Those Heartbreak Scars
Chapter One - America
“There is no better way to get over a personal crisis than to take a little holiday to the Amalfi Coast.” Dove blows smoke out through pouty fish lips as the house music from the nightclub ahead grows louder. “You’ll see.”
Her arm hooked through mine, we stumble our way to the best nightclub in Positano with one goal in mind. We’re going to drink and dance and drink some more.
And maybe for a couple of hours it won’t feel like the end of the world. “After the last few months I really hope so.”
After almost losing my best friend to a brain tumor… and now I’m failing my doctorate. How am I supposed to tell my parents I screwed up so monumentally when they’ve done everything to support me? To raise me to be strong and independent and smarter than this.
“Professor Wanky McWank-Face is so last season, babes.” Dove sucks on her watermelon flavored vape as we make our way over the beachside path. “Him and his stuck up wife deserve each other.”
“She’s not stuck up.” If anything, she’s lovely. It’s just that she has no idea her husband was screwing me behind her back. Until a couple weeks ago when he introduced me to her in the faculty parking lot, I didn’t know either.
And then I received the graded assignment I submitted just before I found out about his wife. I went from high honors to a failing grade. My study buddy couldn’t understand how our papers, which we’d written together, could have such bipolar marks. But I could. Especially after the professor sent me a text to meet him to discuss improving my grade.
“She’s the head of faculty. Tell me again how you think she doesn’t know that her husband is sleeping with his students? Grading his students according to his own dick-ish behavior?”
“I really don’t think she does. And I don’t think anyone deserves to be treated the way he’s treating her.” After watching my best friend and her fiancé break up due to another man, I wouldn’t wish that pain on anyone. I refuse to be the cause of it.
“You don’t deserve it either. Nobody deserves someone like that to be in charge of their future.” She puts on a masculine voice while stroking my arm sleazily. “Blow me, beautiful, and you’ll get high honors. Break up with me, and you can forget about achieving your doctorate.” She rolls her eyes, her voice returning to normal. “He’s a prick.”
“I’m such an idiot. I should have seen it coming.” I had no way of knowing they were married. They don’t have the same last name. Or work in the same department. But that’s not the point. Getting involved with my professor was a monumentally fucked up idea. The man is my teacher. I can’t avoid him without avoiding the lectures I need to attend to pass.
But I can’t bear the idea of having to come face-to-face with him when I’ve been on my knees and come face-to-face with the rest of him. “God, I am so naive.”
Sometimes I wonder how I’ve made it this far through life when taking people at face value gets me into so much trouble. Luckily, the blessing in this scenario is my heart was never vulnerable. My ego, on the other hand, is battered and bruised.
“He’s a dick, babes. An itty-bitty dick.” She wiggles her little finger and then wraps an arm around my shoulder as she blows out another watermelon scented cloud. “Like Nathan is a dick. They’re all terribly dick-ish. In fact, the only good thing about them is when they have those big monster dongs, and they know how to dick you down just right. But even then, they’re still dicks.”
“Holy shit. You did not say that.” I snort laugh. I can’t help it. Her spin on things is what I need to not let it get me too down.
“What you need is to let loose.” She turns a slightly lazy, too wide grin, and feverish eyes on me. She’s been drinking since we stepped onto the plane. Straight vodka on the flight. Cocktails in the bar of our hotel. “We don’t need to think about our poor choices right now. We need to drink and have some fun. Dance. Boys are dead to us. Dicks, and men, and men who are dicks. Your bell end professor. Nathan. All of them… Dead. To. Us.”
I’m not the only one whose life is in upheaval right now, but I’m not sure I would classify her problems as simply poor choices like mine. Nathan, her manager, is a bigger asshole than my professor. And the lawyers she took her contracts to basically told her there was nothing they could do to get her out of them without destroying her career.
An arm around her waist, I tug her to a stop on the sand a few yards from the club. The oval bruises on her neck weren’t as well covered as the bruising around her left eye on the flight over, though they are carefully concealed now. “I’m worried—”
Her eyes turn round as the first bars of a familiar new club anthem play. “Do you hear that? They’re playing my song.”
“They’re playing your song.” I grin back at her.
“I love it when they do that.” Taking my hand she spins under it and then sashays toward the club entrance. “We need to celebrate. We need to dance.”
The bouncers let us pass.
Dove drags me toward the bar. “We need another cocktail. Do your thing, girl.”
I order drinks in fluent Italian. The bartender mixes sweet, tart lemon cocktails and slides them in front of us.
“Let’s go dance.” Dove tosses back two-thirds of hers and then leads the way onto the dance floor. Her hips are swaying before we make it into the crowd of writhing bodies.
After a while the alcohol and the movement loosen my mood. All my problems… everything I’m stressing about will be there when I get home, but for tonight I’m all about limoncello cocktails and having fun with my friend. “You were so right. This is what we needed.”
“I know.” Her gaze locks on something or someone over my shoulder. Her lips part and her teeth sink into the bottom one.
For the next few minutes she flirts over my shoulder like it’s an Olympic sport, before eventually she says, “Would you forgive me for dragging you off the dance floor for a minute?”
I laugh. “You see something you like?”
“Like. Want.” She practically purrs as she leans in like we’re sharing the best kind of secret. “He keeps making eyes at me. The least I can do is go say hello and tell him to look elsewhere.”
“Absolutely.” I turn around and head in the direction she was looking, weaving between groups of dancers until we’re out of the throng and can snake our way around. “Which one?”
“Him.” She points over my shoulder, and I follow the direction to a man with dark hair who seems to be searching the crowd like he’s lost someone.
“No way.” I blink at my best friend Indy’s older brother EJ, like doing so will clear the familiarity and prove the guy I’m looking at is a stranger. It’s only been a couple of months, hasn’t it? But it feels like forever. What is he doing here? Thousands of miles from home. “This is unexpected.”
“Wait. You know him?” Dove wraps both hands around my upper arm and tugs on it excitedly. “You can introduce me.”
“I… uh…”
EJ’s cinnamon-colored gaze catches with mine and flares, then slides temporarily to the girl beside me before returning. His lips turn up as he moves from his position and starts striding toward us.
EJ, Indy, and I grew up together, and though he’s older than me and Indy by a handful of years, he’s always treated me less like a cousin and more like another pain in the ass sister.
“This is so weird…” I turn to Dove. Indy never mentioned her brother was taking a vacation. Well, not since he went with her and her husband Theo on a bucket list trip to Japan. “But yes, I can introduce you. He’s my cousin.”
“I did not see that coming,” Dove says. “Perhaps it’s best if—”
“Aren’t you supposed to be in Cambridge?” EJ asks me as he swoops in for a friendly hug. “Your parents know you’re skipping school?”
“Very funny.” What is it about older brothers, including pseudo ones, that makes a girl want to roll her eyes so hard? “Shouldn’t you be arguing with someone in Chicago? I thought you hated flying.”
“Yes, well, you have enough of these…” he lifts a short, fat glass of a dark colored spirit up between us and swallows the contents. “And you don’t notice when your feet leave the ground.”
“So true.” Dove sighs next to me like EJ’s half-drunken ramblings are Yoda level utterances of wisdom.
His gaze settles on her with a keen amount of interest and an easy smile. “So who is your friend?”
