I sighed, then tossed the one piece into the suitcase. I wouldn"t be comfortable in the bikini. I didn"t even know why I bought it. Sure, I"d look like a prude, but let"s face it, I was the prude of the group. Everyone else who worked in the branch of my office was either already married, many with kids to prove that they had more s.e.x than I did, or still single and living it up in bars on Friday nights.
G.o.d, cheer up Caroline. You"re going to Hawaii, it"s not like this is a ch.o.r.e I scolded myself as I moved onto figuring out how many pairs of socks this trip was going to require.
In all honesty, I was really looking forward to this trip. It had all started three months earlier, when the company I worked for, Alistair Investments, put forth a contest. The branch which brought in the most new business in June would win an all expenses paid vacation to Hawaii for a week in August at a luxury resort.
I didn"t really have all that much to do with winning the contest. I worked as a financial a.n.a.lyst, which is a pretty fancy way of saying I"m a glorified accountant. I look at numbers, and I decide if those numbers are likely to go up or down. I have an office in the back of the building, where I confer with my fellow a.n.a.lysts, but we"re not the ones who go out and find new clients for the branch. We don"t bring in the new money, we keep the money that the sales staff bring us loyal.
Luckily for me, however, our sales staff was second to none, and we blew away the rest of the compet.i.tion for the duration of the contest. That"s how I managed to get a free vacation to Hawaii without really needing to do anything for it. Whatever. I worked really hard to get where I was, and I was going to enjoy this little treat, even if I didn"t really earn it per se.
My best friend, one of the salespeople in question, Lisa, always told me I should be appreciative.
"You never take any breaks, Caroline. You work like a madwoman. You don"t have boyfriends, you don"t really go out and party with people, you need an outlet to let off some steam every once in a while."
"Yeah, well, I still feel like a cheater going on this vacation I didn"t earn. I mean, you did like, half the sales for our branch for the quarter."
"I did, but whatever. We knew from the start that everyone in the branch would get to go. It"s not like you"re cheating your way in or something. Come on, Caroline. Have some fun, let loose. It"s Hawaii, all expenses paid! I went there with Rob for our honeymoon and we spent a ridiculous amount of cash, this is a once-in-a-lifetime kind of trip."
"I guess so," I replied, succ.u.mbing to Lisa"s positive energy. I wished I could be like her. Lisa was so strong, so confident. She had grown up in the suburbs here, her father was a former athlete who had almost gone pro until a knee injury ended his career before it had even started. He bought a coffee shop in town and ran that, while Lisa"s mom taught kindergarten at the local elementary school. Lisa basically had the perfect upbringing I had dreamed of having.
She visited her parents every Sunday. On the other hand, I had basically escaped from mine and spent most of my time trying to make sure I couldn"t be found.
I never knew my father, he left my mother before I was born. But I had the kind of overbearing mother that never lived the kind of life they wanted to, and so took it out on their kids. Unfortunately, since I was the only one she had, one hundred percent of that energy turned into making sure I was the perfect child, that I lived the figure skating dream my mother had hoped for herself.
Twenty two years after she put me in my first pair of figure skates, and it had been eight years since I had worn a pair. I was twenty four now. A woman in my own right. I had escaped the clutches of my mother"s fingers, I had gotten away from the life she wanted for me, and I had carved out the life I wanted for myself. When I got to my late teens I realized I was never going to be a professional figure skater. I was pretty good, absolutely, but I didn"t have the natural talent required to really make the national team. I was lanky, I was a little bit awkward, and while I absolutely had the work ethic, I realized it just wasn"t going to happen. If only my mother had accepted that.
Unfortunately, wounds to the soul don"t heal nearly as quickly as wounds to the body. I was thankful for Lisa; she was my only friend, really. I had a hard time trusting people. Most people would ask about my past, want to know everything when I told them about how I used to figure skate. Not Lisa. She never asked. She realized immediately it was a touchy subject and never brought it up again. We didn"t speak about anything that happened before we met.
