We threw down some specialty drink at HMS that, as near as I could tell, had vodka, some sort of pink fruit juice, and a lot more vodka. Marty thought we were drinking at the same pace, but I was being much more careful.

I thought hard but just couldn’t find the right words to tell Marty how much I’d like him to come back to my place. In my whole life, I’d never picked up a man for a one-night stand. It was new and a little bit scary to me, but I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t an element of excitement to it as well.

He gazed at me and said, “You have the most beautiful eyes.”

“That’s just the alcohol talking.”

“No, I mean it. All four of them are beautiful.” He weaved his head back and forth like someone pretending to be wildly drunk, and it made me laugh out loud.

That was all I needed to screw up the courage to say, “How would you feel about coming back to my place for a nightcap?”

“How far is it?”

I gave him a look. “It’s in Belle Glade, about an hour away.”

“What?”

“No, Mr. Clueless, it’s here in Palm Beach. No one’s ever more than ten minutes from their house when they’re on this island.”

We grabbed a cab back to my temporary residence at the Brazilian Court Hotel. Although Brennan was beating me out on almost everything in the divorce based on some prenuptial agreement I signed when I really believed he loved me, he didn’t want the locals to view him as a complete jerk, and he had put me up in a nice apartment inside the hotel. The cost meant nothing to him, and at least I had a base of operations on the island.

No one asked questions at the Brazilian Court, and Allie, a girl from my CrossFit class, was the evening clerk there. She gave me a heads-up whenever she saw Brennan stomping through the lobby to confront me about one thing or another and generally looked after me like women our age usually did.

Once we were in the room, I realized I was still a little tipsy. I had never used that word in my life until I moved to Palm Beach. Everyone was always getting “a little tipsy,” no matter how much they’d had to drink, but in this case, I really was just a little tipsy.

The tiny apartment consisted of a living room and a comfortable bedroom, with a bathroom in between. The balcony in the back looked into the thick tropical foliage that rimmed the property, which was about three blocks from the ocean. This was a trendy place to stay, and the bar could get interesting some nights.

Marty took a look around the place and turned to face me. “We could use some music,” he said with a slight slur to his words.

The next thing I knew, we were blasting an older Gloria Estefan song through the oversize external speakers for my iPhone. We also managed to make it to the bamboo-framed couch, and started to make out like teenagers. It was fun and I was getting swept up in it. I lost track of time until I heard a rap on the front door. It might’ve been going on for a while because it just sort of crept into my consciousness past the music and Marty’s kisses.