Circle in the Sand (Oceanic Dreams #3) Read online

  “That’s what she—”

  “Don’t say it.” If Asher was anything, he was predictable. I learned a long time ago to be careful what I said around him. He found ways to make anything dirty. Anything.

  We kept moving behind the line of people. I glimpsed over at Asher to roll my eyes at him, again, and he gave me a bright smile. Okay, he was a little cute when he was being silly. I liked the way he lifted his brows to show he thought what he said was funny even if it wasn’t. I’d always been jealous of his eyelashes. Somehow he lucked out and had the sweeping dark eyelashes I always dreamed of having. I was convinced that was how he won over all the women he dated. Those damn eyelashes.

  “Are you doing okay?” Asher asked with a tap on my shoulder.

  “Why wouldn’t I be okay?” The check-in process seemed organized, but it was taking longer than I expected. I assumed we’d walk up the ramp and be onboard, but after fifteen minutes of baby steps forward, I started to lose my patience. Maybe it was obvious. “Are you okay?”

  His sculpted jaw loosened as a smile formed. “Yes, I’m okay. But you use the bathroom like every thirty seconds. Are you going to make it another five or ten minutes in line?”

  Okay. I did use the bathroom a lot. The older I got that would probably worsen. Charlotte often told me not to worry about turning thirty. I dreaded the changes in my body, imagining back pain and sore knees. Sure, thirty didn’t technically qualify as old, but I also knew I wasn’t going to be in my twenties anymore. My skin could start to sag. I’d gain weight in places I hadn’t before. I knew this was a reality, yet I resented Asher for making jokes about it.

  “I’ll survive.” My eyes were getting a workout with all the rolling they were doing.

  “Wow. By the time this cruise is done I’m not sure you’ll have eyes left. They may roll right out of your head.”

  How did he and I become friends? Oh, yes, we were forced together on a project in college. Even though I knew of him in high school and had a few encounters, I never took the time to get to know him. Once I did, and Charlotte did too, we found we all got along wonderfully, which made my statement all the weirder. “You’re such a jerk.”

  He didn’t deny it, but he also knew I didn’t mean it in a malicious way. It was just our relationship. Our friendship was one made up of banter. Though I worried about being alone with him this entire trip, our relationship seemed exactly the same even without Charlotte there. We’d joke with each other, about each other, with snide remarks every chance we had. “Look. We’re next in line.”

  The crew checked our passports and directed us onto the ship. A group of staff formed a half circle in the atrium directing people with questions. I could barely move as I took in the immense scene in front of me. A gorgeous double stairway was right in front of us, a breathtaking chandelier—gold from bottom to top—above. We stood on marble tile that sculpted Aphrodite and to the left I noticed an actual statue of the Greek goddess. Shops and restaurants outlined the perimeter, and as I looked up, I almost lost my balance with the sheer height of the floors above us.

  “Wow. This is incredible. Have you ever seen anything like it?”

  Asher shrugged. A typical male not recognizing beauty when he saw it. Maybe that’s why he moved through girlfriends like a checkout line at the convenience store.

  “What should we do first?”

  My heavy bag pulled on my shoulder. I wanted to put it somewhere and forget about it, save my shoulder so I could do yoga later.

  “Let’s check out our room.”

  I pointed to a young gentleman with dark hair who waved us over. “Welcome to the Oceanic Aphrodite. How can I assist you today?” I couldn’t place his thick accent, and I wasn’t going to try. I didn’t pride myself on geography, but I could tell you where to find that section in the library (the 900s).

  He gave us detailed instructions to our stateroom but advised against the elevator. “You’ll probably be waiting a while as people board and check everything out. You’re much better taking the stairs.”

  Asher smirked. “Are you sure you don’t want me to take your bag?”

  “Yes. Just because I’m a woman doesn’t mean I can’t carry my own bag.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  I ignored him and lifted my carry-on back up. The strap would probably be indented onto my shoulder by the time we got back to the room, but I didn’t care. I could handle my own bag.

