Lessons in Letting Go (Study Abroad Book 3)

by Jessica Peterson

  “Yeah,” Em asks one Thursday afternoon in late September. “What are you guys? Like, are you just hooking up? Are you two talking? Exclusive? Dating? I’m a little confused.”

  “I honestly don’t know,” I say. I’m supposed to be working on the charity auction I am putting together for Santa Caterina in December—I already put in three hours this morning, searching for the perfect venue without much luck—but instead I’m scrolling through the lingerie on a high-end department store’s website. I hover my mouse over a sheer lace bra and thong set. €68 is ridiculously steep for something that’s as big as a sock, but I know Rhys would love it. I glance at my bowl of gazpacho as I put the lingerie set in my cart. If I’m going to look good in this tiny thing, I have to watch what I eat. What’s that saying? Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels? I need to live by those words.

  Speaking of, I gotta make it to the gym by 6 for that spin class…

  “So? Why don’t you find out?” Em munches on the marinated olives she told me she picked up at Borough Market in London—she finally made it across the pond to join me in Europe. “I mean. Aren’t you curious?”

  “I am. But things are so great between us right now, and I’m having so much fun with him…” I sigh. “I guess I just don’t want to rock the boat, you know?”

  “Are you scared of what he’d say if you asked him?”

  “No,” I say. “Well. Maybe a little. He keeps saying I’m his good luck charm, but he’s really busy all the time, so I don’t see him a lot. We do keep having great sex—”

  “Have you freaking come with him yet? A real orgasm, not something you faked.”

  “—so I’m not worried that he’s hanging out with other girls. I just don’t see the need to put a label on it. Us. Whatever we are.”

  “It sounds like you want to, though,” Em says. “It sounds like you’re really into this guy.”

  “I’m not really into him. I’m just, uh, having fun,” I reply.

  It’s Em’s turn to sigh. “Whatever you say. I just don’t want to see you get hurt. I also don’t want you to give up your bucket list. You were doing so well for a minute there.”

  “I’m still doing well,” I say, a little defensively. “I’m at Santa Caterina twice a week. And…and I’m working on the other stuff, too.”

  Only I’m not. Not really. Don’t get me wrong, I had every intention of checking off more line items on the list during the week, when I wasn’t with Rhys. But between classes and homework and hitting up the gym and shopping for cute outfits to wear when I do hang with Rhys, I just can’t seem to find the time. It’s like Rhys has somehow taken over my life, even though I only see him for a day or two each week. It’s exhausting and exciting all at once.

  We’ve settled into a little routine, Rhys and I. With his schedule as crazy as it is, I don’t have much control over when and where our time together happens. He lets me know when he’s available—usually the night and day after a match—and I’ll meet him at the penthouse, where we’ll hang out (read: bang until our private parts hurt), make some food, and watch some TV. Occasionally, Rhys will bring me to a publicity event, and every so often he’ll text me when he finishes up early at the training facility and we’ll grab a quick cup of coffee and a quicker fuck.

  For the most part, though, we spend more time apart than we do together. It’s a bummer, but it comes with the territory. As Rhys’s “good luck charm”, I don’t want to disappoint him, and I don’t want to bug him with annoying questions. Questions like “What are we?” and “Why don’t you want to see me more often because I want to see you all the time?” I mean, every guy hates being asked those questions. I am not going to be the kind of girl who asks them.

  Rhys needs to focus on his football—the guy practically came back from the dead, he pulled a miracle—and I don’t want to distract him from that.

  ***

  For the most part, I’m happy to just go with the flow and hang out with Rhys. I’m happy not knowing what we are, or what I mean to him. Sometimes, when I fall asleep in his arms, or when he makes me laugh, I think he means enough to me for the both of us. Like I care enough about him to make up for any indifference he may feel about me.

  A couple days after my conversation with Emily, though, my curiosity gets the better of me. I guess she planted the seed, and now that it’s there, I can’t stop thinking about it.

