AN: Hey, lovelies! Hope you like this chapter. When I first came up with the story, I started with the end and then figured out a beginning. The middle parts either came to as I wrote, or, like this one, while I was emptying the dishwasher.
That Thursday, Hermione woke up to a sleeping Draco and tip-toed onto their patio where she spread her arms to the morning sun as it rose in the early morning, so early that even Rocko was not awake. She shed her pajamas and donned a sundress with flats that would not flip-flop as she left the penthouse. She found the elevator attendant sleeping at his post, traveling between their floor and the floor below as his nodding head hit different buttons. Without waking him, Hermione reached over to hit the lobby's button and leaned back against the mirrored wall for the ride down.
Festooning herself on the beach in the sand, Hermione dialed her parents. It was late evening in England, but they would still be awake watching the news. Except they weren't. "Hello, you have reached the Granger household. We are busy right now, but will get back to you as soon as we can." Her mother's voice cut off with the long tone that Hermione did not even bother to listen to before checking her phone across the beach. "Too busy for your only daughter? Get back to me as soon as you can? You said that last time!"
Her hot tears rushed down faster than the waves rolling in by her feet. She took off her flats to spare ruining them and dug her hands into the sand to stop them from pounding the ground repeatedly in frustration. The last sliver of sun peeked out from over the horizon and her crying stopped with its appearance. "I'm in Hawaii," she whispered. "I am in Hawaii and they don't care." Hermione looked to her side where one of her hands squirmed in the presence of hidden crabs and saw a falling sand castle near her elbow, a remnant from yesterday. "In England, they have stone castles, but I guess I prefer sand." Her tears renewed at the paltry revelation and she removed her hands from their sand shackles to throw them up in the air and fall backwards to take in the blue sky that was so rare in London.
Laughing was difficult in this position, but she attempted it anyway and enjoyed the way that sand wriggled up her dress and pressed against her back as she vibrated back and forth with every shaky, humorous breath. "I have to find my phone." She chuckled. "I do not make enough to buy another one." She turned to giggling as she rolled over to her side to push herself up. "I barely make enough to afford an apartment that doesn't leak when it rains, but I am staying at a five-star resort with a parrot butler and people at my fingertips to do my bidding! Merlin, I need to find my phone." She continued in this hazy hilarity until she fell down in searching for her phone.
Hermione prayed that the device had not been swallowed by waves, but soon muttered, "Que sera, sera" and turned to making sand angels like she used to do in the snow in her suburban backyard. On her fifth angel, her hand hit something plastic in the sand. "Aha!" She sprung up with her phone in hand. It was covered in sand and would take some brushing off before she could use it again, but she suspected it would be a while before her parents called back, so she was not worried.
With a breezy sense about her, Hermione meandered back to the resort where she picked up a daily schedule and settled into a chair in the lounge to sit through a day of planned Hawaiian entertainment complete with acoustic guitars and hula dancers. In between shows, she dozed off but no one woke her until the nice breakfast waitress, Zelda shook her awake when the clouds had turned pink.
"Miss Hermione? Would you like some dinner? On Thursdays, we serve breakfast for dinner if you want."
"Oh Merlin! Is it Thursday already?" Hermione counted on her fingers while avoiding the pretty girl's gaze to avoid looking like a sleepy, idiotic tourist. "It is, isn't it?"
"Yes." Zelda's eyes glowed with the sun rays dancing in the window in front of her as she grasped Hermione's hand to pull her to the dining room and away from a washed-out cover band attempting to speak Hawaiian on stage.
The restaurant looked all the more festive at night with lights on palm trees as if it was Christmas and candles lit in the centers of tables as the sun continued to set. Zelda told her to wait at a table and then returned wearing a simple sundress and carrying a circular tray of Belgian waffles and apple juice.
"You changed!" Hermione exclaimed.
The other girl blushed in the sunset and muttered something about being on her break and wanting to spend it with a friend. Hermione beamed as she downed half of her apple juice. Another waitress swung by to check on them, but they dismissed her with polite jollity.
"So, how's Draco?"
"Um, oh, well," Hermione muttered as she finished off her apple juice, "he's good, I think. Haven't seen him today."
"Hmm... Are you two friends? More? I couldn't quite get a feeling for it..."
Hermione assured her as she cut through her waffles, "Coworkers. There's, um, nothing more than that."
"Really? But he's so handsome! There must be some inkling of affection..."
"Well, not really. We went to school together and hardly managed to be civil to each other. Rather the opposite, really."
"So there's nothing between you two?"
Hermione shrugged as syrup flooded her plate. It was vacation; she could indulge. "I wouldn't say nothing."
"But you wouldn't mind if I asked for his number?"
"No" was her automatic response, but she spent the rest of dinner reconsidering. Logically, she had no control over Draco and was in no place to influence the other people around him in their interactions with him, but he was her Draco. They were in this together. They fought against Rocko together and tricked those tourists at the luau together. At work, whenever one had a troublesome customer, they could always count on the other to stand up for them. They were a team. Sure, they hadn't started out that way, but when their boss had left them the company, they had to band together. But Hermione could rationalize that now she was helping Draco because it seemed sometimes that he could use a little love in his life. She had sometimes caught him quoting chick flicks and lyrics from boy bands as if he was a stereotypical teenage girl eating away her loneliness in tubs of Ben and Jerry's.
Zelda excused herself after a half hour to return to work and Hermione tried not to seem to anxious to avoid her new competition. No! There was no competition because there was nothing to compete for! The poor elevator attendant politely asked her how she was, and she gave him a fair amount of attitude the whole way up to the penthouse and forgot to tip him at the top. She was all fired up argue with Draco about his passivity and absence throughout the day or whatever other petty mistake she could pin on him, but the room was empty.
She threw her phone as she had done before and broke down in sobs on the floor while Rocko sleeped silently on the floor. Sleep was her only escape from this tired torrent of emotions that attacked her.