  We used my keycard to enter, and when I swung the door open, the size threw me into shock. When Charlotte recommended a corner room because of the bigger size, I didn’t realize how big. The first thing my eyes moved toward were the French doors. Our room had French doors leading to a balcony outside. I could see the ocean from almost every angle in the room.

  “This is insane! I’ll stay here the entire time, thank you.” I jumped onto the bed, and my head sank into the pillows. This was heaven on Earth. “Charlotte had the right idea with this room. Wow.” I missed her and wished she’d been able to come. But she’d be with her brother, and that was amazing.

  “So you’re saying you’re taking the bed? I automatically win the sleeper sofa?”

  “It’s my birthday, so don’t I get to pick where I sleep?”

  “I’m just saying,” Asher started as he plopped down next to me, “this is a King-sized bed. There’s enough room for both of us.”

  Sleep in the same bed as Asher? Um, no. I’d share the bed with Charlotte but not Asher. We were friends, but that didn’t mean I’d be comfortable sleeping next to him.

  “Get off my bed,” I joked as I pushed him away. “Maybe if you’re lucky I’ll sleep on the sofa one night.”

  “Two.”

  “One. And again, don’t push it. That isn’t a guarantee.” I held my finger up to reiterate how much I meant it.

  “And don’t worry, Isla, I won’t peek when you change.”

  I shot up in the bed as if he had seen me naked. I hadn’t thought of that. The bathroom wasn’t super big and had enough room to change, if I didn’t mind stepping into the shower a bit. In all the years I’d known Asher, he’d never seen me naked, though I’d seen Charlotte a million times and she me. Would I peek if he changed in the main room? No. I couldn’t. That was an invasion of privacy.

  “Why are you here anyway?”

  “What do you mean?” Asher asked as he stepped over to the French doors and peered out them.

  “This is a singles cruise. You’re dating someone. Stacy. Savannah. Sara. Something like that.”

  “First of all, it’s not only a singles cruise. I didn’t sign up for any of those activities. Second, it’s your birthday, and you’re my friend. And last, and certainly least, it’s Samantha.” He turned around and leaned against the doorframe. “We broke up.”

  “Oh.” Five minutes into our vacation and I found a way to put my foot in my mouth. “I’m sorry.” Asher was there for me when I broke up with Tim, and even though we made fun of him for all of his hookups and breakups, both Charlotte and I offered shoulders to lean on if he needed it. I should have been more sensitive. As often as he traded girlfriends, I should have been privy to the drill.

  “It’s fine. Don’t worry about it. We broke up like four days ago.”

  “What happened?”

  “What happened? What always happens? I got too serious too fast and scared her off. And I may have accidentally pissed her off by calling her favorite aunt crazy.”

  “You did what?” I threw one of the many pillows on the bed at him. “That’s not very nice.”

  “Yeah. I know. But she is crazy. We went to her house, and she followed me around with hand sanitizer and disinfectant spray. Anything any of us touched she sprayed down and wiped. I couldn’t handle it. I mean, I completely understand not wanting to spread germs, but that was a little much.”

  I couldn’t help giggling. “Yes, I agree, and this is coming from someone who changes all the toilet paper in the library bathrooms to face the same way and
makes sure all my coffee mugs are evenly spaced.”

  Asher widened his eyes and judged me with them. I hadn’t noticed before how the green overshadowed the brown. “You’re just as bad.”

  “Am not!” Then I thought about it for a moment. “Okay, maybe I am.”

  “Don’t worry, though, I don’t plan on hooking up. I’m here for your birthday. I’ll focus on you.”

  “That’s very nice, Asher, but I plan on meeting a gentleman and having my way with him back in the cabin. We may need to come up with a way for you to know not to enter when I’m entertaining a gentleman.”

  Asher cocked his head and broke out into a laugh. I followed suit. That did sound pretty ridiculous coming from me. Charlotte wanted this for me, but I didn’t know if I wanted it for myself. I wasn’t her. I couldn’t have one-night stands. Could I?

  My phone dinged. A text from Charlotte, as though she knew she had entered my mind.