“Dove.” She slips her hand into his when he offers it and gravitates into his personal space like she literally can’t do anything else.
“Just the one name?” he asks.
“Uh-huh.” She continues to shake his hand in slow-motion.
“Like Prince or Bono,” he says.
“Or Beyonce,” she adds.
“Nice.” His smile grows wider. “Edward James, but you can call me EJ.”
Wild horses couldn’t break the connection between them. Which is weird for Dove. She likes the attention she gets in crowds. Men flock to her, their tongues hanging out of their heads. Normally, though, they’re the ones feeling the connection, while she’s just in it for the fun.
This seems different. This feels like it could actually go somewhere. Like back to a hotel room with the way they’re undressing each other with their eyes.
Thankfully we’ve sworn off men for the night. I don’t know how I feel about my brother from another mother wanting to dick down my flatmate at first sight.
“I got you another drink.” A familiar masculine voice hits my ears as an arm—the wrist wrapped in an Oris watch with an aged brown leather strap—appears over my shoulder holding a second short, fat glass of black liquid. “I think you’re falling behind.”
That voice. That watch. That cologne. Spicy and warm. Sexy and comforting. As familiar as the perfume I carry everywhere I go, I’ve inhaled it so many times. His body heat behind me has my bare shoulders and arms breaking out in goosebumps.
I don’t need to turn around to know who is behind me. The other party to the awesome foursome that grew up hanging out at EJ and Indy’s parents. The man I have been in love with since I was fourteen years old. When he was in his first year of college and still playing baseball, and I was too young for such big feelings. The man I moved countries to avoid when I couldn’t shake those big feelings after he and my bestie started planning their wedding.
Of course EJ isn’t here alone. It would take someone important to get him on a plane. Someone as important to him as his sister.
That person would be his best friend. And my best friend’s ex-fiancé. God, she made such a mess when she fell in love and married Theo instead.
“Look who I found.” EJ indicates me without taking his eyes off Dove.
I swallow a rush of saliva as I turn to glance up at him. His pale blue eyes widen and his cheeks crease as his lips pull back from his teeth. “America?”
“Hey, Gray.”
Her arm hooked through mine, we stumble our way to the best nightclub in Positano with one goal in mind. We’re going to drink and dance and drink some more.
And maybe for a couple of hours it won’t feel like the end of the world. “After the last few months I really hope so.”
After almost losing my best friend to a brain tumor… and now I’m failing my doctorate. How am I supposed to tell my parents I screwed up so monumentally when they’ve done everything to support me? To raise me to be strong and independent and smarter than this.
“Professor Wanky McWank-Face is so last season, babes.” Dove sucks on her watermelon flavored vape as we make our way over the beachside path. “Him and his stuck up wife deserve each other.”
“She’s not stuck up.” If anything, she’s lovely. It’s just that she has no idea her husband was screwing me behind her back. Until a couple weeks ago when he introduced me to her in the faculty parking lot, I didn’t know either.
And then I received the graded assignment I submitted just before I found out about his wife. I went from high honors to a failing grade. My study buddy couldn’t understand how our papers, which we’d written together, could have such bipolar marks. But I could. Especially after the professor sent me a text to meet him to discuss improving my grade.
“She’s the head of faculty. Tell me again how you think she doesn’t know that her husband is sleeping with his students? Grading his students according to his own dick-ish behavior?”
“I really don’t think she does. And I don’t think anyone deserves to be treated the way he’s treating her.” After watching my best friend and her fiancé break up due to another man, I wouldn’t wish that pain on anyone. I refuse to be the cause of it.
“You don’t deserve it either. Nobody deserves someone like that to be in charge of their future.” She puts on a masculine voice while stroking my arm sleazily. “Blow me, beautiful, and you’ll get high honors. Break up with me, and you can forget about achieving your doctorate.” She rolls her eyes, her voice returning to normal. “He’s a prick.”
“I’m such an idiot. I should have seen it coming.” I had no way of knowing they were married. They don’t have the same last name. Or work in the same department. But that’s not the point. Getting involved with my professor was a monumentally fucked up idea. The man is my teacher. I can’t avoid him without avoiding the lectures I need to attend to pass.
But I can’t bear the idea of having to come face-to-face with him when I’ve been on my knees and come face-to-face with the rest of him. “God, I am so naive.”
Sometimes I wonder how I’ve made it this far through life when taking people at face value gets me into so much trouble. Luckily, the blessing in this scenario is my heart was never vulnerable. My ego, on the other hand, is battered and bruised.
“He’s a dick, babes. An itty-bitty dick.” She wiggles her little finger and then wraps an arm around my shoulder as she blows out another watermelon scented cloud. “Like Nathan is a dick. They’re all terribly dick-ish. In fact, the only good thing about them is when they have those big monster dongs, and they know how to dick you down just right. But even then, they’re still dicks.”
“Holy shit. You did not say that.” I snort laugh. I can’t help it. Her spin on things is what I need to not let it get me too down.
“What you need is to let loose.” She turns a slightly lazy, too wide grin, and feverish eyes on me. She’s been drinking since we stepped onto the plane. Straight vodka on the flight. Cocktails in the bar of our hotel. “We don’t need to think about our poor choices right now. We need to drink and have some fun. Dance. Boys are dead to us. Dicks, and men, and men who are dicks. Your bell end professor. Nathan. All of them… Dead. To. Us.”
I’m not the only one whose life is in upheaval right now, but I’m not sure I would classify her problems as simply poor choices like mine. Nathan, her manager, is a bigger asshole than my professor. And the lawyers she took her contracts to basically told her there was nothing they could do to get her out of them without destroying her career.
An arm around her waist, I tug her to a stop on the sand a few yards from the club. The oval bruises on her neck weren’t as well covered as the bruising around her left eye on the flight over, though they are carefully concealed now. “I’m worried—”
Her eyes turn round as the first bars of a familiar new club anthem play. “Do you hear that? They’re playing my song.”
“They’re playing your song.” I grin back at her.
“I love it when they do that.” Taking my hand she spins under it and then sashays toward the club entrance. “We need to celebrate. We need to dance.”
The bouncers let us pass.
Dove drags me toward the bar. “We need another cocktail. Do your thing, girl.”
I order drinks in fluent Italian. The bartender mixes sweet, tart lemon cocktails and slides them in front of us.
“Let’s go dance.” Dove tosses back two-thirds of hers and then leads the way onto the dance floor. Her hips are swaying before we make it into the crowd of writhing bodies.
After a while the alcohol and the movement loosen my mood. All my problems… everything I’m stressing about will be there when I get home, but for tonight I’m all about limoncello cocktails and having fun with my friend. “You were so right. This is what we needed.”
“I know.” Her gaze locks on something or someone over my shoulder. Her lips part and her teeth sink into the bottom one.
For the next few minutes she flirts over my shoulder like it’s an Olympic sport, before eventually she says, “Would you forgive me for dragging you off the dance floor for a minute?”
I laugh. “You see something you like?”
“Like. Want.” She practically purrs as she leans in like we’re sharing the best kind of secret. “He keeps making eyes at me. The least I can do is go say hello and tell him to look elsewhere.”
“Absolutely.” I turn around and head in the direction she was looking, weaving between groups of dancers until we’re out of the throng and can snake our way around. “Which one?”
