Charlie opened the door for me and I stepped into the luxury vehicle. I buckled myself in as he rounded the rear end of the town car and opened the door for himself. Through the tinted windows, I watched our family continue to chat. As excited as I was for this date, I now had the familiar pain in my heart of missing my family. I would get the same ache while looking through an airplane window, about to leave Hawaii for the continental US.
"You alright?" Charlie reached across the seat and grabbed my hand off of my lap. He slid my hand into his palm and interlaced our fingers. "You're gonna miss her, right?"
"Yeah," I said weakly. "But I'm excited about our date." I turned to him with a soft smile and squeezed his hand.
Charlie leaned forward and kissed my forehead. "I know, you don't get to see her very often. But how about this: whenever we get kicked out of this super cool villa, I'll buy us plane tickets to Hawaii."
I skeptically looked him over a few times. "Wait, are you serious?"
"Yeah, why not," he shrugged. "It's not the end of summer. We've still got a few weeks before school starts up."
"Thank you." I was in disbelief for a brief moment. But eventually, as reality settled in, I leaned over and pulled him in for a kiss. The familiar arm around my waist was starting to feel more natural than without it. His other hand brushed my hair back away from my face and slid his hand all the way down the soft strands before landing on the back of my neck. I shuddered at the touch, and he reluctantly pulled away from the kiss. "That was so smooth," I laughed.
"Thanks, Lucas lets me practice on him sometimes."
"Charlie!" I giggled and threw my head back. "Are you gonna give me a hint about where we're going?"
He considered this briefly before agreeing and took his time conjuring ideas. "It's a public place... most of the time. It's both wet and dry. There is water in the form of liquid and gas."
I stared at him from the other end of the town car bench. "That gives me literally no information."
"That's the point," Charlie smirked. "But if. you think about it, those are all pretty good hints."
"Aren't hints supposed to be helpful?"
"Not mine," he rebutted. "Alright, fine. I'll say that this date was inspired by things you've told me previously."
I let out a soft sigh. "Your hints aren't going to get any easier, huh?"
"No. But I think the more surprised you are, the better," Charlie said.
"Fine," I smiled and looked out the windows of the moving car. The flora of Fiji hugged the road tightly in an overgrown forest. Tropical birds fluttered through a cloudless sky. "Are you still not going to tell me what you and Tutu were talking about?"
"I can't believe you're still thinking about that," Charlie chuckled. "No. Not until after our date is over, at least. After this, I'll tell you anything you want to know." He looked over at me, thoughtfully admiring me. "She really loves you, ya know."
I failed to conceal a smile. "Yeah."
"She was very adamant that I take care of you," he continued. "But I think she likes me. She had me a little scared a few times, but I think I earned her stamp of approval."
"Well, if Tutu doesn't approve, you have to go," I joked.
"Really? It's as simple as that?" Charlie asked. "How many men has your grandmother scared away?"
"Hundreds."
Charlie leaned back in his seat, looking much too proud of himself. "I'll consider myself the champion, then."
From the front of the town car, our driver spoke up. "We're about two minutes away."
"Thank you!" Charlie called back. He reached into the storage pocket on the back of the car seat in front of him and pulled out a Love Island brand blindfold. "Put this on, please."
I took the accessory in my hands and held the fuzzy white cotton in my palms. "Why? Should I be concerned?"
"You definitely should not. The place I'm taking you to is super obvious, but there's a specific place inside of this place that I want to take you to," Charlie explained.
"Alrighty," I fluffed out my hair once more before strapping the blindfold over my eyes and encasing my vision in darkness.
"Can you see anything?" Charlie asked.
"No."
"Even if I do this?"
I paused before responding. "I literally have no idea what you're doing, so no."
"Good." I could hear the happiness in his voice and felt the town car roll to a stop. Without my vision, my other senses seemed to have heightened. I heard the sound of a car door opening and the feeling of Charlie exiting the vehicle. As expected, in just a few seconds, he came around to my door and pulled it open. "I'm extending my hand out to you," he announced. I reached around until he grabbed my hand and carefully pulled me from the car. "Okay there's going to be a few steps up-"
"Charlie, I'm nervous," I said, pausing instead of lifting my foot to feel for a step.
"Do you trust me?" he asked.
Eventually, I nodded. "I trust you."
"Well, let's get going then." I could hear the smile in his voice as he led me carefully up the stairs, taking his time to help me until we reached a landing. We walked for what seemed like forever until I knew we'd entered a building. The warm, humid air had been replaced by the stale whisper of an air conditioning unit. "Oh, an elevator! But you're getting so good at stairs," he joked.
