold and slimy hits my shoulder, interrupting my rumination. When I look up, I find Katrina standing over me in her black one-piece, holding the sunscreen, which she just squeezed onto me.
Ruefully, I rub it in.
“Seriously? Moping while you’re here?” She spins playfully, throwing her arms out with enthusiasm. Stray curls of her hair flutter over her face. “With one of your favorite people,” she adds.
“I’m not moping,” I reply. “I’m brooding. It’s entirely different.”
Katrina laughs, her nose scrunching up in delight. Then she plasters on fake sympathy. “Right. So sorry,” she says.
Part of me wants to laugh with her, just a little. Instead, I push us stubbornly into the conversation I want to have. “What if we move the dinner scene. Maybe that’s the problem. It would take weeks of rewriting, but—”
Katrina tosses the sunscreen into my lap. “Nope,” she says. “I’m not discussing work with you today. Today, you’re not my writing partner, you’re . . .”
Her hanging fragment is enough to pull my focus from our scene. I don’t know how she’s going to finish the sentence. What are we to each other if not writing partners? Our creative collaboration is where our relationship began. We weren’t even friends first. I search her face for clues, reading nothing in the gaze she’s fixed somewhere past me.
“You’re the guy I’m at the beach with,” she finishes, smiling. I register my split second of disappointment before she continues. “Don’t make me replace you.”
Frowning, I gesture to the open sand. “Katrina, there’s nobody here to replace me. Because it’s seven in the morning, and it’s about to rain.”
Cocking her hip, Katrina pouts. Unhesitatingly, she reaches her hand out for me. “Then I guess I’ll have to go in the water with you.” Now I do smile, if only slightly. Taking her hand, I stand. Our palms touch for hardly long enough for me to notice the feel of her skin before she releases me. The contact is nothing. It’s empty, like clicking the stovetop burner without the gas on. “Besides,” she says, “maybe inspiration will strike.”
“Hopefully before the lightning.”
She rolls her eyes. Without warning, she’s off, running down the sand and into the water, where she submerges fully. When she comes up, her hair is slicked down her neck.
I’m pulled forward, following the small semicircles her footsteps have left on the wet sand. I walk in slowly, the sea surrounding my feet in cooling contrast to the morning. It’s refreshing. I stride in farther, the salty tide rising up my chest while I continue out to Katrina.
She floats on her back, her flat stomach rising and falling while she breathes. Water beads on her eyelashes. “When we first met,” she muses quietly, “did you ever imagine we’d be here?”
Knowing there will be no quiet contemplation while Katrina is determined to leave the book behind for the day, I dunk my head. The shock to my system is invigorating. I come up, exhaling hard and pushing my hair up my forehead.
“Yes,” I say.
She lifts her head from the water to look at me. Even in the cloudy sun, the flecks in her brown eyes sparkle. “Really?” She’s curious to the point of incredulity. “The first night we walked home from dinner, you imagined writing a novel with me in Florida?”
I lift my feet off the soft ocean floor, floating the way she just was. Thinking back to the first days I knew her, I remember going for coffee and coming up with what would become our debut novel. It was seamless. Katrina said something offhand, I suggested it could be a premise and embellished it, she twisted it once more, and I knew we had something. Not just the idea—I knew we had something.
“I didn’t envision Florida specifically,” I say. “But everything else, yeah. It’s why I pursued you so tirelessly.” I don’t hide from the gravity of what I’m saying. Our relationship is strong enough for honesty. “I could see everything we’d have together. Everything we don’t have yet, too. We will.”