“Him.” She points over my shoulder, and I follow the direction to a man with dark hair who seems to be searching the crowd like he’s lost someone.
“No way.” I blink at my best friend Indy’s older brother EJ, like doing so will clear the familiarity and prove the guy I’m looking at is a stranger. It’s only been a couple of months, hasn’t it? But it feels like forever. What is he doing here? Thousands of miles from home. “This is unexpected.”
“Wait. You know him?” Dove wraps both hands around my upper arm and tugs on it excitedly. “You can introduce me.”
“I… uh…”
EJ’s cinnamon-colored gaze catches with mine and flares, then slides temporarily to the girl beside me before returning. His lips turn up as he moves from his position and starts striding toward us.
EJ, Indy, and I grew up together, and though he’s older than me and Indy by a handful of years, he’s always treated me less like a cousin and more like another pain in the ass sister.
“This is so weird…” I turn to Dove. Indy never mentioned her brother was taking a vacation. Well, not since he went with her and her husband Theo on a bucket list trip to Japan. “But yes, I can introduce you. He’s my cousin.”
“I did not see that coming,” Dove says. “Perhaps it’s best if—”
“Aren’t you supposed to be in Cambridge?” EJ asks me as he swoops in for a friendly hug. “Your parents know you’re skipping school?”
“Very funny.” What is it about older brothers, including pseudo ones, that makes a girl want to roll her eyes so hard? “Shouldn’t you be arguing with someone in Chicago? I thought you hated flying.”
“Yes, well, you have enough of these…” he lifts a short, fat glass of a dark colored spirit up between us and swallows the contents. “And you don’t notice when your feet leave the ground.”
“So true.” Dove sighs next to me like EJ’s half-drunken ramblings are Yoda level utterances of wisdom.
His gaze settles on her with a keen amount of interest and an easy smile. “So who is your friend?”
“Dove.” She slips her hand into his when he offers it and gravitates into his personal space like she literally can’t do anything else.
“Just the one name?” he asks.
“Uh-huh.” She continues to shake his hand in slow-motion.
“Like Prince or Bono,” he says.
“Or Beyonce,” she adds.
“Nice.” His smile grows wider. “Edward James, but you can call me EJ.”
Wild horses couldn’t break the connection between them. Which is weird for Dove. She likes the attention she gets in crowds. Men flock to her, their tongues hanging out of their heads. Normally, though, they’re the ones feeling the connection, while she’s just in it for the fun.
This seems different. This feels like it could actually go somewhere. Like back to a hotel room with the way they’re undressing each other with their eyes.
Thankfully we’ve sworn off men for the night. I don’t know how I feel about my brother from another mother wanting to dick down my flatmate at first sight.
“I got you another drink.” A familiar masculine voice hits my ears as an arm—the wrist wrapped in an Oris watch with an aged brown leather strap—appears over my shoulder holding a second short, fat glass of black liquid. “I think you’re falling behind.”
That voice. That watch. That cologne. Spicy and warm. Sexy and comforting. As familiar as the perfume I carry everywhere I go, I’ve inhaled it so many times. His body heat behind me has my bare shoulders and arms breaking out in goosebumps.
I don’t need to turn around to know who is behind me. The other party to the awesome foursome that grew up hanging out at EJ and Indy’s parents. The man I have been in love with since I was fourteen years old. When he was in his first year of college and still playing baseball, and I was too young for such big feelings. The man I moved countries to avoid when I couldn’t shake those big feelings after he and my bestie started planning their wedding.
Of course EJ isn’t here alone. It would take someone important to get him on a plane. Someone as important to him as his sister.
That person would be his best friend. And my best friend’s ex-fiancé. God, she made such a mess when she fell in love and married Theo instead.
“Look who I found.” EJ indicates me without taking his eyes off Dove.
I swallow a rush of saliva as I turn to glance up at him. His pale blue eyes widen and his cheeks crease as his lips pull back from his teeth. “America?”
“Hey, Gray.”
Chapter Two - America
He looks good. Scruffier. His dark blond hair has lighter streaks in it and curls at the edges now. He’s more tanned under that navy Henley with the buttons open at the throat. It’s weird seeing him without a tie. It takes me back in time to when both he and EJ were still in college and weren’t taking themselves as seriously as they do now.
But there’s a coolness in his eyes. A wariness about him as he takes a drink from the second glass he’s carrying. “What are you doing here?”
“Well…er…” I am never tongue-tied. But heartbreak looks good on him. God, so good. I have a thing for aloof men. And he is the original untouchable that started that trend.
“Girls’ weekend,” Dove explains so that I don’t have to announce that I’m failing at life, which feels like exactly what is burbling to the surface. Or accidentally reveal that I have a more than decade-long crush on him by saying something equally stupid about how he’s looking good for someone who is not single by choice.
He gives me butterflies and heart palpitations, while I remind him of his ex. Talk about awkward.
I don’t know what else I expected though. This is the first time I’ve seen him since Indy chose Theo over him. It’s not like with EJ where their relationship existed long before he got involved with Indy, although I’m sure their friendship has had to weather difficult moments these past few months. He and Indy were officially together for eight years.
It’s probably why he and EJ are meeting here in Positano. Thousands of miles from home. Because everything about home must be painful to Gray.
Including me. I was the third wheel. Always included because I was Indy’s best friend, and we were inseparable from the time we learned how to crawl until I left for Cambridge. And while Gray and I became friends, it doesn’t feel like we are now. But I can’t really blame him for seeing memories of her when he sees me.
“I’d love to buy you a drink,” EJ says to Dove.
“I’d love you to buy me a drink too,” Dove rests her hand on his chest as she moves closer to his side.
“Hang on. Didn’t we just swear off dicks, men, and men who are dicks?” EJ isn’t a dick most of the time, but he qualifies on the other two points.
“That was before.” Dove tips her head toward EJ with a coy smile.
“Wait,” Gray grumps. “Did you just call us dicks?”
“No. That wasn’t what I was saying.”
“You two coming?” EJ asks, casually ignoring our dick conversation. He places his hand on the small of Dove’s back. “I’m buying.”
“Please. I need this,” Dove mouths at me while EJ makes deep and meaningful conversation with Gray via his eyebrows before they turn to go to the bar.
“It’ll be fun,” EJ says.
“Fine.” Gray shakes his head as though he can’t believe his best friend would hang him out to dry for a chance at spending time with a hot blonde with a British accent.
It is unusual behavior for EJ, but then the man doesn’t have a lot of time to relax between arguing in court and writing ridiculously long documents full of legalese. The women he usually mingles with outside of work tend to be people he’s met through work, so that his downtime too becomes an extension of his career.
So if he wants to hang out with Dove for fun, that should be encouraged. Besides, I miss hanging out with him. So this will be good, right? It won’t be any more awkward than it already has been. “I’m in.”
Drinks are bought and we find an empty booth to pile into. Dove is practically on EJ’s lap while I slide in opposite her. Next to me Gray concentrates on the drink in his glass, tipping it this way and that like it’s uniquely interesting.
I’ve been the third wheel enough times to know when a couple is oblivious to anyone else. EJ moves Dove fully onto his lap within a few minutes of their conversation growing more intense.