It"s also part of the reason why I never had boyfriends. I mean, I wasn"t a virgin. But I never allowed myself to get close to someone. We would go on a couple of dates, it"d be fun, maybe I"d even invite him over for the night, but eventually, he always got too close. He always wanted to know, to really discover me, and the thought of it terrified me. I always ended up pushing men away. My last boyfriend was even worse than that, and that"s when I gave up on romance. It wasn"t for me. I would live out my days a single woman. Career-oriented, they would call me, and I was happy with that.
I forced the thoughts out of my head. I wasn"t going to dwell on the past. I was my own woman now. I had gotten good grades in high school, gone to college, graduated, and now found a great job that paid pretty well and was now treating me with a week in Hawaii. Right now, I didn"t have a lot to complain about when it came to my life.
Twenty minutes later I was done packing. As I climbed into bed, my suitcase on the floor, ready to go the following afternoon, I was getting excited.
Travel had never really been the sort of thing I"d been able to do in my life. I mean, that"s not strictly true. Growing up I"d gone all over the country taking part in figure skating compet.i.tions. But driving around the northern part of America with my mom in a van, sleeping in the back seat, sometimes getting a hotel room, wasn"t exactly what I called "travelling". Usually I never saw more than the arena and maybe one major landmark wherever we went.
After I broke away from my mother"s clutches, I was on my own. When I went to college, I had to pay for everything myself. My two part time jobs paid for my food, and some of my rent, but not much else. I lived off student loans, and still had about $20,000 worth to pay off. I had decided when I finally paid them off and saved some money I would go travel around Europe for two months, but that was a long way off. This was going to be the first time I"d ever been on a plane. The first time I was ever going to be somewhere tropical.
I met up with Lisa and the rest of the staff from our office at the Minneapolis airport the next day. I grinned at her as I came up with my suitcase, all of us waiting for our manager, Tom, to come over and organize check in.
"Hey," I told Lisa as I went up to her. "Excited?"
"Oh my G.o.d, yes. You have no idea how jealous Rob is of me right now. It"s amazing. I can"t believe this is actually happening. I love Hawaii so much, and I know you will too."
"Yeah, I"m definitely getting excited, the closer we get to it."
We didn"t have a chance to say any more as at that moment Tom came up and organized us all. He"d checked us all in online before, handed out boarding pa.s.ses, and we all lined up to check in our luggage.
"So I was looking up the place we"re staying at online the other day," Lisa started as we waited our turn to drop off our luggage. "It"s basically the most amazing place ever. Every room has a view of either Diamond Head, or the beach. We"re right in the middle of Waikiki, where all the action is."
"This is probably a really dumb question, but what do you do in Hawaii? Like, do you just sit by the pool and drink mai tais, or do you go out and spend the day in the ocean, surfing, or what?"
"Well you can do whatever you want. The resort we"re staying at can organize basically any trip you want. You know what? I"m going to take you snorkelling. We basically take a boat out, they take us to bays that are filled with coral, tropical fish, turtles, octopi, and more. It"s totally amazing, I guarantee you it"s something you"ll never forget."
"That sounds awesome! I"m also going to learn how to surf, I think. It"s just one of those things that I don"t think I should go to Hawaii without taking a surfing lesson, even if I"ll be totally awful at it."
"Definitely. I agree. You should do that, while I sit on the beach and drink. Apart from that, basically just relax. There"s a ton of shopping you can do, or just lounge by the pool and have s.e.xy men bring you drinks. It"s awesome. You"re going to love Hawaii."
We dropped off our bags and went through security. Lisa showed me how everything worked, and I"m pretty sure I made it through without looking like the lone idiot who had never been on a plane before.
"Ok, we"re at gate 17. Let"s go find a seat now, or we"re never going to get one at all. We"re boarding in like, twenty minutes, so it shouldn"t be too long."
When we got to gate 17 there was an airplane already there, its enormous nose pointing straight at me as I stared at it out the window.
"Is that what we"re flying in?" I asked Lisa. It was enormous! I had never really actually seen a plane close up before. I knew they were big, but this was way bigger than I had thought.
"Yeah, it is. They"re just cleaning it up now before letting us in."
