“Oh. Sorry. Didn’t mean to bother you,” she replied without any sign of leaving. In fact, she shifted so that she was turned from me.

“That’s not going to make your argument any more private. Can you please, for the love of all the sea turtles you just saw, leave him alone?”

She gave me a quiet look. I gave her one, too.

At that, she replied, “I mean, you can leave.”

Bitch, I was here first. Of course, I didn’t say that. At this point, Sunny had stood, taking a step in between us to defuse the situation, but there was no situation. I didn’t pick fights with strangers or get into woman pitted against woman escalations of cattiness.

I spoke calmly. “No. I was here first, and we were talking before you came over, blocking off the sunshine with all this shade.” I gestured at her. Because she was the shade.

“Um. I’m sorry. Who are you?” she asked around Sunny’s protective frame. I leaned around him, myself. He probably just wanted both of us to go away, yet here we were.

“Why are you getting defensive?” she asked, seemingly both hurt and jealous at Sunny’s oddly protective barrier of me. “Wait, is she…no. No way. Not for you.”

My head was going to splinter the way this headache was sprouting tentacles, and now I just wanted quiet, but I would be damned if I left. I was here first, in the perfect spot for the bartender, drinks, snacks, breezeway, shade, and minimal passersby with an even smaller chance of runaway kids zooming by. I just wanted peace, and for her to leave so that my lead dev didn’t pop that giant vein now vehemently bulging in his neck. An incapacitated lead wasn’t much use and I sort of absolutely needed him to help finish this gigantic project for the biggest client our company had ever had.

I blurted, “Yes I am.”

“Yes you are what?” she said.

“His girlfriend. And don’t worry, babe, you can stay with me. You think I wanted that big villa on the beach all to myself?”

Sunny swerved toward me, his eyes wide and his shocked expression all sorts of what the hell are you doing? Saving a man’s ass, as a woman often does. He should be thanking me. Not only was I getting his snide ex off his back, but I’d essentially offered him a place to crash. Okay, so I hadn’t thought that part through, but I, at the least, had bought him time.

They were both staring so hard, I was sure they’d frozen into place. I blinked at Sunny. He should really say something. Another second of silence and his ex was sure to figure out that I was a liar wrapped in loungewear.

Sunny pulled himself out of his stupor long enough to say, “Thanks. Babe.” His words were sort of soft, but his teeth were clenched. Wondered if his butt was, too. He needed a vacation more than anyone, and…well, crap, I felt bad for him.

I kept my eyes trained on him, calling forth all my hype-babe energy, and dragged my eyes back to the stupefied woman. “You must be the ex.”

She harrumphed, her glare flitting to the edge of possessive. Yep. She definitely still had a thing for Sunny, but who was going to tell her that her approach wasn’t going to win him back?

Before she crawled out of her sheer surprise to utter a response, I put up a hand and said, “Listen. I am on vacation and not here for the drama. I don’t care if you guys are exes, were engaged or married or madly in love, or whatever else. I don’t do the whole ‘hate the ex slash hate other women’ thing. You had your good and bad times but right now, in this immediate time, this is for us. And I’m not one for getting curt, because I’m typically a very laid-back, chill type of a person…but I’m not going to sit here and watch you berate my man, or anyone else. And I’m also not going to sit here while you demean and cut through my vacation vibes. As I mentioned, I was here first. So please take your anger or jealousy or irritation elsewhere, and find your peace. Hopefully we can be friendlier than this whenever we pass by each other, because we should be sunshine and rainbows and smiles, right? Look at where we’re at. But most importantly, adopt the aloha spirit and chill the eff out. Don’t be that tourist. No one likes them.”

Her mouth had dropped to her feet somewhere during my monologue, but she didn’t say anything. She looked like she wanted to unleash hell on me, at which point, I would just leave, dragging Sunny behind me. I didn’t even have this much drama with the girlfriends of my own exes, much less a coworker’s.

Maybe I’d lodged a ginormous foot into my mouth, because who knew what was going on in her head or what I’d gotten myself into by declaring Sunny as my man. But it got quiet. I liked quiet. Mission accomplished.

She straightened up and forced a smile, her voice chipper again. “Well, I apologize for the interruption. You’re right, we should be enjoying this place. How long have you been together?”

“What is time, really?” I circumvented with a laugh.

She looked at Sunny. “I’m glad you’ve moved on.”

I watched Sunny’s entire body tense from the corner of my eye when she added, “Just don’t make the same mistakes. See you at the get-togethers. This’ll be fun.”

If by fun she meant cringey, then yeah, probably.

She walked away. Lord, finally.

I hadn’t initially taken her words to be cold or vindictive, but maybe they were? Maybe they weren’t facetious or sarcastic, but her response kept Sunny on edge. Every muscle beneath his touristy outfit tightened.

I turned back to the bar and pushed my paper straw through the melting ice, softly asking, “Are you okay?”

Six Sunny

The last thing I expected, much less wanted to see, was Bane. Now she was turning one disaster into another.

I glared at her; her profile tinted a couple of shades darker as she must’ve been in beach mode from day one. Her vacation had started before mine by several days. I knew this because that was three blissful days of work without bickering, where her head in a virtual conference box had been missing. Such peaceful, productive days.

She had been reading on her tablet, probably sneaking into work and totally oblivious to the island breeze braiding through her hair, the taste of saltwater in the air, or the call of cold swimming water beneath a hot sun. Why was I not surprised?

“Bane.”

“Yes?” she asked, not shifting her eyeballs a centimeter to look at me.

“What did you just do?”

“I made it quiet.”

I leaned an elbow on the counter, tilting toward her. “You just told my ex that you’re my girlfriend.”

“Yes. That is accurate.”

I pushed out a breath and looked skyward, noting how clear the day was. “You blurted that out to get some quiet, but did you consider that I have to deal with a storm now?”

She finally peered up at me through long, thick lashes. “You played along.”

“In the moment so I didn’t look like a pathetic jackass.”

She frowned. “You’re not a pathetic jackass. You could never look like one even if you tried.”

“You call me a jackass all the time.”

“Ass,” she corrected, returning to her tablet. “I call you an ass, or the more popular variation of asshole. Which you are. Even if you didn’t try.”

“Funny.”

“Thanks.”

I groaned, pinching the bridge of my nose. “Listen. My ex is here because we were both invited to our mutual friends’ wedding. Which means those friends are here. And my ex has probably group chatted the entire wedding party to tell them guess who’s bringing an unannounced plus one.”

“So?”

“They’re going to expect to see you. What am I supposed to say? That you lied and I went along with it and then have to explain why? Because they’re going to probe for an answer. And I mean, deep space probe. Then I’ll spend the rest of my vacation not only grumpy because my ex is here and shoving her new boyfriend in my face as she passively tries to prove that I’m not relationship material, but now, let’s add the awkwardness slash pity from my friends. I won’t ever live this down,” I ended in a snarl. “I hope you’re pleased. You’ve finally succeeded in ruining me.”

I shoved my chair into the bar, startling Bane as she gave me a deer in the headlights look of ultimate surprise and shock. I almost felt bad. Almost. But she did this.