Cucked in the Caribbean

He chose the villa because of the architecture.

No walls. Open to the sea. Every space visible from every other space.

He didn’t know, yet, what he was building.

When Stephen books a fifth-anniversary trip to St. Lucia, he plans everything — the excursions, the restaurants, the catamaran charter. What he doesn’t plan for is Cedric. Doesn’t plan for the way his wife laughs differently on the water. Doesn’t plan for the hand on the small of her back at the grill, the name saved under a single letter, the night he drives to town for a charger he doesn’t need and comes back with his headlights off.

He built every condition for what happened. He just hadn’t admitted it yet.