"Holy s.h.i.t, that"s huge."
"Not really, it"s just a normal sized plane," Lisa said, laughing. "I always forget you"ve never flown before, but yeah, this is basically the type of plane you"ll take anywhere in the country."
"Wow." I stared at it for a while after sitting down next to Lisa as we found a couple of chairs. Don and Karen, the receptionist and another salesman from our office, sat down across from us and we chatted for a while until we were finally called onto the flight.
I was a little bit apprehensive at first, and when the engines roared to life I genuinely thought I was going to die, but the plane took off, my stomach plummeted inside my body, and we were in the air. It was all pretty uneventful after that, and seven hours later we found ourselves landing in Honolulu.
Tom had organized for a shuttle from the resort to come and pick us up. We climbed into the seats, and I admired my new lei and enjoyed the heat. It was night time now, just after eight, but it was still very, very warm. Definitely nicer than the weather in Minneapolis, that was for sure.
When we got to the resort, an efficient looking blonde woman came out to greet us.
"Aloha, I"m Sandra. Welcome to the Hibiscus Resort Waikiki. We"ve got your rooms all organized, I"ll call out your names and please come and get your keys. The pool is on the third floor, with a perfect view over the ocean. It"s open 24 hours, and you"ll need your key to access it. The gym is on the top floor, and you"ll need your key to access it as well. For anyone who wants to organize excursions either through or outside of the resort, please feel free to come over here to the concierge desk, where we"ll be happy to book whatever you desire."
Exhausted, Lisa and I went up to our room. We shared two queen beds, overlooking the sea.
"Oh my G.o.d, Lisa, I can"t believe it!" I exclaimed as we entered the room. It was pure luxury. A huge flatscreen TV against one wall, a kitchenette with a dining table on the other side of the room and a comfortable looking, modern couch made up the living area. To the side was the bedroom, with two queen size beds, and a marble bathroom that looked like it came out of the movies.
"I feel like we"re in a magazine," Lisa exclaimed as she looked around the room with me.
"Just think, this is where we"re going to be staying for the next week. This is amazing!" I exclaimed.
"Yeah, it is."
About fifteen minutes later our excitement wore off and exhaustion set in. We crawled into the incredibly comfortable beds and went to sleep. As I drifted off, I thought to myself that this was going to be the greatest week ever. Little did I know how right I was, and that it was also going to change my life.
For the next three days Lisa, myself, and occasionally some of the other staff from our branch hung out and relaxed in Hawaii in style. Lisa, as promised, booked a snorkelling tour, where we went to a place called Turtle Bay in a wonderful, modern catamaran. Sure enough, I saw dozens of sea turtles, and even an octopus, to my complete and total amazement. It was absolutely awesome.
On the fourth day, Lisa and I were going to leave the resort and go find somewhere nice to eat along the main strip. We were just leaving the hotel when I realized I"d left my sungla.s.ses in my room.
"c.r.a.p. Can you wait for me in the lobby? It"s so bright out I don"t think I"ll be able to see anything if I don"t take my sungla.s.ses."
"Yeah, sure," Lisa replied, and I made my way back to the elevator. I was racking my brain trying to remember where I had put the sungla.s.ses, so much so that I didn"t notice the man coming out of the elevators when the doors opened, and I barrelled straight into him.
"Oh my G.o.d, I"m so sorry!" I exclaimed, embarra.s.sed.
"No, no, it was my fault. I apologize," the man replied, grabbing my shoulders gently to steady me. His touch was strong, confident, and it sent a surge of electricity running through me. I looked up at the man, and my breath caught in my throat.
Looking down at me was the most gorgeous man I"d ever seen in my life. High cheekbones, a day"s worth of dark brown stubble, hair that seemed to practically flow from his head in a polo shirt and jeans that looked formal somehow, here in Hawaii. I grabbed his arm to steady myself, the hard muscles of his biceps bulging against my skin.
For the first time in my life, I found myself completely speechless. I wanted to say something, anything, but no words were coming out of my mouth. I was completely captivated, taken in by the man"s glistening blue eyes, like the deep waters here on the Hawaiian coast.
