Fox in the Palm

Mara stood on the balcony of the Kalani Resort, cutting into a papaya she'd stolen from the breakfast buffet. The fruit was overripe, its flesh weeping pink tears onto her white linen dress. Below her, the corporate retreat continued without her—her husband David holding court with the VP of Sales, his laugh carrying up like dinner bells.

She'd married a fox, she thought. Not the clever kind—the scavenger kind. The one who'd take whatever wasn't guarded.

Behind her, the sliding door opened. Julian, the new director of operations, stepped onto the balcony. He held a hat—a Panama, ridiculously expensive—that he must have left behind earlier. "Forgot this," he said, but he didn't move to leave.

"David's inside," Mara said, not warning him. Just stating facts.

"I know."

He moved closer, close enough that she could smell the papaya on her own breath, sweet and faintly fermenting. "He told everyone about your promotion, by the way. During the team-building exercise. Made it sound like his idea."

Mara laughed, a dry, cracked sound. "That's David. Always taking credit for someone else's harvest."

Julian reached out, his palm brushing against hers as he took the papaya from her hand. Their fingers touched—briefly, electrically. He was married too. She'd seen his ring, seen his wife at the opening reception, a woman who looked like she'd never had a single unkind thought.

"We shouldn't be friends," she said softly.

"No," Julian agreed. "We shouldn't."

He dropped the hat onto the table between them. A boundary. A line.

They stood there as the sun dipped below the palm-fringed horizon, married to other people, alone together, not touching, not moving. The papaya sat between them like a heart split open, and somewhere below, David laughed again at something someone else had said.

Mara thought about foxes, about how they sometimes didn't realize they'd wandered into a trap until the steel jaws snapped shut.