“What?” I ask.
She turns her phone toward me, showing the picture I took on a hiking trail. I’m shirtless, sweaty, and possibly flexing just a little.
“This is totally a thirst-trap picture.”
“What’s a thirst trap? And how would you know?”
“I’m the queen of thirst-trap pictures—well, respectable ones—because my parents do follow me after all. A thirst trap is supposed to entice people sexually . . . you know, a flash of a leg here and there or, in your case, a shirtless picture showing off your endless abs.”
“They’re not endless,” I say, feeling myself blush.
“Well, you have shorts on, so I can’t really see where they end.” She gives me a coy grin, and I swear I can feel the back of my ears heat up. “But either way, this picture is a total thirst trap, and I’m here for it. And this looks way better than Watchful Wanderers’ terrible Instagram.” She rolls her eyes at that comment. “You should post more of them.”
“For whom? My sister? Pretty sure I have five followers. Six if you just followed me.”
“You have two hundred and seventy-four.”
“What?” I ask, shocked. “That’s . . . a lot. I don’t even think I know that many people.”
“That’s what happens when you post a thirst trap.”
“All right, all right, enough with the shirtless picture—I want to know what happened in Greece.”
“Oh, right.” She sets her phone down. “So, I took some scenic pictures with a wineglass, you know, the typical IG shots, and then I was preparing a video of me eating some of their most popular dishes. The owner was so horrified that I was going to eat in such a pretty dress that she begged me to wear a bib.”
“A bib?” I say, my eyes widening. “Like . . . a baby’s bib?”
“She had these fancy ones—it wasn’t like a Mickey Mouse ABC bib. So I figured, why not—it would be a good way to show off my silly side—so I put the bib on. I did the entire video with it on, ate some of the most delicious food of my life, and drank the evening away.”
“Sounds like the perfect night.”
“It was, until I took the bib off.”
“Uh-oh, did you stain your dress?” I flip the toast on the griddle.
“I wish,” she scoffs. “I went to take off the bib, and when I was undoing it, I was unaware—thank you, wine—that I’d undone the top of my dress as well, and because the dress was low cut in the back, I was braless . . .”
“Oh shit,” I say, putting down the last slice.
“Oh yes, the owners got more than a thank-you from me. They got an entire show, and the worst part? I was just drunk enough that I didn’t notice until I went to shake the horrified owner’s hand, and she told me that my breasts were pointing straight at her.”
I laugh out loud, my chest rumbling with laughter. “That’s freaking amazing. Did you cover up quickly?”
“You would think, but instead, because of wine—once again—I said in America, we thank each other with a tit to tit.”
“Please . . . please tell me what that is.” I can’t hold back my smile. “And please tell me you did it with the owner.”
“I attempted to. Like the wino that I am, I lifted my naked breast and tried to ‘high five’ it with the owner’s. She was so shocked she shielded her breasts and told me to get out.” She taps her chin. “Hmm, now that I think about it, I’ve gotten into a predicament or two thanks to wine.” She lifts her cast up in the air. “This being one of them.”
“Makes for a good story, though—which, by the way . . . did you come up with a good story to tell people about how you hurt your arm?”
“Well, since I don’t ever talk to anyone, no, I haven’t.”
“You haven’t met up with any of your old friends since being here?” I ask, flipping the french toast over. Golden brown, perfect.
“Don’t have many friends here. Ever since the fire, I really haven’t stayed connected with anyone.”
“And here I thought it was just me that you weren’t talking to,” I tease, but the joke falls flat.
“It was too hard,” she says quietly.
“I was kidding, Palmer. And you know . . . we really weren’t that close.”
“I guess we weren’t.” Her eyes meet mine. “I still don’t understand what you were doing there that night.”
“I guess right place at the right time,” I say, trying not to remember that horrific night—Palmer in the midst of flames, searching for a way out as she crawled across the floor of Watchful Wanderers.
“You weren’t there for the party,” she says, shocking me, since we’ve never talked about what happened. “Were you?”
I shake my head. “No, I was going for a walk, trying to clear my head. I saw the party and, I don’t know, I thought I would see what was going on. Like I said, right place, right time.” I pause. “Do your parents know that the party was your plan?”
She shakes her head. “No one knows. They still think it was a bunch of rowdy teenagers, breaking in and causing trouble. They don’t know it was all my doing, that I almost burned down their business.” She looks off to the side. “I almost destroyed everything my dad worked for. It took Ford and my dad a long time to bounce back from what happened.” Tears well up in her eyes. “I haven’t talked about it with anyone . . . ever.”
“It’s not good to hold things like that in, Palmer.”
She shakes her head. “There’s no way I could tell them. Ford would never talk to me again. I think my dad would disown me. They don’t know the truth, and I plan on keeping it that way.”
“Is that why you fled? Why you left Marina Island?”
“Yes,” she answers. “I never had any serious intention of traveling around the world, despite what I told my family. But I was too nervous to go back home, to face the reality of what I did. So, I put on a facade in front of them—I was just too horrified to let them know the truth.”
“And what was the truth?” I ask.
“I almost took away their livelihood, Beau. I couldn’t be around the store and look at what I’d jeopardized day in and day out. I needed to escape the guilt. And I wanted to punish myself in a way, pay a penance by distancing myself, but also be someone other than the family screwup. My parents always said to pave your own path. And that’s what I set out to do, not just to prove to them that I could do it, but to prove it to myself.”
“I can understand that.”
“It’s not like my choices affected anyone else, though. The store thrived, my family lived on, and I . . . well, I grew more and more lost.”
She looks down, and I realize we’ve reached an incredibly heavy part of our conversation, so I decide not to dive too deep. It’s obvious her mind is reeling, and the last thing I want to do is make her feel worse. She came here for solace, and that’s what I’m going to give her.
“Well . . . we missed you around here,” I say, taking the toast off the griddle and putting it on a plate for her. “Maple or regular syrup?”