The Ocean Dark

30

Soft multicolored lights glowed from hidden sources all around the perimeter, casting the whole patio in a surreal glow reminiscent of a movie set. The palm trees that drooped over the top of the fence were real enough, but the setting made them seem artificial, except when the breeze rustled their fronds. The fountain in the middle of the patio, between the two bars that sat diagonal from each other, had a bright white light shining up from its center that made the water glisten. The perimeter lights were subdued, allowing the fountain to provide the main source of illumination.

Cinco had class. Most downtown Miami clubs and eateries catered to a drug-addled twentysomething crowd, or splayed their wares wide in an invitation to tourists. Cinco appealed to a slightly older demographic, somehow managing to be more upscale without costing any more than the palaces of youthful bacchanalia that dotted the city’s nightscape. They served quality food in the restaurant, and out on the patio bar they kept a DJ spinning Latin sounds that ran the gamut from traditional to thumping club jams.

And oh my God, the women are beautiful.

Gabe Rio let this thought ricochet around his brain as he listened to a woman named Serafina talk about her work as a restaurant manager and how her family back in Tampa didn’t understand what she saw in Miami. Serafina wore a cream-colored dress made of soft fabric that clung to her in lovely ways and hinted that it might well be the only piece of fabric she wore. Her heels were just high enough to draw attention to her long, shapely legs.

Silently, he thanked his cousin Louis, who tended bar at Cinco and had first dragged him down to the place. Louis had only wanted to have a drink and to introduce Gabe to some of his friends, and the first night, that had been exactly what had happened. But soon, Louis’s friends had become his friends as well, and some of the crew and the regular bar patrons at Cinco would recognize him when he came in. Some of the girls would flirt with him. One night, a waitress named Anna had asked him, a glimmer in her eye, what it would take to put a smile on his face.

Just the question had been enough to earn her the smile she’d been looking for. But it was far from the only thing Anna had done to get a rise out of him. The first night they were together, Gabe had been out of his head after too much Grey Goose, his senses full up with the delicious scent of her, and he’d been able to push all thoughts of his wife aside right up until the moment he came.

He’d stayed away from Cinco for nearly a month after that, enveloped in a fog of guilt. Maya must have known something was wrong, but she had long since given up trying to decipher his moods. Often when he came home from being at sea, they would make love and he would lose himself in the soft curves of her coffee skin and the urgency and sadness of her eyes, and he would remember who they’d once been to each other, how he’d romanced her, how she’d laughed. But in the aftermath, they would draw apart from each other in bed and she would whisper that she was glad to have him home safe and ask him how it went, and how long he would be able to stay home this time.

Stay home and paint the walls. Stay home and fix the bathtub drain. Stay home and have a baby. Stay home.

Already he would be missing the water and the solitude, the strange sounds and sights and aromas of distant ports. Once she had told him that the only time he ever seemed to be home was when he was inside her, and otherwise his eyes were always gazing out to sea. Gabe hadn’t argued the point.

The women he’d met at Cinco over the past few years never asked him to stay home. Some of them wanted him to come back, but they weren’t fussy about when. They never needed anything from him that he couldn’t give them in a single night. Hell, in a handful of hours.

And yet he loved Maya so much it hurt. He wanted to be the man she wished for, and when he knew he couldn’t live a life away from the ocean, he tried at least to stay away from Cinco. But sometimes he just needed a break from disappointing Maya. Sometimes he just needed a woman who could be satisfied with what he gave her.

“Are you still with me, baby?” Serafina asked, the edges of her lips rising into something between a smile and a pout.

Gabe raised his frosty beer bottle in a quiet salute. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Her eyelids fluttered and she launched into another story, reaching out now and again to touch his arm or adjust his shirt. He had ten years on her, at least, and flecks of gray in his hair, but Serafina either didn’t notice or it was what had drawn her to him in the first place.

Out on the open patio, with the music thumping and the night sky washed in the lights of Miami, she told him about the affair she’d had with her teacher at a culinary school, and how those months had inextricably connected exquisite food with exquisite sex in her mind.

Her copper eyes lit with mischief. “The chef here makes a seared shrimp with lechon asado risotto. Have you ever had it?”

Gabe arched an eyebrow. “No. Is it good?”

Serafina sipped at her caipirinha, looking up at him over the rim of the glass. “Exquisite.”

Gabe caught his breath. It felt like the space between them had just vanished, that he could slip the spaghetti straps of her dress off her shoulders and let it slide to the floor. The moment startled him with its intensity and he surprised himself with a small, soft laugh.

