dirty. He was thoughtful, making sure I had sunblock at the beach or offering me a block of wax for my board. He was definitely a skilled cook, the food he served at the restaurant was proof of that. And when he wasn’t fighting with Violet, he was considerate. Asking about her day and mine. Listening to stories about the surf shop without interrupting. He introduced himself to my mother when Violet dragged him over. He congratulated me when I got a good grade on my English test.
Maybe we were friends, but this was still a very intimate moment that felt forced. I’d always lumped him and Violet together as a unit, never taking the time to notice him separately. I wished I could pretend to be oblivious to the strangeness of it all.
“Here we go,” Kai said while walking toward me. He carried a cardboard box, hugging it close to his chest like it was precious gold.
“Are you sure you want to get rid of it?”
He sat down beside me instead of answering. His leg pressed against mine, and the heat rolling off of him grounded me. He kept the box in his lap as I started sifting through it, a chuckle breaking past my lips when I saw what was on top.
“She was always stealing my swimsuits,” I giggled before pulling out the strappy black bikini. “This is mine.”
Kai tenderly brushed his thumb along his bottom lip, and I wondered if he was thinking about something intimate between them. I continued to search through it. There was a perfume bottle. Mascara. A textbook. Nail polish. Violet was a mess, leaving a trail of debris in her path wherever she went. You could always tell when she came over. She’d leave her belongings scattered across the bathroom countertops.
I found a pair of cutoff shorts at the bottom of the pile and grabbed them. “These are mine too,” I said with a halfhearted giggle. Kai watched me as I pulled the shorts into my lap and started stroking the denim.
“She just kind of took over, huh?” Kai commented.
“She was the queen of better to ask forgiveness than permission,” I agreed.
Kai seemed lost in his thoughts, staring off in the distance. It felt wrong watching him have a vulnerable moment. “You know how we started dating?” he finally asked.
“Not really.”
“She saw me at a surf contest and informed me that I was taking her out. I was part terrified and part intrigued. She just kind of had that commanding presence. A confidence that couldn’t be faked.”
That definitely sounded like Violet. She saw something she wanted and went for it. Tears filled my eyes, and I started rifling through the pockets of the jeans to keep my hands and mind busy. It wasn’t until I dug into the back pocket that my finger connected with something hard. Plastic.
I pulled it out. It looked like a credit card but had the logo for one of the local hotels on it. It must have been a room card. “Do you want this?” I said with a smile. “Looks like a keepsake from a romantic evening.” I tried to keep my voice light, although for some reason, I felt...off. Anxious. Sad.
Kai grabbed it and frowned. “We never went to the Sandals Resort. We went nowhere other than this bus, really.”
I raised an eyebrow. Violet had never mentioned going to Sandals, which is strange because being whisked away for a romantic getaway is exactly the type of thing she reveled in. The realization slowly dawned on me that there would have to be a damn good reason for her not wanting to tell me about it—like a cheating on your boyfriend and knowing your best friend would disapprove kind of reason. This was something I would probably obsess over later, but I needed to swallow my concerns now.
“Oh, um,” I stammered, not wanting to upset Kai. “These shorts have been missing from my closet for a while, so I’m sure she went ages ago.” I flashed Kai a big, hopefully reassuring, smile while casually taking the keycard out of his hand and tucking it back into the pocket of the cutoffs.
I started looking through the box again, hoping for a distraction, when my eyes settled on some photos. I picked them up and started looking through them one by one. Most of them were selfies with different backgrounds. The beach. Violet’s house. The surf shop. Vi’s smiling face was the focal point in all the pictures,