I'm sitting in a Roatán taxi with Óscar Calderón. I'm not even a little bit drunk but my head is light and my skin tingles. His fingers thread through mine and he looks at me like I'm the point of contact tethering him to the earth; like it isn't gravity keeping him here, but me.

I am not nearly grounded enough to bear the responsibility.

"Why did you do it?" I blurt. "Buy me the food."

His thumb draws a circle on my wrist and I am keeping it together. I'm totally on top of everything. My eyes did NOT roll back in my head.

"I told you already," he says with a shrug, his eyes doing that thing where they seem to get softer. "I wanted to do something nice."

"What did you get out of it?" I know I'm pushing. But it's possible I'm spiraling a little. I'm not sure. Reality is crashing in around me, filling the small space of the cab with memories.

His finger pauses and he squeezes my hands in his. "I got to see you smile," he says simply. When I dare lift my eyes up to his, he isn't even looking at me, focus aimed over the coastline.

"It was delicious," I say, gripping my sanity and his hands tight in my own. "And I did win the bet, so."

His chuckle doesn't really reach his eyes.

"Can I ask you something?" He breaks the silence or, rather, the bumpy road noise.

"Mmhmm," I nod, laying my head on his shoulder.

He places a small kiss on my temple, resting his head onto my own. "Promise you'll still give me tonight?" he asks.

I shoot away from him and stare. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Keep your clothes on, Lorena, I'm not trying to sleep with you."

Damn. I asked for that but it still cuts. It shouldn't, though.

"Sorry. Go ahead, ask your question."

"What makes you assume my motivations aren't honest?"

Two verbal slaps in the space of a minute. That has to be a record, right?

He doesn't keep talking, either. No, that would be too easy. Give me an out. Instead, he just waits, fingers fiddling gently with the fold of fabric resting just above his knee. A light bouncy drum beat fills the cab as the driver turns up the music.

One deep breath. And another. The only way out is through.

"Have I ever told you about my mom?" I ask before I can back down.

He shakes his head, eyes drawing together. The car shoots over a huge bump and crashes into the ground, jolting my heart into my throat.

"Well, she has this thing where she believes that money will solve all problems," I begin. I expect Óscar to dive in with some explanation about how money is awful or that there are some problems money solves or something. Everyone always does. But he doesn't. He just sits, hands stilling in his lap as his eyes hold mine.

He isn't giving me any outs tonight and I'm not sure how I feel about it. Seen, but also scared. Is that an emotion?

"So my childhood wasn't, maybe the best, is a good way of putting it. I think she loved me, but it wasn't enough for her to focus on me instead of chasing the elusive amount of money that would make our lives better."

"I understand," he says, resting his hand between us as a peace offering.

I don't take it. Not yet. It'll be easier not to take his hand than to have him withdraw it. I need to get this out.

"Well, she realized pretty quickly she wasn't going to achieve her goals by working for someone else. So first it was entrepreneurial enterprises. But they all fell apart. I never saw her because she was always working and in the end we were worse off than before."

"Starting a business is very risky," Óscar agrees. "I can't imagine how that must have been for you."

"I think you can," I whisper. "Because you kind of did the same thing."

He jerks back and I reach over for his hand, stopping the motion. "I mean, it's different. You weren't the parent, right? But you had to leave. You never saw them because you wanted a better life for them, you know? I'm beginning to see that may have been how my mother saw the whole thing."

"Doesn't mean she was right, though," he says, pulling me a little closer.

"I know that. She had other options and chose not to use them. You didn't have another choice. I can see that, too."

His thumb spins circles on my knuckles again and the tension falls out of my arms.

"Well, when those things didn't work, she turned to rich men. Rich entitled jerks who asked for things from her if she wanted to use any of their money. She'd marry them, something would happen, they'd break up..."

"She'd look for another man?"

"A richer one," I admit. "And most often as the money increased..." I can't say it out loud. It sounds so stupid coming out of my mouth.

"The richer they were, the worse they behaved?" he guesses.

I shrug, refusing to look into his eyes. "It sounds awful to say it out loud."

"It's not awful," he says, blowing out a breath. "It must have been a lot to deal with. Especially for a child."

"Who are we talking about again?" I laugh despite myself. "I think I said the same thing to you a couple hours ago."

"We make an excellent pair," he laughs, too.

And then the laughter stops and we're staring at each other in the small space of the car, making it so very easy to lean forward and press my lips to his cheek.

"Thank you," I say, not pulling back but too scared to do anything more.

"Can I still have the evening?" he asks, holding my head in both his hands.

I'm scared to speak, but I'm not scared to nod, bobbing my head up and down between the gentle touch of his hands.

I'm about to attempt a yes when his fingers tense and pull me toward him for yet another kiss. I think if all I ever did was kiss Óscar, I'd die a happy woman. His fingers tangle in my hair and a sigh rumbles in the back of his throat, soft lips a perfect resting place for mine.

My own hands find the back of his head, pulling at the hairs...

A loud squeal of brakes shakes us out of our kiss and nearly knocks me out of my seat entirely.

"We're here." The driver turns down his music and delivers the message with no emotion at all, just facts. Oblivious to the fact that we'd just been making out in the back of his car.

Heat flushes my cheeks. I can't believe I was making out with Óscar Calderón in the back of a dingy cab. Surely it should have been a limousine or a town car at least. I look around and wonder if such a thing even exists here.