"Are you alright?" he asked me, his voice kind, but deep.
"Yes. Yes, I"m fine. Thank you," I stammered, feeling like an idiot. The man smiled at me and I melted into a pool on the elevator floor.
"Perfect. Sorry about that once more," he told me, leaving the elevator. I watched as the man walked away and the doors closed behind me. As the elevator slid smoothly up to the 12th floor I had completely forgotten what I even came up here for. I couldn"t think about anything except that guy.
Oh my G.o.d, what is wrong with you? He"s just some guy. I scolded myself, trying to stop thinking about him. This wasn"t the sort of thing I did. I hadn"t had a boyfriend in ages, h.e.l.l, I hadn"t slept with anyone in ages. After all, my last relationship had ended so badly I"d sworn off men forever. Maybe this is all this was. Maybe my libido was just in overdrive, desperate for something, anything.
I could feel my s.e.x pulsating underneath the light sundress I wore. I decided to change my panties quickly when I got to my room, the ones I was wearing were completely soaked. Look at you. You"re like a desperate old divorcee or something, collapsing at the mere sight of a man paying you the slightest bit of attention. He was just making sure you were fine, it"s not like he was trying to sleep with you.
Still, no matter how much I tried, I couldn"t get the thought of that stranger out of my head. He was so beautiful, so masculine, so perfect.
"What took you so long?" Lisa asked when I finally met her back down in the lobby.
"Sorry. I didn"t mean to." I told her about the man in the elevator.
"Wow, Caroline, you should totally have asked him out."
"Why? First of all, I looked like a huge idiot, plowing into him like that. Second, I don"t even know where he"s from. He"s definitely not from Minneapolis. So like, what"s the point? I wouldn"t ever see him after we went home? Third, I don"t want a boyfriend. I"m perfectly happy being single forever."
"Ugh, you"re so naive sometimes. This is what the one night stand from heaven is made of. s.e.xy guy, Hawaii, super expensive resort. Get him to buy you some nice dinners, sleep with him, have the time of your life, then go back home to your regular job."
I laughed at Lisa"s ideas of how the world worked. Maybe that was how her world worked, at least before she met Rob, anyway. But that wasn"t for me.
"Not a chance, Lisa."
She shrugged. "Fine, your loss. Let"s get going, anyway. I want to get some good seats somewhere so we can hang out and drink until the sun sets."
As Lisa and I drank drinks with little umbrellas in them against the beach, relaxing, chatting about anything, I kept finding my thoughts drifting back to that stranger in the elevator. I couldn"t help myself, and I had no idea why. This wasn"t like me at all.
"Did you say you were going to go surfing in a couple of days?" Lisa asked eventually.
"Yeah. I think I"ll do it the day after tomorrow. Why, are you thinking of joining me?"
"No, I don"t want a shark to mistake me for a turtle and try to eat me."
I laughed. "I don"t think we"re going to be going in deep enough waters for a shark to be able to sneak up on us, not in a beginner lesson."
"Still, I don"t trust it. I"m sure I"m just going to end up on my a.s.s. I"m not really the athletic type."
No, that was true. Lisa had never shown any interest in any real sports. Her idea of athletics was sitting on the sidelines watching other people, mainly Rob, play soccer or touch football.
"Fine, if you"re going to make me go learn how to surf by myself."
"I definitely am. I"ll sit on the beach and watch you make an idiot of yourself at the most. What company are you going with?"
"I don"t know, I was just going to go with the recommendation from the concierge."
"Well, let me know, and I might just come and watch you."
"How about you, what are your plans for the last few days of this awesome vacation?"
"I don"t have any yet. I"m just going to relax, go with the flow, you know, that sort of thing."
Lisa and I didn"t leave the restaurant until after the sun had well and truly set. We listened to the soft sound of the waves lapping against the sh.o.r.e, music wafting over to us from not only our restaurant but the others along the strip, the sounds of happy people celebrating their vacations here in Hawaii all around us.
