My eyes sputter open and I'm back to consciousness, being pulled above the surface again by someone who looks suspiciously like Óscar Calderón. My near-death-experience hallucinations are really beyond anything I would have expected. Whoever said your whole life flashes before your eyes was definitely lying. Because in absolutely zero instances in this universe would I ever be face to face with Óscar 'I Have Way Too Much Money' Calderón.

The sun burns my exposed skin. And I struggle against the arm encircling my waist. It's definitely real. But I can't be seeing this right.

Except.

Enrique's last name is... Calderón. What are the chances?

I shake my head, my ears roaring with the sound of the ocean. I really really hate the ocean. There are so many things down there that we just don't know about yet. Too many unknown factors.

The arm pulls me again and a deep voice tells me to put my feet down. "¿Estás bien? Can you walk?" he asks, still firmly gripping my waist with his arm, heat prickling at my exposed skin.

"Of course I can walk," I try to say, but instead I'm left wondering how to make my brain move my legs as my lungs burn with ice. My voice comes out as a sort of hoarse whistle.

The man turns again, brows knit together under the bright Roatan sun. How have I been here less than a day and I've already been thrown into the ocean by fate or the restaurant or whatever?

He really looks like Mr. Moneybags Calderón. Even if he's not Enrique's brother—I mean, Calderón isn't exactly an uncommon name in Honduras—Óscar is from the country. But he's at work in Spain, or so I thought.

I shake my head again to clear it, some semblance of normalcy reaching me as I plant my feet against the sandy bed of the ocean. Something squishy brushes my feet and I squeal, leaping back into my rescuer's arms before I realize what I'm doing.

And he catches me with ease, strong muscles brushing against my back and legs as he carries me to shore, lifting me above the water as though I weigh half what I do.

See? Way too nice to be Óscar. I'm just hallucinating.

"Are you okay?" he says again, placing me under a nearby beach umbrella set up for some type of restaurant beach dining or maybe left there by a tourist who voluntarily went for a swim. Despite the sea creatures.

"I think so," I mutter. "Thanks for getting me out of there." I shudder at the memory of the deep darkness swallowing me whole. That's probably the reason I've fabricated the most famous person I've ever heard of. It's like a normal trauma response or something.

"De nada. It's no trouble at all," he says with a smile. My whole face lights on fire when he brushes a strand of wet hair out of my eyes.

"No trouble at all?" a woman's shrill shout joins us and I'm suddenly acutely aware of the crowd that has since gathered to watch me nearly drown.

Excellent. Not at all mortifying. I'm perfectly fine.

"Marcia," the man cautions, tipping his head to me. "It was no trouble at all." The authority dripping from his voice when he says the second part is kinda hot, even if he is dating the beautiful woman now stalking toward us.

A girl who has just been saved from near-drowning is allowed to look, even if she can't taste, okay?

"It is going to be trouble if you injured yourself," she chastises.

"Is my life not worth an injury?" I wonder. But apparently drowning makes the brain to mouth filter power down and instead of thinking my sassy thought, it escapes my mouth, earning a small bark of laughter from my rescuer and a mortified gasp from the young woman now kneeling at my side.

"I'm so sorry," she says when she arrives. "Of course your life is worth an injury, it's just..."

She glances at the man who pulled me from the water, pulling her bottom lip between her teeth as she does so. "It's just my job to make sure he stays safe and, well, he's very bad at listening to the rules."

I like her.

"Men," I laugh.

"Exactly," she agrees. "I'm sorry about that, I'm just worried about him. My cousin is very big on doing whatever he wants."

Cousin. Why is his cousin in charge of making sure he doesn't hurt himself?

"Marcia," the man warns, "we're gathering a crowd."

She mutters what I believe to be a Spanish swear word under her breath and begins circling the crowd, warning people against video with a very threatening scowl on her face. If looks could kill.

The crowd around us is growing rather than shrinking, and when Marcia returns she is wound so tight I think she might explode.

"Óscar," she warns. "Vamos–we have to go."

What are the odds there are two guys named Óscar? High. What are the odds there are two guys named Óscar who look exactly like Óscar Calderón and draw crowds from the hometown Honduran population?

Much, much lower.

Stars dance across the edge of my vision and Óscar looks between Marcia and me with concern.

"No puedo–we can't leave her like this," he says, tension pulled tight across his chest.

"No hay otra opción. We have to," Marcia reasons.

And just as Óscar opens his mouth to argue again, my friends finally push through the crowd and rush to my side.

"Oh my God! I can't believe you fell through," Carla shouts, pulling me into a hug. Divya joins her and together the two of them shield me from the videos and photos of the still growing crowd.

But just in the space between their heads I can see Bianca coming to a halt on the sand a few feet from Óscar. Her face looks like she's seen a ghost and her eyes dart between him and me a few times before she breaks away from him to join me.

I'm sure she hopes I miss it but I don't. She knows him.