  Rhys and I are hanging out in the penthouse suite, sipping coffee on the couch while we read through the Sunday papers. A picture from the life and style section of a British newspaper catches my eye. It’s me and Rhys, emerging hand in hand from a gala we attended last week for his watch sponsor. He looks dapper in a navy blue suit and slicked back hair; I look skinny—yes!—if a bit pale. I’ll have to wear more bronzer next time.

  Rhys Maddox and his girlfriend, Laura Bennet, a student, out and about in Madrid on Sept. 21, the caption reads.

  I blink. Then I venture a glance at Rhys. He’s absorbed in the sports section of the same paper, head bent, messy hair tucked behind his ears. I think this Rhys—the unshowered, unshaven one—is my favorite Rhys. Maybe because I’m the only one who gets to see him like this. The world gets the guy in the tux and the Madrid uniform. But I get this guy. This sexy, bed-mussed, scruffy man.

  I want this man, badly. I want to be his in every sense of the word.

  I want to be his girlfriend. I want what this caption says to be true.

  Am I Rhys’s girlfriend? Are we exclusive? All I know is that I want to be.

  My heart begins to pound. If there ever were a time to bring this up, now would be it. And if it goes sideways—if Rhys is clearly not interested in having this conversation—I can always bail and make it sound like a joke, like the writers at this paper are the idiots, not me.

  “Hmm,” I say. “That’s interesting. You think they’d fact check this sort of thing.”

  Rhys looks up and scratches his scruff. “What sort of thing?”

  “This.” I hold up the picture so he can see it. He’s sitting close enough to see the caption, too. “The caption is wrong. I mean. I’m not your girlfriend,” I say, waiting for him to correct me.

  Waiting for him to swoop in and hold me in his arms and say no, Laura, you absolutely are my girlfriend, I adore you and want you and hope you’ll accept me as your ever faithful boyfriend, flawed through I may be.

  Instead, Rhys looks away, a distinctly uncomfortable expression overtaking his features. He sighs.

  My heart falls. Was I really that obvious?

  “Listen, Laura…”

  I put the paper in my lap and reach for my coffee, hiding behind it lest I be unable to control the tears that have begun to prickle at the backs of my eyes. Goddamn it, I think. How could I be so stupid?

  “Yeah?” I say, hoping my voice sounds less high and thin to him than it does to me.

  “You’re a really great girl”—ugh, the dreaded great girl lead in!—“and I really do believe meeting you has done wonders for my career. You’re the best good luck charm a lad could ask for.”

  He pauses, still not looking at me. A faint flush of color crawls up his throat.

  “Thanks,” I say after a beat. “I’m happy for you. You know, that everything is going so great with your career.”

  “But that’s just it, love—my career is very demanding right now, and after where I’ve been the past season and a half, I’ve got to give it my all. Prove to the coaches and the owners and the fans that I deserve my spot here. I’m afraid I haven’t got time to do that and a relationship properly. I like you, Laura, I do. A lot. But…” Rhys sighs, tugging a hand through his hair. “But would you hate me if I said I wanted to keep things casual for the time being? I’m having loads of fun with you, and I can’t very well let my good luck charm go. What do you say to keeping things as they are now?”

  “As they are now?” I say. My hands have started to shake, so I put down my coffee cup. “Like—”

  “Like…like n
o strings attached. We see each other when we want to, we have fun, we have fantastically amazing sex…”

  And then what? I want to say. People who have fun and great sex together usually end up dating. Will we eventually end up together? Or will December roll around and then I’ll leave Spain for good and he’ll go off on his merry footballer way and we’ll never talk again?

  The thought of that happening devastates me. But what can I do? I’m not going to beg Rhys to date me when it’s clear he doesn’t want to. When he can’t. What in the world did I expect when I became involved with a super hot professional athlete? He’s not a normal guy. And I adore him for that—hello, rock hard body and ridiculous parties and penthouse suites!—but it also means I can’t expect to have a normal relationship with him.