She pouted. “What’s funny?”

“Suddenly I’m very hungry.”

Reassured, she reached out to run her fingernails along his forearm, down to his wrist, then traced them across the back of his hand. “I know. Me, too. The thought of those shrimp has me salivating.”

“Can I buy you dinner?”

“I’d like that.”

Gabe smiled, took a sip from his beer, and reached down to take her hand, meaning to lead her off the patio, hoping to find a table in the restaurant but willing to settle for eating at the bar if it meant giving this woman what she craved. They threaded through the crowd on the patio, slid past the fountain, and a path opened up in front of them.

Maya stood just outside the door, scanning the crowd, eyes fierce. In a sleeveless peach blouse, black cotton pants, and heels, she seemed underdressed compared to the other women here, but no less beautiful.

And then she spotted Gabe, just as he tried to pull his hand away from Serafina’s.

Most women would have made a scene. Having taken the time to seek out her wandering husband, finding him in an expensive bar with a woman like Serafina, she might have been expected to raise a little hell. It would have been so much easier for Gabe had Maya done just that.

Instead she only looked at him, first with rage in her eyes, and then a second later with terrible disappointment. He’d loved her long enough that the look on her face needed no interpretation. Their marriage had come to an impasse. Finding him here was not only proof of lies and infidelity she’d already accused him of, it was evidence that he had given up searching for compromise. He’d chosen his work over his marriage, and her wishes no longer entered the equation. She had to deal with it, or not.

Her eyes glistened, but she did not cry. She cocked her head, shook it once, and then turned. As she stepped back into the bar, a young, too-tanned white guy reached out and ran a hand over the small of her back and her rounded ass, saying something Gabe couldn’t hear. Maya didn’t slow down.

“Shit,” Gabe whispered. He turned to Serafina.

“Your wife. I get it. I’m a big girl, Gabriel. Go on.”

He squeezed her hand, set his beer on the low wall of the fountain, and rushed after Maya, calling her name. The music and the chatter of the people crowding the bar drowned out his voice. Bodies flowed together and he weaved through them as best he could. One cluster of people blocked his path entirely, talking loudly to one another to be heard over the music, and he brushed none too gently by them.

One of the guys, young and cocky, shouted and grabbed his shoulder. Another night Gabe might have stared him down, taught him respect for his elders, but he shook it off, slapped the hand away, and kept going, bulling his way through and finally breaking free of the crowd. In the foyer, the hostesses smiled at him and wished him good night even as he ran past them, slamming out through the double glass doors.

He practically spilled into the parking lot. The doors swung shut behind him, muffling the music. The night air felt warm and sticky, too close around him. The lights of downtown Miami gleamed in every direction. He swung his head from side to side, heart racing, cursing himself and Maya both as he looked for her car, but he saw no sign of her until he started running for his own car and spotted her white Corvette tearing out of the lot.

Gabe faltered. “Fuck!”

He only hesitated a moment before once more breaking into a run. Behind the wheel of his aging BMW, he fired up the engine, reversed out of the space, and headed for home. If he kept the pedal down, he wouldn’t be far behind her, might even beat her into the parking garage.

But when he got home, Maya’s parking space was empty.

Gabe waited up, apologies and promises on the tip of his tongue, but Maya never came home that night. By the time she finally returned — shortly before noon the next day — all of his regrets had been replaced by suspicion and anger.

She came in disheveled, still dressed in the clothes she’d worn the night before, her hair unruly. One look at her and all Gabe could think was that she looked as though she’d just rolled out of some other man’s bed.

“Where the hell were you last night?”

Maya narrowed her eyes like she was seeing him for the first time. “I drove for a while, thinking about all the things I was going to say to you when I got home. Then I realized I don’t have to say any of them. You know how I feel, and you don’t care. So why should I bother?”

His heart clenched. He did care, but how could he argue with Maya? She was at least partly right. She’d made clear that she wanted him to change, to be a different man from the one she’d fallen in love with, and that wasn’t going to happen.

The ache that had been building in his head all night turned into a vise. Wondering where she had been the night before stoked a raging fire in him.

“Fine. But where did you sleep?” he said, following her back through the hallway and into the bedroom.

She led him to the bathroom door and stopped, turning to face him. “At a friend’s.”

Gabe felt sick. “What friend?”

“No one you know.”

She closed the bathroom door. He heard her lock it and just stood there, staring at the fake wood grain until he heard the shower come on.