  My mom sent this to me. Thought you would want to know. I’m so sorry. A link followed. My finger hovered for a moment before I clicked it. What would she send me that she’d feel the need to apologize for?

  The article loaded onto the screen. The words blended together as I tried to make sense of them.

  “What is it, Isla? Is everything okay?”

  This time Asher wasn’t being a jerk. His voice showed genuine concern, as it should have as I sat down on the bed before I fell over from shock. I turned my phone screen off. I couldn’t even look at it.

  “Isla?”

  “It’s Tim.” I lifted my head and met my eyes with his. “He’s getting married.”

  My ex, Tim. The one who didn’t want to ever be married. The same man who broke it off with me because he didn’t think it was fair to stay with me if he never intended on walking down the aisle with me.

  It had been a lie. He did want to get married.

  Just not to me.

  Chapter Three

  “Screw him.” Asher took my phone out of my shaking hands and placed it on the table next to the bed. “Screw. Him. You’re way too good for that jerk.”

  “Am I?” I cocked my head to the side and didn’t even mind my sun-kissed hair blocking the view out of my left eye as it stuck against my wet cheeks. “We spent so many years together. In all that time he never wanted to marry me. Who knows how long he’s been with this girl?” I couldn’t remember her name from the engagement announcement, and I didn’t want to. I didn’t care. “It hasn’t even been a full year. He’s already marrying this woman.” More than likely, this was the woman I was sure he cheated on me with. He never admitted to infidelity, but I knew the truth. “Am I not marriage material?”

  “Marriage material.” Asher shook his head and put his heavy, tattooed arm around me. “I hate those words. Everyone is marriage material. It’s just a matter of if you’ve found the right person. You and Tim weren’t right for each other.”

  “We weren’t?”

  “No,” he scoffed. “I hated that guy.”

  “What?” I turned so his arm fell off me. He’d never shared this with me before. In all the years I’d been with Tim, not once did Asher suggest anything even close to this. The four of us hung out together all the time—me, Tim, Asher, and Charlotte. We went out every weekend, and at least a handful of times Asher spent time with Tim alone. “You never told me that.”

  “Why would I tell you that? I wanted to support you, even though deep down I thought he was a dick.”

  His bluntness took me by surprise, and I laughed at his choice of words. The tears that had escaped were starting to dry, and thankfully no new ones seemed to form. “Can I ask you something?”

  “Anything.” The tenderness in his voice comforted me, and somehow in that moment I realized he meant what he said. I could tell him anything.

  “How did you know Tim wasn’t right for me?” While part of me didn’t want the answer, the other part needed to know. I thought we fit together well, and we complemented each other quite nicely. We supported each other through everything. Sure, there were more circumstances where I found myself making sure life worked out well for him. I provided a hot dinner each night after work. When he traveled, I packed his bags and took him to the airport. I arrived early to the airport to pick him up so he didn’t have to wait. I loved him. And he loved me. At least I thought he did.

  “Easy. He didn’t make you laugh.”

  “Yes, he did.” What a ludicrous statement! Tim made me laugh all the time. I smiled when we were together. I mean, it wasn’t as though I was front row center at a Dane Cook show or something, but he made me laugh.

  “No, he didn’t. I rarely saw him make you laugh. In fact, not only did he not make you laugh, but when you tried to, he shut it down. When we all went out, you were quieter, more reserved, not the Isla I knew. I hated that he did that to you.”

  Did that to me? Asher suggested that Tim controlled how I thought and acted—and that I allowed it. No. That wasn’t me. I made my own decisions, and my mind belonged to me. I didn’t change who I was dependent upon who surrounded me. I laughed plenty and often.

  “I don’t think things were like that with Tim at all. I can’t think of one example.” I replayed eight years of our relationship in my mind, flipping through the years like the pages in a book. Not one situation jumped out at me where Tim dimmed my light. I’d never stand for that.

  “Do you remember that night at The Old Fashioned? The one when Charlotte tried to dance on the bar and fell off, crashing over a few stools?”