  Yeah, I want that normal relationship. The boyfriend-girlfriend, dinner-and-a-movie thing. But Rhys’s doesn’t, so that leaves me with two options. I can tell him the truth, that I want more, and that I won’t settle for anything less.

  Or I can take him up on his offer. This is the only way I can have Rhys—on his terms, and on his turf—and I’ve got to decide if that’s enough.

  I want all of Rhys. But that’s not on the table. So would I rather have a piece of him, or none at all?

  He meets my eyes. My stomach contracts. God they’re beautiful, full and pleading and kind.

  “Please, Laura, don’t leave me hanging.” He grabs my hand. “I need you. I need you to be there for me. Please. This is too good to let go.”

  He lets me search his eyes. The thought of never looking at them again—of never been looked at by them again—makes me feel like dying.

  He needs me. I can’t tell him no, not when he’s looking at me like this. Not when there’s so much on the line for him.

  Maybe there’s a way to make this work in my favor. Yeah, I’m not getting what I want. Not exactly. But part of my bucket list is about figuring sex out. And who better to figure sex out with than the guy who rocks my world in bed? I haven’t had the big O yet with him. But surely I’ll get more comfortable with him the longer we’re together. If I’m comfortable, then maybe I’ll finally have the courage to ask for that orgasm. Hell, maybe I’ll even let him go down on me.

  Rhys needs me. And in some weird way, I guess need him, too.

  “Okay,” I say. “Sure. Yes. Casual works for me. Yeah, it definitely works. I’ve got a lot going on with school anyway, and I really want to get to know Madrid, so…yeah.”

  “Thank you,” Rhys says, releasing a relieved breath. “I just don’t want to disappoint you, love. This career—this sport—it’s not for the faint of heart. It requires a lot of sacrifice, and I hate the idea of giving you all these expectations and then falling down on them.”

  “I know,” I say. And I do. I hate disappointing people. I would especially hate disappointing Rhys. I’m in too deep, I care too much about his career and his dreams for the future. I’m not going to fall down on him, either.

  I square my shoulders, determination taking root in the place inside my chest that still feels a little sore from Rhys’s rejection.

  I’m going to be the most perfect, most supportive good luck charm Rhys has ever had a casual relationship with. I can do that. I will do it.

  The rest, orgasmic and otherwise, will fall into place. Hopefully.

  Chapter 12

  Laura

  Three Months Later—Late November

  Madrid, Spain

  The private jet is like all the others we’ve been on this semester. “Posh”, as Rhys says, decked out in plush leather and marled wood and shiny gold accents that give his Rolex a run for its money.

  It used to excite me, traveling in style like this with Rhys. Joining the mile high club. It used to turn me on.

  But fast-forward a couple months from our first flight together, and now flying on a private jet makes me feel the way I do lately when I’m with Rhys.

  Depressed. Anxious. A little angry.

  It makes me feel like crying.

  I huddle into one of the giant, cushy bucket seats and look out the window, hoping Rhys doesn’t see me blinking back tears. How did it come to this, I wonder. What a coward I’ve been, letting it—us—go so far.

  I’m supposed to be trolling around Madrid on a pink moped right now. I finally rented us some mopeds for this weekend, and I drew up a route for us to follow through the city. I’ve been excited to do what I wanted for once, to pay some attention to my neglected bucket list; I usually cave to Rhys’s requests for quiet nights in, or dinner at one of the two restaurants he’ll eat at in Madrid (he pretty much eats only grilled chicken and kale, things that are tough to come by on menus in a country known for salty, cheesy tapas and carb-heavy paella).

  But then Rhys’s sponsorship appearance in London got moved up—another celebrity spokesperson had a scheduling conflict with a movie he’s filming—which meant the event was happening this weekend. The same weekend I blocked off for our Madrileño moped adventure.

  “Come on,” I’d said to Rhys. “I know I told you I’d go with you to this thing, but I’ve been looking forward to my moped tour for, like, ever. I’ve had it planned for weeks now.”

