How to Honeymoon Alone

“Yes, that’s it.” I find the wadded-up twenties in the pocket of my dress and hold them out. “Thanks for picking up the check yesterday, but I’d like to pay you back.”

He looks at my hand like it offends him. “What? Of course, not.”

“Yes. It wasn’t a date, and we don’t know one another. I can’t let you pay for me.”

“Eden,” he says and puts his coffee cup down. He speaks my name with emphasis on every single letter. “I imposed on you. There’s no way I’m taking your money.”

I give him my best smile. “You know, I’ll have to chase you across the resort if you won’t take this. Don’t forget that I know which bungalow you’re staying in.”

The grown man in front of me rolls his eyes. “Right. And you know karate, too, don’t you?”

“Black belt,” I lie brightly. “So, here. I was raised to pay my own way.”

Phillip looks like it pains him, but he takes the money from my outstretched hand. “Fine. If you truly want to…”

“I do.”

“All right,” he says. “But I want it noted that it’s against my will.”

I grin. “Noted. Well, I hope you have a good holiday, then. Don’t forget to schedule some non-work, too. It’s a beautiful island, you know.”

He nods. “I have things planned.”

“Good. Have fun!”

“You, too,” he says and smoothly slides the money into his back pocket.

I return to my table, and when I look back, searching for where he’s had a seat, he’s gone. So is the coffee cup by the station.

An entire smorgasbord, and all he wanted was a cup of java.

I open my book again. Bungalow people, I think.

Lounging on the beach alone is a lot easier than eating one’s dinner solo at a restaurant, I discover. It’s almost seamless. Except for being unable to reach some parts of my back with sunscreen, there’s virtually no downside to Caleb’s absence. There are, however, a multitude of pluses.

For one, I can read my book in peace. It’s about two people who shouldn’t be together but brave all the odds to-well, I’m pretty sure they will-overcome the obstacles in their way.

I’ve been wanting to read it for weeks.

I get through a page. And then another. And discover that I can’t focus on the story at all. There’s an interaction between characters I typically enjoy, but I can’t follow it. I’m too intrigued by the conversations around me.

The kind of guests who stay at the Winter Resort could probably fill the pages of a murder mystery novel all by themselves. I keep my book open and my sunglasses on and, behind the cover, I let my eyes wander.

The couple beside me appears effortlessly elegant. He’s got windswept hair that looks too dark to be a natural color. She’s lazily flipping through the pages of an interior design magazine and chewing gum.

They’d be excellent suspects. I’d name them something delicious. Fitzgerald as the last name, perhaps, or Huntington. They’d come here to repair a faltering marriage.

I tap my finger against the spine of my book and wish I’d brought a notepad.

There’d be a romance, too. Two visitors to the resort would be drawn to one another. Maybe one of them could be a suspect in the murder…

And who’d be the victim?

I look out over the beach and the array of tourists around me, each more interesting than the next. For the first time in months, I feel the itch to write. To turn my surroundings into stories.

I’ve lacked a seed for so long.

Although maybe not, I admit to myself. Seeds might have been everywhere, but I hadn’t seen them. The desire to nurture ideas until they blossomed into fully-grown stories had been missing.

If I’m honest with myself, it had been muted even before I discovered Caleb and Cindy’s dirty little secret. I’d been stressed about planning a wedding while my fiancé did nothing to help.

An affair.

Maybe two of these people are having an affair. Maybe that’s the case with the people next to me. I glance at them from the corner of my eye. She’s married, and she’s here with her lover, the dyed-haired man. Maybe she bumps into someone she knows at the resort… someone who discovers her secret.

That’s the motive right there.

I dig through my bag in search of a pen but I don’t find one. I make do with my phone instead. The ideas pour out of me into a note, strings of thoughts, little snippets that could bloom into more if given the time.

Murder in paradise is a good premise.

I slip my left foot off the lounge chair and dig it into the warm sand beneath. The soft sound of waves against the shore is the soundtrack to my outburst of creativity.

It’s been almost a year since I finished writing my last book. It had been a murder mystery with a strong romance at the center. A romantic thriller, or romantic suspense, as some may call it. A combination of three of my favorite things: true crime, a bit of mystery, and a love story to rival the historical greats.

And just like the books I’d written before, it’s now consigned to a folder on my laptop.

I haven’t shown a single person my writing for almost seven years. Not since… well. The-event-I-don’t-like-to-think-about happened. It’s my own personal Voldemort.

The-thing-that-must-not-be-named.

I dig my toes deeper into the sand and catch sight of two women standing by the shoreline. They look like they’re arguing. One woman’s hands move in a swan dance as she makes her point, while her companion’s expression is set in hard lines.

Sisters, I think. Here, after the death of a parent, on an all-inclusive trip paid with a vast inheritance. They could throw a few wrenches into the plot…Text property © Nôvel(D)ra/ma.Org.

A wrench or two is something I know about. Cindy and Caleb had thrown one into my life.

I’d had it all mapped out before they did.

The rest of my life, essentially, or at the very least the upcoming two decades. Caleb and I were saving for a bigger house together. In two or three years we’d start trying for a baby. House, kids, jobs, two cars, and maybe a dog. Predictable, stable, and safe.

And now I’m left with an expanse of time, the collapse of a comfortable relationship, and the question of who I am on my own.

Even worse is the prospect of dating again. Of going on apps and meeting men online. The mere thought of online dating makes me shudder.

I tap my fingers against the side of my phone and watch the couple next to me again. That could be it. The murder victim could be here to meet someone they only know from a dating app. That would seriously slow down the investigation, too, because my characters could only find that out by accessing the murder victim’s phone. Which, of course, will be locked.

My fingers fly over the screen with strings of ideas and nuggets of a story.