Hope - Levy, Marc (web ebook reader .TXT) 📗

around the shower curtain to show Josh what he needed to see, and she told him he had thirty seconds to join her. And if that meant keeping on his jeans and socks, then so be it.

As they were about to head out, the thought went through her mind that he could have brought a jacket if he was planning to take her out for a romantic island dinner. She had brought a little black dress, after all, and one in which she looked beautiful, she had to admit. Black was slimming, or so they said, and so she had slipped it into her bag just in case. When the guy you love takes you away for a midweek weekend, it never hurts to be prepared. So when she watched him pull on his jeans and a chunky sweater, she couldn’t help but feel disappointed.

Josh looked at her admiringly in her pretty black dress and told her she looked stunning.

“I know,” she said. “If you didn’t know me, you’d never guess I was sick. But you do know me, Joshy.”

“We said . . .”

“Yes, I know, we said. I’m sorry, it’s because of the beer. I’m a little tipsy. And you must be, too, to be dressed like that.”

“It’s just that . . .” Josh was at a loss for words. “It would just be good if you wore something a little more comfortable.”

Comfortable? She hated that word. It was a boring word, so boring it was almost offensive. When Kasuko told her one night that she dreamed of having a comfortable life with a man, she immediately knew she needed to introduce her to Luke.

“Define ‘comfortable,’ before we have our first existential meltdown.”

She could have blamed Bart for her bad mood, but she knew it had nothing to do with him. She wanted to have an elegant evening with an elegant man, and Josh hadn’t delivered.

“Clothes you don’t mind getting dirty.”

“This sounds better and better with every second. But okay.” She pulled the dress over her head. “How about an old rag tied around the waist? Would that do? If you’re taking me on a bar crawl, I’d rather . . .”

“Sadly, the bar we went to earlier is the only one open this time of year. How about you just trust me, for once, and don’t ask too many questions?”

“What do you mean, ‘once’? Here I am on a desert island with you, and you have the nerve to act like I don’t trust you?”

“There are six thousand people on this island, Hope. It’s hardly deserted.”

Hope wondered whether Bart had played a role in their stupid argument, after all. If that little bastard thought he could ruin a wonderful, spontaneous midweek weekend, he had another think coming. Suddenly, she felt her frustration diffuse. She rummaged around in her bag and remembered she had left her jeans and black sweater at the foot of the bed. She flicked them off the floor with her toes, sending them swinging up into the air and then catching them.

“How about a little makeup? Would that be too much?”

“No, I don’t see why not.” Josh smiled. “I think it’s better if I wait for you downstairs.”

A few minutes later, Hope wandered down, taking Josh by the arm as if their spat had never happened, and led him outside.

“So, Joshy, which fine establishment will we be frequenting this evening?”

Josh didn’t reply. He simply smiled.

There were barely any restaurants open at this time of year, let alone in the middle of the week. Josh had poured heart and soul into this. When the disheveled couple stepped into a stuffy dining room where the few diners were dressed in their Sunday best, Hope wondered if the sea air had done something funny to his brain.

The waiter came to greet them, nodding slightly to Josh before rushing back to the kitchen.

Josh waited. Hope knew him well enough to know he was excited, and she wondered why.

Ten minutes later, the waiter reappeared with a little wooden crate topped with a paper bag.

“Your order, sir,” said the waiter. “The roulades are in the bag. Vegetarian, as requested. We took the liberty of adding two slices of our delicious homemade cake. On the house, naturally.”

Josh thanked the waiter and gestured at Hope for them to go.

Once they were back out on the street, she posed the question she had been dying to ask.

“What’s in the box?”

“Everything we need for a dinner under the stars.”

He didn’t offer any more information than that, and led her through the narrow winding streets to a pontoon that jutted out into the sea.

“The view from over there is even more spectacular,” he said, pointing to the platform at the end of the jetty.

When they got there, Josh deposited the crate at Hope’s feet, whipped out his pocketknife, and unfolded the blade before handing it to her.

“If you’d do the honors,” he said, nodding at the string around the crate.

Hope lifted the lid to reveal six live lobsters.

“I can’t tell you how much I love you,” she said. She covered Josh’s cheeks in a flurry of kisses.

Hope gave each lobster a name before returning them to the water, and when the ceremony was over, Josh lit two candles from the bottom of the bag, placed them over the napkins he had laid out on the planks like a tablecloth, and invited Hope to sit down so that they might begin their starlit dinner.

The roulades were delicious washed down with a half bottle of California wine, and they ate up every crumb of the chocolate cake.

Hope gazed out across the waves, to where the last lobster had made its descent in a whirlpool of bubbles. She breathed in the night air and took Josh’s hand.

“Throw me out to sea, Joshy. I want a second chance too.”

The wind swept in from the north, carrying her wish out to sea. Hope pressed closer into Josh’s chest.

It was almost noon by the time Hope opened her eyes.

Josh was