She smiled, slow and unbothered. “Did what?”
“The dress.”
“I told you I needed to know where we were going so I could plan my outfit,” she said, stepping out and pulling the door shut behind her. “I figured out the vibe on my own.”
I shook my head and fell into step beside her. She had nailed it. I wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction of saying that out loud but the way she was walking told me she already knew.
The driver was waiting at the main entrance. Nique looked at the car and then at me.
“Are you going to tell me now?”
“No.”
She made a sound somewhere between a laugh and a groan and climbed in.
The drive took about twenty minutes, the road narrowing as the jungle got thicker on both sides. I watched her face the whole way. She was looking out the window at the canopy overhead, her fingers resting in her lap, the morning light catching the gold in her hoops every time we turned. She was still carrying the weight of her mother’s truth. I could see it in the set of her shoulders. Still, she was here and she was trying and that was enough.
When we pulled up she went quiet.
The property sat tucked deep in the jungle, the kind of quiet that doesn’t happen near the beach or the clubs or anywhere the tourists usually end up. A pool sat at the center of it, the water deep and clear, surrounded by tall trees on every side. Floating in the middle of it was a round woven tray, two plates of food arranged on top alongside fresh fruit and drinks. A hammock swayed nearby in the breeze.
Nique turned and looked at me with an expression I didn’t see on her face very often. She was open and unguarded. Like she had forgotten for a second to hold anything back.
“Dex,” she said.
“Yeah.”
“How did you even find this?”
“TikTok,” I said.
She burst out laughing, a real one that reached her eyes, and something in my chest that had been tight all morning finally let go.
She stepped out of that dress and I had to remind myself we were in a public place.
I had seen Nique in swimsuits before, but something about watching her step out of that dress and seeing her bikini sitting against her skin like it was made specifically for her body made all of that irrelevant. She was standing there in her own world, completely at ease with every curve and every inch, and I stood there like I had never seen her before in my life.
She caught me looking and raised an eyebrow. “You getting in or not?”
I nodded and got in.
The cool of the water was a relief against the Tulum heat already building around us. We settled on either side of the floating tray with the jungle surrounding us on every side and nothing but bird sounds and water between us.
Nique reached for a piece of mango and looked around slowly, taking it all in.
“This is the most peaceful I have felt since we landed,” she said quietly.
“Good,” I said. “That’s the point.”
She looked at me over her juice glass. “You always been like this you know.”
“Like what?”
“Showing up,” she said. “Even when I didn’t deserve it. Even when I was being difficult and giving you every reason to just leave me alone.” She set her glass down on the tray. “You never just left me alone.”
I leaned back against the edge of the pool and watched her for a second.
“You remember junior year?” I asked. “When you first started dating Prez?”