I should say something to Gray considering EJ and Dove aren’t going to carry a conversation outside of the two of them.
“Look at him. He can’t stop touching her.” Gray shakes his head.
It takes a moment for it to sink in that he’s talking to me.
I watch my cousin as he threads his fingers into the loose waves tumbling down my friend’s back, curls his knuckles and tugs her head back.
“Whoa, I didn’t think he’d have something like that in him.” Gray chuckles as he turns to face me. “At least not in public anyway.”
“Can’t say that I’ve ever wanted that much information about my cousin.” I wrinkle my nose. “But you’re right, he’s usually way too stuck up and straightlaced.”
“Your friend must be at fault for his personality slip.” Gray starts to loosen up, relaxing into the dark leather of the booth. “How long do you think it will last?”
“Hmm. I don’t know. We’re here for three days.”
“Do you think he can keep it up for three days?” His demeanor changes as we make fun of our friends. His expression softens.
“Probably not. It would take one phone call from work to make him all serious and vexed.”
“True.” A server swings past, and he grabs her attention, ordering another round of drinks though three of us haven’t finished the ones we have.
“We’re going to dance,” Dove announces, climbing out of the booth with EJ on her heels. He stares at her like he can’t see anyone else as he follows her to the dance floor.
“I’ve definitely never seen that look on him,” I say.
Gray’s brow wrinkles. “Me either.”
We fall into an uncomfortable silence. I don’t love it. It’s loaded with all the things that I want to ask him and all the things I want to say. “I’m sorry I didn’t call you. After—”
“You don’t need to apologize,” he says. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“It just felt like In—”
“How about we don’t talk about her.” He wraps his arm around my shoulder and pulls me into the kind of friendly sideways hug he’s always reserved for me.
The kind of embrace that I avoided those last few months before I moved away, because inhaling the scent of your best friend’s fiancé’s skin and wishing those small ounces of affection meant far more than they ever could is a big no-no.
He’s not for me. Will never be for me, and that is something I have learned to accept. But sitting here with him… without Indy… knowing she’s happy and in love with someone else. I lean into the hug a fraction too long. I cradle his scent in my lungs like it could turn into the very oxygen I breathe.
I should get up and walk away.
“Tell me about school,” he says as he pulls back. “Tell me about your life now. Let’s stick to the present. I want to know about you.”
“I’m not going to school,” I say.
He arches back, his brows raising. “Why?”
“It’s been hard to concentrate recently. I failed most of my classes. And the class that I was doing well in…” I start to fidget. “I made such a colossal mistake, Gray.”
“Surely, it’s not that bad.”
“Oh, it was pretty bad.” I drain my cocktail and then reach for Dove’s since she hasn’t touched it.
“So you’re not going to tell me about it?”
“I’m not going to tell anyone about it.” Anyone else, other than Dove. “I don’t know how I’m supposed to tell my parents that I’ve wasted the money they spent on tuition. And I’m working in a coffee shop. You know how my mom and dad will feel about that. They literally gave me every advantage. They encouraged and supported me every step of the way, and I’m throwing it back in their faces. Thanks for adopting me, guys. Here’s how much of a screw up I am.”
“You’ve been sitting on that for a little while then?” He raises one eyebrow.
“A few weeks.” I swallow another mouthful of Dove’s cocktail. There’s a nice buzz under my skin from the booze. “I still can’t find the words.”
“You could just tell them.” Gray says. “Your parents are understanding.”
“But what if they think I’ve wasted their time. And mine. I don’t know what I’m going to do with myself. I don’t have a backup plan. Or any plan at all.” After almost losing Indy six months ago, what I’m going through… it all feels so insignificant.
My doctor suggested I might have a touch of depression. That’s another thing I keep to myself. My best friend didn’t die. What have I got to be down about, really?
I stand up and exit the booth. “I think I’m going to go dance. Will you join me?”
“You want me to dance?” Gray looks surprised.
“Don’t tell me you don’t dance. I’ve seen you.” I waggle my fingers in his face. “EJ can’t be the only one of us cutting loose. That wouldn’t make sense.”
“You’re right.” He takes my hand as he leads me onto the floor.
Sweaty bodies grind and press all around us, forcing us into each other’s personal space.
“So no school. You work at a coffee shop. Any boyfriend I should be worried might take our dancing together the wrong way?”
I’m jostled from behind and put my arms around Gray’s neck to steady myself. “No boys on this girls’ trip. No boyfriend at all.”
“You always preferred your independence,” he muses as he grips my hips before I can pull away.
I always preferred him.
I settle into this feeling of not having to avoid touching him. The drink in me says it’s okay. Right now it’s okay to be attracted to him and to pretend that he isn’t my friend and my best friend’s ex. At this moment being this close to him is acceptable.
“Dating didn’t work for me.” Because comparison is the thief of joy, and no one measured up to him. Friendly situationships and casual hookups are so much easier to end. “There was someone I was seeing.”
“Yeah?” he bows his head, bringing his cheek closer to mine so it’s easier to hear.
“He was older. Wiser. And it turns out… married.”
“Oh, America.” There’s disappointment in his voice. I’m disappointed in myself too. Why do I keep making such bad choices? Why can’t I move on to someone who could be good for me?
“I ended it as soon as I found out.” I missed this. Being able to talk to him about what was going on in my world. It’s comfortable, like putting on an old sweater. But it’s one I’ve borrowed from my girl, and it’s still covered in her perfume. “He didn’t like when I told him it was over.”
He grits his teeth. “You deserve better. The whole world. You know that, right? You’re a force, America. You always have been. You have so many options.”
“What about you?” I ask, and immediately regret it when a storm of emotion gathers in his eyes. There’s parfum de Indy again.
He cranes his neck and glances around instead of answering. “I can’t see EJ anywhere.”
But there’s a coolness in his eyes. A wariness about him as he takes a drink from the second glass he’s carrying. “What are you doing here?”
“Well…er…” I am never tongue-tied. But heartbreak looks good on him. God, so good. I have a thing for aloof men. And he is the original untouchable that started that trend.
“Girls’ weekend,” Dove explains so that I don’t have to announce that I’m failing at life, which feels like exactly what is burbling to the surface. Or accidentally reveal that I have a more than decade-long crush on him by saying something equally stupid about how he’s looking good for someone who is not single by choice.
He gives me butterflies and heart palpitations, while I remind him of his ex. Talk about awkward.
I don’t know what else I expected though. This is the first time I’ve seen him since Indy chose Theo over him. It’s not like with EJ where their relationship existed long before he got involved with Indy, although I’m sure their friendship has had to weather difficult moments these past few months. He and Indy were officially together for eight years.
It’s probably why he and EJ are meeting here in Positano. Thousands of miles from home. Because everything about home must be painful to Gray.
Including me. I was the third wheel. Always included because I was Indy’s best friend, and we were inseparable from the time we learned how to crawl until I left for Cambridge. And while Gray and I became friends, it doesn’t feel like we are now. But I can’t really blame him for seeing memories of her when he sees me.
“I’d love to buy you a drink,” EJ says to Dove.
“I’d love you to buy me a drink too,” Dove rests her hand on his chest as she moves closer to his side.
“Hang on. Didn’t we just swear off dicks, men, and men who are dicks?” EJ isn’t a dick most of the time, but he qualifies on the other two points.