  “How can I forget?” I’d never seen Charlotte so drunk. It had been her twenty-fourth birthday, and different men kept buying her drinks. She picked a song from the jukebox and started dancing on the bar top. The bartender didn’t seem to care. He and Charlotte had probably slept together at least once. I could tell simply by the looks he gave her and how he kept topping off her drinks without her having to pay extra.

  “When she fell, and once we knew she was okay, we all laughed so hard.” She even broke one of the stools, which she somehow convinced the bartender not to make her pay for it.

  “That’s how you remember it?”

  “Yes, because that’s how it happened.” I pictured it clear as day. The more I thought about it I could even recall Charlotte’s clothes that day. I borrowed the entire outfit the next week.

  “Nope. Me and Charlotte laughed. In fact, Charlotte laughed so hard she peed her pants. You, on the other hand, started laughing, but Tim shut that down right away. He put his finger to his mouth to shush you.”

  “He did not.” Why did Asher think that happened? Maybe he’d had more to drink that night than he remembered. Charlotte tumbled off the bar like in slow motion, taking the stools with her. She crashed onto the ground, lifted herself up on her elbows, and broke in to hysterics. We all looked at each other, shrugged, and laughed with her.

  Asher kept looking at me, waiting for something. I didn’t want to burst his bubble, but he was insane. I laughed. A lot.

  Or maybe I didn’t. I vaguely recalled Tim urging me to leave after it happened, and him scolding me on the way home as if I had influenced her behavior or somehow was at fault. We left the bar so swiftly I didn’t even say goodbye. Neither of them said anything over breakfast the next day, so I didn’t think anything of it.

  I should have.

  “It’s coming back to you now, isn’t it?” Asher nodded his head as though he were answering for me.

  “A little. I mean, I laughed when I was with him. I know that. I guess when we were out together he liked to run the show, though.” I moved over to the chair near the balcony and slid down. “Huh. Why didn’t you say anything sooner?”

  “It wasn’t my place. Or Charlotte’s. Any time we hinted around to anything you told us how happy you were. Even though we didn’t necessarily believe it, we didn’t want to rain on your parade.”

  “Well, you should have. I wasted so much of my life with him and the past year trying to get over him.” Why had
n’t anyone pointed this out to me before? And Charlotte felt the same way? My closest friends should have told me this about Tim. Our breakup crushed me. I spent weeks crying over him, locking myself in the apartment, and binging romantic comedies with pint after pint of Ben & Jerry’s. I gained twelve pounds over the first three months after our breakup. Charlotte yanking me to hot yoga consistently for the months after helped shed the weight, but some of the pain still remained.

  “Wait. This is my fault for not telling you that your boyfriend was an A-List a-hole? How does this come down on me? You know that if I had said something, you would have accused me of being a jerk or jealous or something.” He stared me down as he made his point. “I wasn’t ever jealous. Ever.”

  Ouch. That stung. I got the point—he wasn’t jealous of Tim. He didn’t need to keep rubbing it in. We were friends anyway. I didn’t expect him to be jealous.

  It wasn’t fair of me to blame him and Charlotte, though. I determined my own happiness and only had myself to blame for sticking around in a stagnant relationship.

  “No. I’m sorry. I just”—I buried my face in my hands—“I can’t believe I’m only realizing this now. I mean, I understand why you kept it to yourself, both you and Charlotte, but I kind of wish you two would have told me so I could have seen it. I can’t get those years back.”

  “You and I are a lot alike, Isla.”

  “We are?”

  “Yes. When we fall in love, we’re blinded by it. Even if we had told you, you never would have believed us. I bet you would’ve hated us.”

  “I could never hate you two.”

  “Maybe not forever, but you would have for a while.” He cupped his hand around my knee and held it for a second too long. “Let’s put a pin in this. I don’t really want to spend our vacation talking about Tim, and I’m sure you don’t either. Put that announcement out of your mind and let’s check out this ship.”

  I nodded as I stood from the chair, promising myself I’d let myself enjoy the next week.