all this time. But his face was opaque.
“So?” Luna asked.
“It’s okay,” he answered. “She’s still mad. We’ll work it out later.”
* * *
Joe and Luna drive south, following the coast until they reach a new beach, a narrow strip of South Florida sand that isn’t packed with tourists, where no radios ricochet noise, no volleyballs arc skyward. It is high tide, and Luna bends to retrieve a shell, a slice of small white conch that forms a ring. She slips it onto her finger.
“Joe, look!” she says, and puts out her hand for him to see. With the solemnity of a prince, he bends and kisses it.
At the far end, they scramble over an outcrop of tall, slippery rock. Here they are alone on the sand. The sun beats down, and Joe builds a tent of sorts from their two towels and a battered fishing pole he finds on the ragged tide line. In the small triangle of shade, Joe traces a finger across Luna’s tan stomach. A circle. A figure eight. A heart. She lies back, and the feeling is of a creature, smooth and cool, looking for a home in her skin.
* * *
Somehow Donny and Joe had never crossed paths. Luck, or maybe Donny knew that Luna had a new boyfriend. Luna sometimes believed that Donny was watching her, through the windows of the bar, at her apartment as she walked up the front steps, even at the Betsy as she waited with Joe for the room key. After that night outside Revel, he’d been back only once, perched on the corner stool, not talking to her. Luna wanted to forget about her time with Donny. Back then he had seemed like all she was good for, all she deserved. Donny inhabited a dark place that was familiar to her, and she knew how familiarity could sometimes feel like comfort.
At 2:00 a.m. on the last night, Joe picked Luna up from work and they went to a nearby bar. They drank shots of tequila, then ordered pints of beer and sipped and talked, their heads close together. “Smile!” the bartender called, and they looked up: he held an old-fashioned Polaroid camera, and thunk, pressed the button. Out slid a photo, the image sticky and white. The bartender pointed to the side wall, which was festooned with Polaroids of smiling customers, but Joe said, “Can we have it?”
Together Joe and Luna watched as the paper surrendered its image, ghostly and pale until the colors surfaced: their faces, smiles, shoulders touching. Joe held the photo and turned to Luna. He kissed her, and as she disappeared into him, a hand descended on her shoulder.
“Hey, who’s kissing my girlfriend?” a voice said.
Luna pulled away from Joe. “Donny,” she said. “What are you doing here?”
“Luna, fantastic to see you.” Donny spoke only to Luna. “You look beautiful.”
Joe stood to face him. Joe was taller than Donny by a head, but he had none of the other man’s bulk. Or youth—Donny was closer to Luna’s age than Joe’s.
“You know him?” Joe asked Luna. She nodded and looked away, embarrassed. Donny wore an idiot’s provocative grin, looking from Joe to Luna and back again. His wide shoulders pulled the T-shirt tight.
“Leave her alone,” Joe said. He sounded like a heavy in a bad movie, but Joe was no tough guy, and anyone could see that: flip-flops and old jeans, the short-sleeved button-down shirt with tails hanging out, a man trying to dress younger than he was.
Donny smirked. “Luna, looks like you’ve found a hero.”
“Donny, go home,” Luna said. “Please just leave me alone.”
Luna became aware of others at the bar, the bartender who watched Donny steadily, the drinkers paused in their conversations, their attention directed onto the scene: Donny, Luna, Joe. Luna saw Donny begin to falter. He blinked, and the grin faded.
“Is there a problem here?” the bartender called.
Donny was losing interest, he was going to leave them, Luna realized with relief. She grabbed Joe’s hand.
“Come outside, asshole,” Joe said then, and Donny whistled.
“No,” Luna whispered to Joe. “Don’t.”
“You better fuck her good. For her, you gotta be a man,” Donny said, and laughed.
Joe swung, but he was not a fighter. He didn’t gather himself or aim or steady his breathing; he clenched his hand into a fist and directed it with all the force of his six-foot-four frame into Donny’s head. They stood two feet apart, the distance of sparring boxers, and had the fist landed, it would have toppled Donny.