“That was before.” Dove tips her head toward EJ with a coy smile.
“Wait,” Gray grumps. “Did you just call us dicks?”
“No. That wasn’t what I was saying.”
“You two coming?” EJ asks, casually ignoring our dick conversation. He places his hand on the small of Dove’s back. “I’m buying.”
“Please. I need this,” Dove mouths at me while EJ makes deep and meaningful conversation with Gray via his eyebrows before they turn to go to the bar.
“It’ll be fun,” EJ says.
“Fine.” Gray shakes his head as though he can’t believe his best friend would hang him out to dry for a chance at spending time with a hot blonde with a British accent.
It is unusual behavior for EJ, but then the man doesn’t have a lot of time to relax between arguing in court and writing ridiculously long documents full of legalese. The women he usually mingles with outside of work tend to be people he’s met through work, so that his downtime too becomes an extension of his career.
So if he wants to hang out with Dove for fun, that should be encouraged. Besides, I miss hanging out with him. So this will be good, right? It won’t be any more awkward than it already has been. “I’m in.”
Drinks are bought and we find an empty booth to pile into. Dove is practically on EJ’s lap while I slide in opposite her. Next to me Gray concentrates on the drink in his glass, tipping it this way and that like it’s uniquely interesting.
I’ve been the third wheel enough times to know when a couple is oblivious to anyone else. EJ moves Dove fully onto his lap within a few minutes of their conversation growing more intense.
I should say something to Gray considering EJ and Dove aren’t going to carry a conversation outside of the two of them.
“Look at him. He can’t stop touching her.” Gray shakes his head.
It takes a moment for it to sink in that he’s talking to me.
I watch my cousin as he threads his fingers into the loose waves tumbling down my friend’s back, curls his knuckles and tugs her head back.
“Whoa, I didn’t think he’d have something like that in him.” Gray chuckles as he turns to face me. “At least not in public anyway.”
“Can’t say that I’ve ever wanted that much information about my cousin.” I wrinkle my nose. “But you’re right, he’s usually way too stuck up and straightlaced.”
“Your friend must be at fault for his personality slip.” Gray starts to loosen up, relaxing into the dark leather of the booth. “How long do you think it will last?”
“Hmm. I don’t know. We’re here for three days.”
“Do you think he can keep it up for three days?” His demeanor changes as we make fun of our friends. His expression softens.
“Probably not. It would take one phone call from work to make him all serious and vexed.”
“True.” A server swings past, and he grabs her attention, ordering another round of drinks though three of us haven’t finished the ones we have.
“We’re going to dance,” Dove announces, climbing out of the booth with EJ on her heels. He stares at her like he can’t see anyone else as he follows her to the dance floor.
“I’ve definitely never seen that look on him,” I say.
Gray’s brow wrinkles. “Me either.”
We fall into an uncomfortable silence. I don’t love it. It’s loaded with all the things that I want to ask him and all the things I want to say. “I’m sorry I didn’t call you. After—”
“You don’t need to apologize,” he says. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“It just felt like In—”
“How about we don’t talk about her.” He wraps his arm around my shoulder and pulls me into the kind of friendly sideways hug he’s always reserved for me.
The kind of embrace that I avoided those last few months before I moved away, because inhaling the scent of your best friend’s fiancé’s skin and wishing those small ounces of affection meant far more than they ever could is a big no-no.
He’s not for me. Will never be for me, and that is something I have learned to accept. But sitting here with him… without Indy… knowing she’s happy and in love with someone else. I lean into the hug a fraction too long. I cradle his scent in my lungs like it could turn into the very oxygen I breathe.
I should get up and walk away.
“Tell me about school,” he says as he pulls back. “Tell me about your life now. Let’s stick to the present. I want to know about you.”
“I’m not going to school,” I say.
He arches back, his brows raising. “Why?”
“It’s been hard to concentrate recently. I failed most of my classes. And the class that I was doing well in…” I start to fidget. “I made such a colossal mistake, Gray.”
“Surely, it’s not that bad.”
“Oh, it was pretty bad.” I drain my cocktail and then reach for Dove’s since she hasn’t touched it.
“So you’re not going to tell me about it?”
“I’m not going to tell anyone about it.” Anyone else, other than Dove. “I don’t know how I’m supposed to tell my parents that I’ve wasted the money they spent on tuition. And I’m working in a coffee shop. You know how my mom and dad will feel about that. They literally gave me every advantage. They encouraged and supported me every step of the way, and I’m throwing it back in their faces. Thanks for adopting me, guys. Here’s how much of a screw up I am.”
“You’ve been sitting on that for a little while then?” He raises one eyebrow.
“A few weeks.” I swallow another mouthful of Dove’s cocktail. There’s a nice buzz under my skin from the booze. “I still can’t find the words.”
“You could just tell them.” Gray says. “Your parents are understanding.”
“But what if they think I’ve wasted their time. And mine. I don’t know what I’m going to do with myself. I don’t have a backup plan. Or any plan at all.” After almost losing Indy six months ago, what I’m going through… it all feels so insignificant.
My doctor suggested I might have a touch of depression. That’s another thing I keep to myself. My best friend didn’t die. What have I got to be down about, really?
I stand up and exit the booth. “I think I’m going to go dance. Will you join me?”
“You want me to dance?” Gray looks surprised.
“Don’t tell me you don’t dance. I’ve seen you.” I waggle my fingers in his face. “EJ can’t be the only one of us cutting loose. That wouldn’t make sense.”
“You’re right.” He takes my hand as he leads me onto the floor.
Sweaty bodies grind and press all around us, forcing us into each other’s personal space.
“So no school. You work at a coffee shop. Any boyfriend I should be worried might take our dancing together the wrong way?”
I’m jostled from behind and put my arms around Gray’s neck to steady myself. “No boys on this girls’ trip. No boyfriend at all.”
“You always preferred your independence,” he muses as he grips my hips before I can pull away.
I always preferred him.
I settle into this feeling of not having to avoid touching him. The drink in me says it’s okay. Right now it’s okay to be attracted to him and to pretend that he isn’t my friend and my best friend’s ex. At this moment being this close to him is acceptable.
“Dating didn’t work for me.” Because comparison is the thief of joy, and no one measured up to him. Friendly situationships and casual hookups are so much easier to end. “There was someone I was seeing.”
“Yeah?” he bows his head, bringing his cheek closer to mine so it’s easier to hear.
“He was older. Wiser. And it turns out… married.”
“Oh, America.” There’s disappointment in his voice. I’m disappointed in myself too. Why do I keep making such bad choices? Why can’t I move on to someone who could be good for me?
“I ended it as soon as I found out.” I missed this. Being able to talk to him about what was going on in my world. It’s comfortable, like putting on an old sweater. But it’s one I’ve borrowed from my girl, and it’s still covered in her perfume. “He didn’t like when I told him it was over.”
He grits his teeth. “You deserve better. The whole world. You know that, right? You’re a force, America. You always have been. You have so many options.”
“What about you?” I ask, and immediately regret it when a storm of emotion gathers in his eyes. There’s parfum de Indy again.
He cranes his neck and glances around instead of answering. “I can’t see EJ anywhere.”