Óscar doesn't even look at the driver, throwing way too much money into his long thin fingers and telling him to keep the change. Next thing I know, we're in the lobby of the hotel, Óscar's hand gently guiding the small of my back.

We reach the archway that separates the lobby from the hallway full of hotel rooms. He stops and I look up into the deep brown eyes I've come to know so well.

"Do you trust me?" he asks.

I do. But I don't know why. I shouldn't. Right?

"I mean, you have saved my life probably twice, so I guess I have to," I joke, trying to ease the tension.

It doesn't work.

Well, it might have, except instead of him saying anything, a group of women burst into the lobby shouting about some parrot pecking at their drinks. In all the commotion, the aforementioned bird somehow escapes into the hotel and begins flying around the lobby.

"Come on!" Óscar shouts, pulling my hand and racing down the hallway. "Let's get away from that damn bird before we have to avail ourselves of local hospital services."

"He's just a little bird. What's he going to do, peck at us?" But I run with him anyway. I cannot afford a hospital stay.

We race down the hallway faster than my legs would usually carry me. This man really does bring out the runner in me.

A squawk echoes down the hallway and he slams a door open, pushing me inside his... bedroom.

What was I thinking?

What am I doing?

He flips the lock on the door. "I think we'll be safe here for now," he says with a smile. "Movie?"

"You want to ... watch a movie?" I ask.

Not where I saw this heading. Should have been. He did warn me he did not want to sleep with me.

My eyes wander to the bed and back to him and definitely just his face. If anyone asks I only looked at his face.

"You planning to watch the movie from the bed?" he asks, raising his eyebrows and crossing his delightful arms across his toned chest I'm not looking at! His eyes. They are beautiful. That's what I'm looking at.

"I would like that, yes." I race the two steps between me and the bed and launch myself in a sort of flying spin so I land on my back in the middle of the soft bed.

"Oh, this is comfy. Is this what being rich is like? I could get used to this."

A small groan escapes him and he hauls himself up until he's sitting on the dresser. "I think your room has the same bed," he says. "I don't think money has much to do with it."

"No," I say, pushing up onto my elbows and bouncing a little. "This one is definitely more comfortable than mine."

"Luck, then," he says, now staring down at his phone. "You pick a movie and I'll be right back."

He grabs a small pile of clothes and heads to the bathroom, tossing me the remote on the way by.

I am not known for my ability to catch things and wind up with a remote to the forehead, complete with a delightful 'smack'.

"Ow," I whine, grabbing my head.

"Are you alright," Óscar is at my side so fast he must have run. Or I'm not appropriately measuring time.

"This is the second time I've almost been concussed this week," I whine. "I'm going to have a bruise."

"I thought you were going to catch it."

"I thought you brought me here to protect me from needing a hospital."

"I'll get you some ice," he says, racing toward the hall.

And the second he opens the door, two things happen simultaneously. First, my phone starts ringing. And second, that blasted bright red bird flies right through the door and into Óscar's room.

With a scream, I leap off the bed and race after him until we are both safe in the hallway. Oscar staring with his mouth agape while I desperately struggle to close the door behind me.

"What did you do that for?" Óscar asks, pointing at the now-closed door.

"To keep the bird contained," I whisper-shout. "What did you expect me to do?"

"I don't know!" he whispers back. "Maybe not trap it in my suite."

"Oh, it's a suite now, is it? What happened to Óscar 'my bed is the same as yours' Calderón?" I jab my finger into his chest and he gently grabs me around the wrist, holding it to his chest.

"I'm still here," he says. "I just have a damn bird in my room now."

"Good luck with that," I say, pressing up onto my tiptoes and kissing his cheek. "I have to go."

Waving my phone between us, I'm forced to turn and walk away barefoot from the man I'd like to fall into bed with. Because my potential boss has called three times in two hours and I've missed it every single time.

That and I left a rogue bird in said man's room. Maybe that large red bird was just protecting me from embarrassing myself any further.

I spend the whole walk to my room wondering what Sema Zorlu could possibly want from me, but she doesn't leave me waiting, an email pinging just as I step through the door.

She's moved up the deadline for my sample articles. I need them done by morning.

I'm sure it's just part of the process for hiring. If I were actually working there, I'd have more warning because I'd be easier to reach.

A small quiet part of me worries that it isn't true, but I'm not willing to give up my dream because of one person. And I can easily write two articles before bed. No problem.

Ideas run through my mind as I finish checking my emails. A lot of junk mail that didn't get filtered properly, fewer comments on my blog than I would have liked, and a few strangely titled messages that I'll look into later.

Plus two I need to see right now. One from the sponsorship people who are saying if I don't pick up my numbers and write something about Óscar, they will have to terminate my barely alive contract. And another from my blog host asking me to confirm I changed my password.

No, it's impossible. Probably this is just spam. I'm not supposed to click any links in the email, because they're just fishing for my real password. Okay, I can do this.

The website is easy enough to find and I'm already logged in, so I navigate through the menus until I find the change password option, reentering my current password and setting a strong new password.

I might be shaking or nervous because I have to retype the password confirmation three times before I get it right. But eventually it goes through, asking me to refresh the page and log in again. Which I do, easily enough.

Must have been a phishing email, then. But the confirmation they send me for real looks virtually identical, so whoever they are, they've done their homework.

I'm going to have to stay on my toes. And I'm going to need to write something... about Óscar. A simple task that seems a lot less ethical right now than it did yesterday.