We went back to the resort, back to our rooms. I lay down in bed and flicked on the TV. I found that I enjoyed watching the local Hawaiian news at night, it made me feel like I was really here, like I was truly experiencing Hawaii.
While Lisa had a shower, I watched the screen, but the words weren"t clicking through my brain. No matter what I did to try and forget him, that stranger kept coming back into my head.
Those beautiful blue eyes, the hard muscles of his arms, that perfect amount of stubble... it was more than I could take. Every time I closed my eyes I could see him. I wanted to see him again. That smile... No. I couldn"t have these thoughts. Surely it was just because I was drunk. Maybe I"d had one or two mai tais too many while I was out with Lisa. The alcohol had obviously just gone to my head. In the morning, I"d be fine.
Sure enough, the next day I was back to normal. I thought about the guy once or twice, but for the most part, I had moved on. After all, I was never going to see him again. What was the point of pining after a stranger, someone I didn"t even know?
Lisa and I went out for breakfast then spent the day hanging out by the pool, lounging in the sun.
"This is basically the perfect life," she told me, and I nodded.
"Sure is. When I found out we were going to Hawaii, this was exactly what I had been expecting."
The next morning I got up and got ready for my surfing lesson. It wasn"t with the hotel directly, but was with a company the resort partnered with. Based out of Ala Moana beach, the resort offered a shuttle, but seeing as it was only a twenty minute walk, I decided I"d take the fresh air route. Waikiki in the mornings was nice. The heat of the day hadn"t set in yet, and I loved the feeling of the fresh ocean air on my face. We didn"t get a lot of it in Minneapolis.
I found the shack with the company name on it I was looking for, with the perfect stereotypical surfer waiting out the front for us: wearing a short wetsuit, his shoulder length blonde hair still damp with the odd drop of water dripping and disappearing into the black fabric of his suit. I went up to him, and introduced myself.
"Hi. I"m Caroline, I think I"m signed up for a beginner"s lesson with you today," I started shyly.
"Aloha, Caroline. I"m Stevo," the man replied in an obviously Australian accent, holding out his hand. "As I"m sure you"ll notice, I"m not exactly a born and bred local, but I came out here for a surfing vacation a few years back, and loved it enough to make it my home," he told me as he grabbed some paperwork and a pen for me to fill it out. Age, date of birth, medical problems, height and weight, skill level. All things I knew how to fill out, thankfully. "When you"re finished, just leave the sheet there and we"ll get you set up with a board." You"re wearing your bathing suit under your clothes? Good, you can take them off wherever and I"ll give you a box to keep them in. You"re the first one here from today"s group, I"m sure the others will show up pretty quickly."
Stevo was talkative and friendly, and about five minutes after he set me up with a huge Malibu board ("I know they"re huge, but they"re way easier to balance on, which is awesome if you"re just starting out.") another couple showed up, having signed up online for the lesson. Ten minutes later, after another three people had showed up, Stevo was just about ready to take us out.
"We"re just waiting on one more person, and if I"m not mistaken, here he comes now," he told us, and I looked to where he was looking.
As soon as I saw the man he was looking at, my heart froze in my chest. It was that same guy! I would have recognized that wavy brown hair anywhere. He was topless now, showing off a muscular chest with just the perfect amount of hair. I wanted to run my hands through it so badly, I wanted to lie on top of him and stroke that muscular body, slide my hands down to his abs, tracing the visible lines of his abs, the perfect six pack adorning him, before moving even further down, down towards his...
Stop it, Caroline. What the h.e.l.l is wrong with you? I forced my brain to stop thinking about it, but it was too late. I could feel my body reacting to the fantasy I"d just had. Great. Just great. I turned away from him and grabbed my board as Stevo got the guy checked in. I didn"t want to see if he recognized me.
Obviously he isn"t going to recognize you. You were just some random chick he ran into in the hotel. I"m sure he forgot you existed like two seconds after it happened. A part of me wanted to believe I was more memorable than that, especially since I couldn"t get him out of my head, but I knew I wasn"t. I was just a kind-of-on-the-pretty-side girl from Oklahoma, he was a G.o.d in human form.