Chapter Three - America
I scan the crowd for Dove. She’s normally easy to spot. The girl with the long silver hair is usually surrounded by guys everywhere we go. It’s amusing watching them trip all over themselves to flirt with her when she’s normally nothing more than polite. Despite being single, she’s not shown an ounce of interest in anyone. Until EJ.
Even with the two of them all over each other, there should be some kind of masculine circle around them.
Regardless, EJ is tall enough to spot in a crowded club, but I don’t see a glimpse of him. “Do you think they left?”
“I think that’s a definite possibility.” Gray scans the darker corners for our friends before he pulls out his phone, presumably to check to see if EJ sent a text. Gone is the stricken look he had. “They’re not in here and he hasn’t messaged me.”
I check my device too. Nothing from Dove.
“Perhaps they went outside,” he says.
“Dove loves her vape.” I lead the way off the dance floor with him at my back. “And an old fashioned cigarette or two when she’s drinking.”
She had a pack in her purse. I noticed it when she was checking that she had everything before we left our villa.
His hand steadies on my hip when a couple rush past fast enough to make me stumble. “It’s a madhouse in here.”
“Yeah.” But I don’t hate it. Being here with him. Hanging out. Talking. It’s the first time in months that I feel like myself.
“Hey. Come on. Take my hand.” His bigger, warmer one engulfs mine, creating static under my skin as he leads me out onto the cobbled street.
My sweat slicked skin cools as we peek through the cloud of cigarette and vape smoke to see if Dove is among the crowd.
“There is no way she’s here,” Gray says. “Not if she and EJ are still together. You know he can’t stand smokers. They’ve probably wandered down to the beach. Or gone back to the hotel.”
“You’re right.” Still I need to be certain she’s safe. I pull out my phone and bring up Dove in my contacts. The call rings out. Once. Twice. Voicemail kicks in. “I’m going to go back to the Airbnb. Call me back, D. Let me know you’re okay.”
“You know she is,” Gray says. “Even if they weren’t all over each other, EJ would never leave her on her own.”
EJ probably doesn’t know that he’s lip locking with Britain’s next pop princess. We can’t go out locally because people recognize her. They crowd her for autographs, or try for their fifteen minutes of fame, or a kiss and tell. It’s why we’re spending our girls’ weekend here, where she can still go places without being recognized or needing to be surrounded on all sides by security. If I hadn’t vouched for EJ she might have flirted, but she wouldn’t have left with him.
“Still I’ll be more at ease when I hear from her.” I tuck my phone away. “I’m going to go back to our place.”
“I’ll come with you,” Gray says.
“I’m a big girl. You don’t have to—”
“I know. But I want to.” He places his hand on the small of my back. “Should we get a cab? Is it far?”
How am I supposed to say no? I’m in a foreign country. Alone. Surely it would be the smart choice to let him accompany me. It’s about time I made a good one. “No. We can walk. It’s not far.”
We fall in step, walking along the road that follows the beach. The waves rumble as they wash up on shore, silver threads of sea foam bubbling on the dark surface. Up above the moon hangs like a wheel of Jarlsberg.
It would be romantic with the right person. We come across several couples on the beach who think so.
One particularly amorous pairing rolls around in the sand, their lusty moans growing more frantic while he moons everyone with an ass paler and brighter than the moon overhead.
“EJ?” I ask Gray, unable to keep the amusement from my voice.
“Not a chance. The closest he’d get to exhibitionism is looking at himself in the mirror while…” He chuckles while miming the masculine version of self-love.
“Would you ever…” I stop myself there, as I mentally catch another whiff of Indy’s perfume. As his expression tightens.
Girls talk. It’s what we do. I’ve heard the TMI details of his sex life. Both the fascination he has with being on his knees, and the extent of his spontaneity, which is one car accident away from non-existent. That was with Indy though. Things could have changed.
“No,” he says bitterly. “I wouldn’t. People who can’t control themselves don’t have some destined kind of chemistry. It’s not love. It’s lust.”
“Surely lust is the chemistry that allows us to fall in love.” It feels like we’re talking about Indy and Theo, and though we said we wouldn’t, I can’t help but stand up for my bestie.
“You can fall in love without hurting other people.” He sneers. “You can be attracted to someone without impulsively acting on it.”
“She never wanted to hurt you, Gray.” I grasp his wrist and pull him to a standstill. “I know you’re in pain, but—”
“You don’t know.” He tugs free. “How could you possibly know what it’s like to love someone for almost a decade? She cheated on me.”
Is it the same sensation to love someone when they don’t love you back? When they never so much as noticed how you feel about them? “She didn’t.”
“She had an emotional affair. She chose him.” He starts walking ahead. “She might as well have been fucking him too.”
“I’m sorry.” I hurry to catch up as we take the steep steps up and up. I truly am. He’s wrong about my not knowing what it’s like to love someone, knowing they will never be yours. “I keep putting my foot in my mouth.”
“It’s not your fault she broke me,” he says as we enter the little courtyard in front of our Airbnb. “And we both knew this interaction would be awkward. It’s probably why you didn’t call me after.”
“And why you didn’t text me for six months.”
“It’s hard.” He rubs a hand over his heart. “It fucking hurts. It doesn’t stop. Every day I wake up and have this blissful moment where everything is normal and right, and then I remember that she married someone else. That the life I knew for so long is someone else’s. I miss home, but I can’t go home because memories of us are everywhere.”
“You sold your condo.”
“I couldn’t breathe there. She was everywhere. Not just the apartment. In my office. In my car. I can’t be around the people I consider family, because they’re her family. Even my friends… you… EJ… you remind me of her. I don’t know if I will ever get over it.”
I blink back the sudden burn behind my eyes. I know that sentiment all too well. It’s why I moved to another continent.
“You wouldn’t understand,” he says, then points at a window. “Well, I think we found EJ and your friend.”
“Oh.” I clap my hands over my eyes when I spot our naked friends doing unsanitary things on the kitchen island. That is way more than I ever needed to see. “It looks like you can add accidentally leaving the curtains open to special occasions where EJ takes part in exhibitionism. My freaking eyes are burning. Have you got anything acidic I can wash them out with?”
“It looks noisy in there.” Gray chuckles, right before Dove cries out like she’s performing an opera for the whole of Positano.
“Christ.” I whimper. I’d be able to handle it if EJ wasn’t like my older brother.
“Want to come back to the hotel with me? You can take my bed. And I’ll take EJ’s. That way if he comes in tonight, it won’t wake you.”
“That depends.” Another ear-piercing cry comes from the kitchen. “Actually, never mind. Let’s go.”
We walk back along the beach until we end up at the hotel. It’s built into the cliff face with a view over the sea. A warm breeze swirls around us and rustles the leaves on the olive and lemon trees that dot the terracotta balcony.
The inside of the building is white with blue and terracotta accents everywhere. The bathroom is full of vintage blue and white Positano tile.
I rinse my hands and face in the sink, the summer night heat clinging to every pore. Gray is emptying tiny bottles of spirits into tumblers when I return to the main room. He hands me one. “Have you considered changing schools? You could go back to the good old U of C. Finish your doctorate there.”
“Have you ever been uncertain of what you want to do, Gray?” I take the drink he offers and move to the balcony where I sip the vodka.
