Page 240 of Hot Mess
Her blue eyes sparkled at me. “I like that idea. But how about instead, you take me to your favorite place on this island?”
“I can do that.”
She sipped her pineapple juice innocently. “I just hope it’s not Dylan’s bed.”
“Funny. I knew you had a sense of humor.”
She cocked an eyebrow at me. “I’m here, aren’t I?”
“Wow. She has a mean streak after all.”
Danica smiled. “Maybe just a small one.”
“Good,” I said. “I like it.”
* * *
After we ate, I took her up to the highest point on the island, where the bald rock face cut through the trees and gave the most epic views. We’d rode up on mountain bikes, taking the most gradual, forgiving trails through the woods, then parked at the bottom and hiked up the short walking trail worn into the rock.
Now we stood overlooking the whole island and the waters beyond, with nothing above us but miles of clear blue sky.
“This isgorgeous,” Danica exclaimed.
“I know.”
I turned to watch her. She was spinning in a slow circle, checking out the three-hundred-and-sixty-degree view of the island below us, mostly trees and a few rooftops scattered here and there… and the expanse of blue-gray waters, the bluish-green humps of the islands and the Coast Mountains on the mainland beyond.
“It’s so serene,” she said. “Do you come here a lot?”
“Whenever I can. It’s the best spot I’ve ever found to unplug. Do a lot of writing here, thinking, just plain relaxing. Soul searching. All that stuff. And it only took, what, ten minutes to get here from my house? Would’ve been faster if I was on my own.” I smirked at her, and she smiled back, rolling her eyes a little.
“Sorry. I really didn’t see that giant root. It came out of nowhere.”
She was referring to the tree root she’d hit with her bike at the wrong angle and taken a spill over, scraping her knee. We’d had to stop and I’d used the little kit I’d luckily thought to bring, just in case, to bandage her up. The scrape wasn’t deep, and luckily I was able to take care of it so we could keep going.
“No worries,” I said. “I liked playing hero.”
“I liked having you kiss my boo-boo. Tell the truth, though. Do you bring a first aid kit when you come up here with Dylan?”
“No. But I’d feel a lot worse if you got scarred for life. Dylan can take care of his own boo-boos.”
She smiled.
“Anyway,” I told her, “I usually come up here alone. I rarely ever run into anyone else, either. This is part of Dylan’s property, and a huge part of the reason I bought the house. I wanted this property myself, but honestly, I couldn’t afford it. So it was kinda my fault Dylan bought this land.”
She considered that. “He bought it because you wanted it? So you could come up here?”
“Well, technically, anyone could come up here. But yes, he bought it, partly, because I was so in love with it. That love kinda rubbed off, I guess. Now he’s here every chance he gets. Even sold off his house in L.A.. But there’s not exactly an armed gate on the property. People do come up here, sometimes. Fucking tourists, usually. You always know, because the locals will tell you, out of respect, if they come on your property, or leave you a gift or something. Tourists leave their fucking cigarette butts and food wrappers.”
“Here? That’s so… gross.”
“Yeah. Takes all kinds, right?”
Danica shook her head. “I really can’t understand anyone who would come to a place like this to enjoy the natural beauty and then… leave garbage.”
“Yeah. It happens, though. Just not often. The island has a tiny population and not much tourism. People who come here in the summer are usually here for the marina and the one little beach on the south end. So this is pretty much my private paradise.”
I took off my backpack and pulled out our water bottles, handing one to her. We drank deep, then I pulled out the flask of blackberry vodka. It was a home-brew, made by Jude’s girlfriend, Roni. She’d given it to me as a gift the night of my breakup party.