"You're hilarious, but I'm not falling on my face." I smiled as I heard the elevator arrive with a subtle chime and the doors glided open. We stepped in and Charlie clicked one of the buttons. Whether we went up or down I wouldn't be able to tell you at the time; the elevator's buoyant movements could have occurred in either direction. Just a few seconds more and the elevator doors opened again. Charlie and I stepped out and he led me across a room with soft carpet that was squishy beneath my feet.
"Are you ready?" Charlie asked. He spun me around a few times and planted me still.
"I'm ready," I confirmed. Charlie slowly lifted my blindfold and I was staring at a dark, softly blue-lit room. The elevator was directly in front of me, along with a water fountain, a few coin-operated concession machines, and animal posters.
I turned around and came face to face with the bottom of an aquarium tank. We must've been at least fifty feet underground to have a view like this. The thousands of gallons of saltwater in front of us boasted a variety of species of fish, sea turtles, crustaceans, eels, and every marine animal I could think of. The white sand bottom closest to us was experiencing a swarm of stingrays that flapped their bodies close to the bottom of the tank and disturbed the substrate in a cloudy trail behind them. A moray eel slithered out from the coral to investigate a grouper roaming too close to his home. Meters above, two green sea turtles circled the mountain of coral, followed by dozens of schools of fish.
"Charlie," I whispered breathlessly. I stood in silence for a few seconds more, admiring the beauty that was before me. "Charlie, this is amazing!" I grinned.
"You like it?" he asked.
"I love it!"
"I did well?"
"You killed it." I turned to him and hugged him as tightly as I could without breaking him. My cheek pressed against his shirt so hard I was sure the color would be imprinted into my face once we pulled away. "Thank you, thank you, thank you!"
Charlie laughed as his hands rubbed my back. "You're welcome." He pulled back slightly to reach my forehead and pressed a soft kiss into the skin. "When that text came through yesterday, I already knew this was the place I wanted to take you."
"How come?" I asked, still holding onto him.
"Because you've mentioned a few times that you might wanna work in an aquarium... plus, a beautiful girl deserves a beautiful date location. It's simple math." He rested his head on top of mine as we continued our embrace, gently swaying into the blue light of the aquarium.
Finally, Charlie stepped back and removed a pink flower with a shortened stem from his pocket. He took his time carefully opening up the petals before looking down at me. "Your grandma said this was a local custom, so I'd like to try it." With the flower in his hand, I understood the practice he was talking about. In Hawaii, you may see a woman with a flower behind her ear. If the flower is behind her right ear, she is single. If the flower is behind her left ear, the same side as her heart, she's taken. "I love you, Maddie. I love your laugh, your eyes, and especially how smart you are. And if you'll have me, I look forward to making you laugh every day, and falling even more deeply in love with those big brown puppy-dog eyes. Will you be my girlfriend?"
I grinned up at him with a smile bright and wide. "Yes!"
Charlie grinned and brushed the hair above my left ear aside. He gently placed the flower in position and nodded proudly. "Nice."
I laughed and wrapped him up in a big hug. "I love you. You're the best."
"You're the best for loving an idiot like me," he joked. "Now would you like to know why your Tutu laughed at me for so long?"
"Yes!" I peeled my face off of his shirt to look up at him.
"I mispronounced 'mahalo.'"
The next location of our date was inside an underwater tunnel. We settled down on a white blanket sprinkled with rose petals just as a reef shark circled a coral structure and swayed through the water directly above us.
"This is so cool!" I smiled. Charlie and I laid on our backs on the blanket, admiring the view of the water and marine life above us. "Where did the other guys take the girls?"
Charlie looked surprised that he didn't know the answer. "I'm not sure..."
"No one mentioned it beforehand?" I asked.
"No... not at all. I mean, I know why I didn't. Anthony doesn't really know how to keep a secret. It hasn't affected much with Peyton, but the number of times he started a fight in the dressing room would surprise you," Charlie revealed.
"Give me an example!" I pleaded.
"Well, here's an easy example. The night of the heart rate challenge, he knew Gray still had a thing for Peach. When the guys went upstairs to get dressed for our turn, Anthony mentioned it out loud, and Connor overheard. He got pretty defensive from that point on."
The events clicked together in my mind like a puzzle piece. "Oh, so that's why he was so upset. It still doesn't give him the right to punch anybody, though."
"Definitely not," Charlie shook his head. "But yeah, that's why Connor was so irked up in the first place. And Gray actively flirting with Peach in front of him definitely didn't help."