He’s always seemed so certain. He loved baseball, but couldn’t play professionally, so he became a sports agent. His choices are far more logical than mine.
I’m fluent in a half dozen languages thanks to my parents nurturing my ability to hear and pick up a language almost effortlessly. I have a decent understanding of Latin. Yet… I don’t know that the logical choice is the right one anymore. “I thought I wanted to build a career around languages, but I can’t manage to communicate openly with the people in my life.”
“You can practice on me.” He takes a seat in a wrought iron chair, his own drink resting on the top of his thigh. “Tell me what you need to say to them.”
I catch a glimpse of him watching me. Those blue eyes, that lush mouth with its bottom lip meant to be nibbled on. His thumb moves idly over the condensation on the side of his glass. It used to be a lot easier to ignore the things I liked about him when Indy was between us.
Swallowing, I retrain my focus on the sea, and then the hotel pool below. It looks inviting as I roll my glass over my feverish skin. “I can’t.”
“Sure you can.” He stands in one fluid motion before joining me at the railing. His hand, chilled from holding the glass, wraps around my wrist and draws me around to face him.
“You’re a very good friend,” I say.
“I think I’ve let you down,” he says. “I’m sorry.”
“You don’t need to be.” I put my hand on his chest. I should move it, but I can’t seem to send the electrical signal down my arm to make me pull it away. “I didn’t reach out either.”
“Can we make a deal to do better from here?” He puts his glass down and wraps that hand around my hip.
“God, I hope so.” I giggle. “Because I have been doing so shitty lately.”
“That guy?”
The vodka has loosened my lips, or perhaps it’s because Gray and EJ have always been who I turned to for advice when it wasn’t something I wanted to discuss with my parents. “Was angry while grading my papers. His wife is the head of faculty. There doesn’t seem like much point fighting it.”
He stares at me, and I wait for the sound of disappointment. I close my eyes, prepared for it, but not wanting to see it on his face. I’m not eighteen. There are people my age who are settled into their careers and marriages at this point in their life. I’m old enough and smart enough to know and do better. Or I should be.
“He should be the one out of a job.” His voice has a viciousness to it.
I have been so ashamed and worried about telling my family. He’s angry on my behalf, and while that will change nothing—not the choices I’ve made. Not the consequences I’m dealing with—it feels a little less shameful now. “Thank you.”
“Ever think about dating a reasonable guy?” he asks when the lull in conversation starts to stretch out. “Someone who won’t turn out to be a raging asshole.”
“Oh…” My pulse races. He’s too close to the truth. I make bad decisions around men like it’s self-preservation. Or more accurately, for their preservation. They’re never the man that I want. Not really. Bad decisions almost seem like a reasonable consequence to dating when there’s no future in it, but I keep trying because pining for a man who doesn’t see me as anything more than a friend is no future to look forward to. “What? Like you?”
“Well, no… that’s not what I meant.” He looks grim, like the thought of dating is painful. “I think I’ll be an old man before you’ll see me want to start something new.”
“I was joking.” I laugh it off without actually laughing. It’s not funny that he’s hurting. Or that I love him so much I can’t have a real relationship with someone else even though I know, logically, that I don’t deserve to be so unhappy.
Indy moved on and she had his love. I’m so broken I need a factory reset. But then I always do hyperfixate on things I’m into. Languages and Gray, mostly.
“It’s just after… I don’t think I’ll ever…”
“Say no more.” I lay my hand on his jaw. “We don’t have to talk about it. But if you ever do want to talk about it…”
“You’re an angel.” He turns his head so that his lips press against the center of my palm.
I close my eyes and relish the feel of that small token of affection. It’s not even a real kiss, but it gives me butterflies.
He’s drunk, though, or getting there. So am I. I shouldn’t let it mean anything. In fact I should probably go to bed.
“How about another drink?”
Even with the two of them all over each other, there should be some kind of masculine circle around them.
Regardless, EJ is tall enough to spot in a crowded club, but I don’t see a glimpse of him. “Do you think they left?”
“I think that’s a definite possibility.” Gray scans the darker corners for our friends before he pulls out his phone, presumably to check to see if EJ sent a text. Gone is the stricken look he had. “They’re not in here and he hasn’t messaged me.”
I check my device too. Nothing from Dove.
“Perhaps they went outside,” he says.
“Dove loves her vape.” I lead the way off the dance floor with him at my back. “And an old fashioned cigarette or two when she’s drinking.”
She had a pack in her purse. I noticed it when she was checking that she had everything before we left our villa.
His hand steadies on my hip when a couple rush past fast enough to make me stumble. “It’s a madhouse in here.”
“Yeah.” But I don’t hate it. Being here with him. Hanging out. Talking. It’s the first time in months that I feel like myself.
“Hey. Come on. Take my hand.” His bigger, warmer one engulfs mine, creating static under my skin as he leads me out onto the cobbled street.
My sweat slicked skin cools as we peek through the cloud of cigarette and vape smoke to see if Dove is among the crowd.
“There is no way she’s here,” Gray says. “Not if she and EJ are still together. You know he can’t stand smokers. They’ve probably wandered down to the beach. Or gone back to the hotel.”
“You’re right.” Still I need to be certain she’s safe. I pull out my phone and bring up Dove in my contacts. The call rings out. Once. Twice. Voicemail kicks in. “I’m going to go back to the Airbnb. Call me back, D. Let me know you’re okay.”
“You know she is,” Gray says. “Even if they weren’t all over each other, EJ would never leave her on her own.”
EJ probably doesn’t know that he’s lip locking with Britain’s next pop princess. We can’t go out locally because people recognize her. They crowd her for autographs, or try for their fifteen minutes of fame, or a kiss and tell. It’s why we’re spending our girls’ weekend here, where she can still go places without being recognized or needing to be surrounded on all sides by security. If I hadn’t vouched for EJ she might have flirted, but she wouldn’t have left with him.
“Still I’ll be more at ease when I hear from her.” I tuck my phone away. “I’m going to go back to our place.”
“I’ll come with you,” Gray says.
“I’m a big girl. You don’t have to—”
“I know. But I want to.” He places his hand on the small of my back. “Should we get a cab? Is it far?”
How am I supposed to say no? I’m in a foreign country. Alone. Surely it would be the smart choice to let him accompany me. It’s about time I made a good one. “No. We can walk. It’s not far.”
We fall in step, walking along the road that follows the beach. The waves rumble as they wash up on shore, silver threads of sea foam bubbling on the dark surface. Up above the moon hangs like a wheel of Jarlsberg.
It would be romantic with the right person. We come across several couples on the beach who think so.
One particularly amorous pairing rolls around in the sand, their lusty moans growing more frantic while he moons everyone with an ass paler and brighter than the moon overhead.
“EJ?” I ask Gray, unable to keep the amusement from my voice.
“Not a chance. The closest he’d get to exhibitionism is looking at himself in the mirror while…” He chuckles while miming the masculine version of self-love.
“Would you ever…” I stop myself there, as I mentally catch another whiff of Indy’s perfume. As his expression tightens.
Girls talk. It’s what we do. I’ve heard the TMI details of his sex life. Both the fascination he has with being on his knees, and the extent of his spontaneity, which is one car accident away from non-existent. That was with Indy though. Things could have changed.
