“I know, I know,” she muttered.
“Now listen,” he said, turning down the block. “I need you to ask around at your school. Get some names. Share them with me. I’ll talk to them, and we’ll find the right tutor for you.”
“I’m such a fuck up,” she said, another sob threatening to rear its head. “You probably never struggled in school.”
“You’re not a fuck up,” he said gently, but in a voice that brooked no argument. “Stop beating yourself up. You just need some help. That’s all. Nothing wrong with that. Do some research, get me the info, and I will take care of it. I promise you.”
“But tutors are so expensive.”
“Kylie,” he said, stopping in his tracks, slicing a hand through the air. He didn’t want her to spiral like this. He needed to yank her out of this with some tough love. “What have I told you before?”
She sighed. “Not to worry about money.”
“Exactly. So stop it right now. No more of this. No more talk of being a fuck up, and no more stressing about money. Your job is to focus on school. My job is to focus on taking care of the school bills. Just let me do that,” he said, and after she took a few calming breaths, she asked him about his work and the weather in the Caribbean.
“It’s beautiful here.”
“What were you doing when I called? Did I interrupt a tanning session on the beach?”
He laughed. “Just talking to someone I met playing darts.”
“A girl?”
“None of your business,” he said playfully.
“That definitely means you met a girl, then,” she said, teasing him like she was a schoolkid. He let her, not denying it this time, because it seemed to take her mind off her school anxiety.
After she finished a thorough ribbing, he told her he loved her and said good-bye.
He glanced up at the sky. The sun had started to dip toward the horizon, pulling streaks of orange and pink like a tail. He checked out the time.
Fifteen minutes had passed.
Maybe Ariel was still at the bar.
Maybe fish could fly.
But a man could hope, and a man could pick up the pace just in case. Jake turned up his speedometer and jogged past a jewelry shop selling seashell necklaces and silvery trinkets, then a store full of sundresses, then one with the sign for tours in the window. He nearly did a double take when he spotted a poster with a familiar name for a cove on the beach.
He filed the name away in the mental banks.
When he returned to the Pink Pelican, he scanned left, then right, then up and down. The woman he’d wanted to take home for the night was nowhere to be found.
His shoulders sagged, and he cursed himself for not having grabbed the number before he left.
But he just might have one more shot. Because the world’s most helpful bartender was calling him over. Marie’s eyes lit up with excitement. He recognized that look. His sister Kate had it from time to time when she tried to wear her matchmaker hat.
Marie waved the napkin in the air, brandishing it like a prize. “A pretty lady gave me this for you.”
Straightening his spine, he unfolded it, then chuckled when he saw what she had done. No number. Just a clue. He liked clues. Oh hell, did he like clues.
Especially this one.
The pictures at the snorkel shop taunted her.
They told the story of the luckiest man she’d ever known. On top of the frames, the proprietor of the shop had stenciled a mantra in blue paint on the wall: KISS A RAY AND GET SEVEN YEARS OF LUCK.
In a trio of images, her stepfather’s magnetic smile shone through. In the first shot, a young, blond, and tanned Eli Thompson pressed his lips to the smooth, silvery skin of a stingray. Steph hadn’t partaken of the kiss fest, because she was only seven at the time and kissing any sort of creature, underwater or above water, was certifiably gross. But in the background of the photo, she laughed at her stepdad, sharing the same sense of adventure that the man had possessed. Growing up, she’d considered him her hero. He’d been the man who made her mom happy again.
Her mother had been devastated when her husband—Steph and Robert’s father—had died so unexpectedly. Widowed at a young age, with two toddlers, her mom didn’t have the easiest time of it. But she made do and soldiered on, and a few years later she met Eli.
The man had made her mom laugh again. Made her feel happiness. He was like that. Delight seemed to be his native language. Now it made Steph’s chest twinge to think it was all part of his routine—cover up his straying ways with his sunshine smile.
In the next stingray lip-lock photo, his hair was a touch thinner and a bit darker, but his light blue eyes had that same confident spark. Steph had inched close enough to blow a kiss to the stingray in that one. “You’ll kiss him next time,” Eli had said to her.
The final picture was taken during a family vacation—she’d joined Eli and her mom here after her junior year of college. On that visit, Steph had gone all in and puckered up to the stingray for the first time. But she’d missed right when her lips would have landed on its skin.
The ray had slipped away. Taking her luck with it, too.
She moved closer to the photo and quirked up the corner of her lips as she peered at the image she hadn’t seen in years, flashing back to all their trips here. Eli had taken them here nearly every year. This island became a second home for her new family growing up, and her stepdad had glad-handed with all the locals. He’d been the man about town. Like an ambassador who everyone loved and was delighted to see when he descended on the island. He’d brought good fortune to them, they said.