  “But you promised you’d come with me,” Rhys pleaded. “The champagne people were thrilled to hear you’d be attending. They love you. Everyone loves you.”

  Everyone but you, I thought.

  “And really,” he continued, “you want to blow off an all-expenses-paid trip to London—we’ll be staying in a five star hotel, by the way—to ride around Madrid on a tiny motorbike?”

  “I do,” I said. “It’s on my bucket list.”

  “Your bucket list. Right. Aren’t we checking off things on our own unofficial bucket list, though? Aren’t we traveling around Europe, living in style, meeting fabulous people? Aren’t you doing things you’d never in a million years dreamed you’d do?”

  “Yes. Yes, definitely. But this is my bucket list I’m talking about. Things I planned to do while I’m in Spain. The moped tour is important to me, Rhys.”

  “I know it is, darling.” He pressed a kiss onto my forehead. “And we’ll get it to it, I promise.”

  “You keep saying that.”

  “And I mean it. You know how busy I’ve been. I’ll make it happen. Just come with me to London, and then we can figure it out. I need you there, love. I need my good luck charm with me. You’ve been such a fabulous date—I don’t think I’d know what to do with myself on the red carpet if you weren’t there. Imagine what all the photographers and the journalists will think if I showed up without you. They’ll hound me. How in the world do I explain to them—how will I explain it to my sponsor—that you blew me off to ride around on a bloody moped? I’ll look like a massive fool.”

  Even as I rolled my eyes, I felt my resolve wavering. The last thing I want to do is embarrass Rhys in front of the press or his sponsor. I know how important his relationship with them is.

  So here I am, on a plane to London, miserable and exhausted and mad at myself for letting Rhys sweet talk me out of my plans and into his yet again.

  Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate the luxury that surrounds me. But I know, deep down, that this stuff isn’t making me any happier. Not the way it seems to make Rhys happy, anyway.

  He falls into the seat beside me with a long, satisfied sigh. I watch his reflection in the window as he spears a hand through his hair—he’s growing it out, and it brushes his shoulders—and leans back against the chair.

  Even now, more than three months after our first fateful tryst at that hotel, his gorgeousness makes my stomach flip. I love his pert little nose and his piercing blue eyes. I still love that smirk of his especially.

  But somewhere along the line, I got caught up in Rhys’s life—it was so easy, he is so persuasive—and stopped living my own.

  I started the semester off on the right foot with Emily’s suggestion of putting together a bucket list. But the ink wasn’t even dry on that na
pkin when Rhys walked into my life and turned my plans upside down. I wanted to eat anything and everything, but then Rhys really loved that picture of me in a bikini, and he was always complimenting me on my looks and my “hot little body”.

  So I didn’t. I didn’t eat the cheese and paella and octopus that were on my bucket list. I’ve been eating the way I did back at Meryton, because I thought I needed to be skinny enough and pretty enough to deserve a spot in Rhys’s stratosphere.

  Which is to say, I’m not really eating much at all. The headaches I used to get from being constantly hungry are back. So are the shin splints that come from logging too many miles on the treadmill. The pressure I’ve put on myself to fit into Rhys’s ridiculous world is just…it’s overwhelming.

  I also haven’t gotten any more comfortable, sexually speaking, with Rhys. In fact, I feel more self-conscious in bed than ever. I still turn out the lights when we bone. I still haven’t come with him. He’s intimidatingly perfect, and even though I’m trying to be, I’m far from it.

  In short, I haven’t changed a damn thing about my life. I felt a good deal of self-hatred before, when I couldn’t live up to the impossible standards I set for myself—being perfect, being thin, making everyone happy. But now I hate myself even more for not making any attempt to shed those standards. Change them.

  Rhys and I are still keeping things “casual”. I wanted, so badly, to be his girlfriend before. But now I’m starting to realize that the connection we have—as glamorous as it may seem—is superficial. There’s something weirdly transactional about our relationship. Like Rhys keeping me around is some sort of good business decision on his part, one his accountant would approve of. His head’s in it, but his heart is locked away, hardly involved at all.