"Yeah, probably not," I said. Overhead, a school of colorful fish darted around the circumference of the semi-circle glass tube and disappeared across the tank. "Whatever they're up to, I know their date wasn't as cool as mine." I smiled over at Charlie and kissed him lightly on the lips.
"Really? Even if one of the guys went into space?" Charlie asked.
I debated it for a moment, then shook my head. "No, space is lame. There's no pretty fish in space."
"Yeah! Only stars that are billions of years old, potential extraterrestrial life, and space rocks! How lame," Charlie teased but pulled me closer anyway.
"Maybe I'll consider it when there are space sharks." I scooted closer and laid my head on his shoulder.
"Space sharks... now that would be something to see." Charlie reached over and brushed the hair out of my face so I could rest comfortably. A sea turtle drifted with the current overhead, lazily flapping its front flippers to steer it forward. It was possibly the last moments of peace I would have in the villa; might as well make the most of it.
-
That night, after all the Islanders had returned from their dates and readied for bed, the girls sat around the balcony to discuss their days. I opted to go first, telling the girls all about the romantic, private evening at the aquarium. I detailed the rose petals, the glass tunnel, and finally, the all-important question.
"Did you say yes?" Peach asked, her voice echoing through the neighboring trees. She reached out and gripped my arm, begging for an answer.
"Of course I did," I laughed. I untucked the flower from my left ear and observed it affectionately. "He even did it by local custom."
"That is so cute!" Polly fawned.
"I'm so happy for you, Maddie!" Peyton grinned.
Peach surveyed me skeptically for a minute, waiting for me to spill more details. She pressed me when I refused to continue talking. "There's more, isn't there?"
"What? No?" I looked at her with confusion, my heart subtly pounding. "Peach, how was your date?"
"You're not going to distract me by asking me to talk about myself." Peach rolled her eyes. "But I am excited to say that Gray knows me better than I thought. We went to this five-star hotel and got the whole kitchen to ourselves. We got to make brownies together, and it was so much fun! We had flour fights and decorated them, too! It was just so nice having a domestic date like that. It was a peek into what our life could be like together, doing a completely normal thing like hanging around in the kitchen." She looked over at the blondes across from her. "What about you guys?"
Peyton tilted her head to each side, weighing her thoughts at that moment. Her blonde ponytail swished with the movement. "Anthony did good, actually. We went wine tasting, which at first, I was not super impressed with. I mean, empathize with me girls, that's a pretty normal thing to go to. But the wine tasting was a hundred feet underground in this cave, with glass floors. There was crystal blue water right underneath our feet, and we could see fish swimming all around us! It was pretty cool."
"My date was pretty perfect," Polly said with a soft smile. "We went to this castle that was like... hundreds of years old. I wore this super pretty dress that they made for me, and Lucas and I just danced. A full-on ballroom dance, I had no idea he knew how to do that!" She leaned back in her seat. "I'm excited about my future, you guys."
We all chipped in words of agreeance and collectively decided that it was time to join the boys downstairs for bed.
As I followed Peyton and Polly through the doors, Peach grabbed my wrist and pulled me back onto the balcony. "We're not done here," she said.
I glanced briefly around at the environment before shrugging. "I think we are." I turned and headed back to the dressing room. Once again, Peach grabbed my wrist and turned me around to face her.
"Maddie... did you have sex with Charlie on your date?" she asked. I was taken aback by her abruptness.
"What?" I questioned. "No!"
I winked, then ran.
"Maddie!" Peach screamed behind me as I dashed through the dressing room and out into the hall. I giggled as I flew past Peyton and Polly on the stairs, then stopped at the landing, unsure of where to go. "Stop running, you beautiful bitch! Come here!"
I laughed and took off again, breaking into a jog as I bounded through the bedroom.
"Hey M... Maddie? Where the hell are you going?" Charlie asked from our shared bed.
"I have to run!" I said through riles of laughter. Just as I reached the exterior door to the garden, strong arms wrapped around my torso and lifted me into the air.
"You thought you could run!" Peach yelled, then released a maniacal laugh from deep within her throat. She tossed me onto an empty bed and rushed to my side, straddling my torso to keep me in place. "Maddie, you beautiful princess I love you and I'm so proud of you!" She reached down and began peppering my face with kisses.
I laughed and shielded my face with my hands. "Thank you!"
Peach flopped down beside me with a gentle sigh. "My work here is done."
The rest of the Islanders watched from their respective beds.
Lucas summed up everyone's thoughts pretty well. "What the fuck?"