“No,” he says bitterly. “I wouldn’t. People who can’t control themselves don’t have some destined kind of chemistry. It’s not love. It’s lust.”
“Surely lust is the chemistry that allows us to fall in love.” It feels like we’re talking about Indy and Theo, and though we said we wouldn’t, I can’t help but stand up for my bestie.
“You can fall in love without hurting other people.” He sneers. “You can be attracted to someone without impulsively acting on it.”
“She never wanted to hurt you, Gray.” I grasp his wrist and pull him to a standstill. “I know you’re in pain, but—”
“You don’t know.” He tugs free. “How could you possibly know what it’s like to love someone for almost a decade? She cheated on me.”
Is it the same sensation to love someone when they don’t love you back? When they never so much as noticed how you feel about them? “She didn’t.”
“She had an emotional affair. She chose him.” He starts walking ahead. “She might as well have been fucking him too.”
“I’m sorry.” I hurry to catch up as we take the steep steps up and up. I truly am. He’s wrong about my not knowing what it’s like to love someone, knowing they will never be yours. “I keep putting my foot in my mouth.”
“It’s not your fault she broke me,” he says as we enter the little courtyard in front of our Airbnb. “And we both knew this interaction would be awkward. It’s probably why you didn’t call me after.”
“And why you didn’t text me for six months.”
“It’s hard.” He rubs a hand over his heart. “It fucking hurts. It doesn’t stop. Every day I wake up and have this blissful moment where everything is normal and right, and then I remember that she married someone else. That the life I knew for so long is someone else’s. I miss home, but I can’t go home because memories of us are everywhere.”
“You sold your condo.”
“I couldn’t breathe there. She was everywhere. Not just the apartment. In my office. In my car. I can’t be around the people I consider family, because they’re her family. Even my friends… you… EJ… you remind me of her. I don’t know if I will ever get over it.”
I blink back the sudden burn behind my eyes. I know that sentiment all too well. It’s why I moved to another continent.
“You wouldn’t understand,” he says, then points at a window. “Well, I think we found EJ and your friend.”
“Oh.” I clap my hands over my eyes when I spot our naked friends doing unsanitary things on the kitchen island. That is way more than I ever needed to see. “It looks like you can add accidentally leaving the curtains open to special occasions where EJ takes part in exhibitionism. My freaking eyes are burning. Have you got anything acidic I can wash them out with?”
“It looks noisy in there.” Gray chuckles, right before Dove cries out like she’s performing an opera for the whole of Positano.
“Christ.” I whimper. I’d be able to handle it if EJ wasn’t like my older brother.
“Want to come back to the hotel with me? You can take my bed. And I’ll take EJ’s. That way if he comes in tonight, it won’t wake you.”
“That depends.” Another ear-piercing cry comes from the kitchen. “Actually, never mind. Let’s go.”
We walk back along the beach until we end up at the hotel. It’s built into the cliff face with a view over the sea. A warm breeze swirls around us and rustles the leaves on the olive and lemon trees that dot the terracotta balcony.
The inside of the building is white with blue and terracotta accents everywhere. The bathroom is full of vintage blue and white Positano tile.
I rinse my hands and face in the sink, the summer night heat clinging to every pore. Gray is emptying tiny bottles of spirits into tumblers when I return to the main room. He hands me one. “Have you considered changing schools? You could go back to the good old U of C. Finish your doctorate there.”
“Have you ever been uncertain of what you want to do, Gray?” I take the drink he offers and move to the balcony where I sip the vodka.
He’s always seemed so certain. He loved baseball, but couldn’t play professionally, so he became a sports agent. His choices are far more logical than mine.
I’m fluent in a half dozen languages thanks to my parents nurturing my ability to hear and pick up a language almost effortlessly. I have a decent understanding of Latin. Yet… I don’t know that the logical choice is the right one anymore. “I thought I wanted to build a career around languages, but I can’t manage to communicate openly with the people in my life.”
“You can practice on me.” He takes a seat in a wrought iron chair, his own drink resting on the top of his thigh. “Tell me what you need to say to them.”
I catch a glimpse of him watching me. Those blue eyes, that lush mouth with its bottom lip meant to be nibbled on. His thumb moves idly over the condensation on the side of his glass. It used to be a lot easier to ignore the things I liked about him when Indy was between us.
Swallowing, I retrain my focus on the sea, and then the hotel pool below. It looks inviting as I roll my glass over my feverish skin. “I can’t.”
“Sure you can.” He stands in one fluid motion before joining me at the railing. His hand, chilled from holding the glass, wraps around my wrist and draws me around to face him.
“You’re a very good friend,” I say.
“I think I’ve let you down,” he says. “I’m sorry.”
“You don’t need to be.” I put my hand on his chest. I should move it, but I can’t seem to send the electrical signal down my arm to make me pull it away. “I didn’t reach out either.”
“Can we make a deal to do better from here?” He puts his glass down and wraps that hand around my hip.
“God, I hope so.” I giggle. “Because I have been doing so shitty lately.”
“That guy?”
The vodka has loosened my lips, or perhaps it’s because Gray and EJ have always been who I turned to for advice when it wasn’t something I wanted to discuss with my parents. “Was angry while grading my papers. His wife is the head of faculty. There doesn’t seem like much point fighting it.”
He stares at me, and I wait for the sound of disappointment. I close my eyes, prepared for it, but not wanting to see it on his face. I’m not eighteen. There are people my age who are settled into their careers and marriages at this point in their life. I’m old enough and smart enough to know and do better. Or I should be.
“He should be the one out of a job.” His voice has a viciousness to it.
I have been so ashamed and worried about telling my family. He’s angry on my behalf, and while that will change nothing—not the choices I’ve made. Not the consequences I’m dealing with—it feels a little less shameful now. “Thank you.”
“Ever think about dating a reasonable guy?” he asks when the lull in conversation starts to stretch out. “Someone who won’t turn out to be a raging asshole.”
“Oh…” My pulse races. He’s too close to the truth. I make bad decisions around men like it’s self-preservation. Or more accurately, for their preservation. They’re never the man that I want. Not really. Bad decisions almost seem like a reasonable consequence to dating when there’s no future in it, but I keep trying because pining for a man who doesn’t see me as anything more than a friend is no future to look forward to. “What? Like you?”
“Well, no… that’s not what I meant.” He looks grim, like the thought of dating is painful. “I think I’ll be an old man before you’ll see me want to start something new.”
“I was joking.” I laugh it off without actually laughing. It’s not funny that he’s hurting. Or that I love him so much I can’t have a real relationship with someone else even though I know, logically, that I don’t deserve to be so unhappy.
Indy moved on and she had his love. I’m so broken I need a factory reset. But then I always do hyperfixate on things I’m into. Languages and Gray, mostly.
“It’s just after… I don’t think I’ll ever…”
“Say no more.” I lay my hand on his jaw. “We don’t have to talk about it. But if you ever do want to talk about it…”
“You’re an angel.” He turns his head so that his lips press against the center of my palm.
I close my eyes and relish the feel of that small token of affection. It’s not even a real kiss, but it gives me butterflies.
He’s drunk, though, or getting there. So am I. I shouldn’t let it mean anything. In fact I should probably go to bed.
“How about another drink?”
Ready for more America and Gray? Chapters 4 - 6 can be read here.