But she can't. Enrique would have told us his brother is Óscar Calderón. Right?

Except there's no way he would have told me that. After he and Bianca had one drunken night in Vegas and ended up married, we hadn't really had a chance to get to know him. And I was so worried telling Bianca how bad I thought the whole idea was that I forgot to pay attention to anything else.

In my defense, I came around in the end.

But he does have a suspicious amount of money for a teacher. Almost like...

He is Óscar's brother. And Bianca has known for how long? And she didn't even bring it upon herself to tell me. She knows how much I like Real Barcelona!

Okay, she also knows how much I hate Óscar Calderón, but I'm still going to kill her for not telling me.

* * *

After my 'brush with drowning,' as Divya and Bianca have taken to calling it, they drag me to a clinic so they can make sure I'm going to be okay.

"Bianca," I whine as they try to drag me through the door, despite the fact that a woman with a baby is trying to come out. "I have meetings to attend and things to organize and job searching to do. Not to mention getting everything organized for our epic week of festivities."

I am pulling out all the stops with that last one, because I'm sure I'm going to end up fielding questions about my sudden desire to be the trip coordinator. But even with the deals and offers burning holes in my phone, I still need to get the Mercurio writing job.

And I don't want to jinx it or have someone try to help me, so my friends all think I'm offering to coordinate this trip as a way to contribute to the wedding festivities using my time and talents since I didn't have any money to add to the pool.

Somehow, they actually bought that sob story. Probably because it sounds exactly like something the old Lor would have done. But I'm done with that. New confident Lor is ready to take on her amazing job at Mercurio Travel Magazine and she's never going to have to repay people's financial contributions ever again.

I am self sufficient and amazing. I survived drowning today, so really what is there that I can't do?

I set my shoulders and stare at the girls, who seem to think my recent change in demeanour was caused by my lack of desire to see a doctor. And who am I to correct them?

"I don't need to see a doctor," I say again, as no one has bothered to answer me. Or at least I don't think they have.

"I agree," Carla finally says. "As long as you consent to one of us being with you for the rest of the day at least."

"I will accept this compromise," I say, pointing at her. "What do you say, Bianca? Divya?"

My head swivels between the two of them, Bianca sporting her "bride-to-be" sash despite having become Mrs. Calderón several months ago, and Divya looking around nervously as though someone is going to burst through the door and arrest us for something.

"Please."

They look at each other and then back at me.

"Fine," Bianca says.

"But Carla doesn't get to be your chaperone," Divya finishes.

Carla's protests are drowned out by the passing group of teenagers headed for the beach.

I can tell they aren't going to budge. "Fine. Now let's go before we're late for your party, Bianca. It's not cool to be fashionably late to your own rehearsal dinner."

I don't stop to let them think, pulling their arms and heading back toward the resort. "Come on, ladies, we have a ballroom to decorate."

And I have some sleuthing to do. Bianca's jittery knees tell me she's hiding something. Or worried. And given that I just fell into the ocean, it's really hard to tell. So I need to do some internet stalking of Óscar Calderón.

It's a pity I haven't paid more attention to him so far. The man's smile and strong embrace from earlier have me off in another land until Divya jostles me back to the present.

"You alright?" she asks. "You look like you've seen a ghost."

Maybe I have. I really need to get a handle on my racing pulse. Maybe if I figure out who he is I can figure out what to do. If he isn't Óscar Calderón, then I'll find him again. And if he is then I'll have a fun blog post to write and make a few dollars in website monetization.

I've been so busy not drowning that I haven't even checked my phone in...

Where is my phone?

I stop abruptly in the middle of the path and pat my pockets frantically.

"Does anyone have my phone?" I ask. "I haven't seen it since we got to the bar."

The girls all shake their heads, and Carla digs through both of our purses before declaring, "Nope, it isn't here."

No. I can't lose my phone. It's my whole way of communicating with Mercurio and Xabal and the only reliable internet while I'm away from the resort and I cannot be without internet for ninety percent of my days.

"I have to go back," I say, spinning on my heel. "I need to find it."

"Lor, I picked up everything that was ours. Plus this napkin and a hat I'm pretty sure belonged to that one guy who hit on Divya." She holds the two offending items up like they burned her.

"Well, you must have missed it." There's no way my phone is just gone. It can't be.

"I didn't miss it. It probably just fell out when you landed in the ocean. Was it in your pocket when you got up to use the bathroom?"

I don't know, honestly. I'd been a lot less sober before I found myself under the water. "I think so, but I'm not sure."

"Well, why don't I call and see if the bartender has it?" Bianca offers. "Enrique can swing by and pick it up if they find it, okay? Otherwise we'll just find you a new one. You can get your emails and everything set up and it'll just be your number that's wrong. We'll figure it out."

Can you hyperventilate to death? If it's possible, we are all about to find out.

I don't have money for a new phone. But New Lor is done taking handouts.

So I'm going to need to find a way to make some money. Fast.