by Lexi Ryan
That seems unfair. “But that’s not your fault. Surely she knows that.”
“Yeah. Of course, but it’s normal. She’s not trying to be cruel. She’s just human.”
“That’s an awfully mature way to look at it.”
There’s something in her eyes when she looks at me—not quite a vacancy but a distant pain, as if this is something she’s pushed way down. “There’s no point in being immature about it. It wouldn’t fix anything.”
We both watch the party below as Roman pulls Brinley’s sister onto the dance floor and spins her around in his arms.
“You think she knows he broke up with you?” I ask.
“Yes,” she says, but she doesn’t explain how. Maybe she talked to her sister before she hid in the kitchen. Maybe her sister was the one she told to leave her alone.
“Does he have no shame? Dancing with your sister at your party, right after breaking your heart?”
She shakes her head. “No one will ever judge you for showing kindness to a dying girl.”
What about showing kindness to you? “You should probably get back to your party.”
She turns away from the crowd below and studies me for a long beat. Her cheeks are flushed and there’s something almost lonely in her eyes. “I’d rather not.”
My phone buzzes from inside my pocket. Since this is a brand-new phone and the only one who has the number is Aunt Lori, I know it’s a text from her before I look.
Lori: Where are you? I need you in the dining room.
“You need to go?”
I nod as I type back a reply, letting Aunt Lori know I’m on my way. “Duty calls.” I hesitate. “You feel better?”
Brinley releases a ragged breath. “Actually, I do. It wasn’t the birthday I planned, but maybe this is all for the best.”
“What did you plan?” It’s a dumb question. Obviously, she planned to enjoy the party with her boyfriend, but I’m stalling now. I don’t want to leave her.
Her gaze settles on my mouth when she says, “I thought I’d get my first kiss tonight.”
Her first kiss? I won’t be eighteen for a couple more months but . . . well, kissing is kiddie stuff at this point. Not that I had the best role models. But those blue eyes are still on my mouth. I thought I knew hunger when I was on the streets, but I’ve never felt anything like this need to kiss her. “Judging from the way he was kissing the girl in red, I think you would’ve been disappointed anyway.”
“Maybe,” she whispers.
This time when her gaze dips to my mouth, I let my own go to hers—to the smudged bubblegum-pink lipstick, to her soft, plump bottom lip. I think of my aunt talking to me after my hearing telling me that I need to learn my place, that I’ll come to understand folks like us have to make do with less, that I can’t take things just because I want them, and that life doesn’t work like that. But in this moment, it does. I want to take this kiss, despite who I am and where I come from.
I move slowly as I lower my mouth to hers, giving her a chance to pull away. She doesn’t. And maybe part of me knows she wants this kiss for all the wrong reasons, that I’m some tale she’ll tell her spoiled girlfriends at parties—the night she kissed the bad boy from the wrong side of the tracks.
But I don’t care enough to let that stop me, and when I lower my mouth to hers, I don’t care about anything at all. Not anything but this. This kiss. This moment. The feel of her soft lips under mine and her sweet little exhale that feels a lot like relief.
I bring my hand to her jaw, and she opens to me with a gasp and threads her fingers through my hair.
She doesn’t taste like bubblegum. She tastes like the fruit punch and champagne, sweet and heady. Intoxicating. And she doesn’t kiss like she’s looking for a story to tell. She kisses me like she never wants to stop—as if she wants to stay here in my arms all night. It makes me feel like Superman, but I have to end this moment.
Her eyes stay closed for a long beat. I take advantage of the moment to study her face, the sooty smudge of her lashes on her flushed cheeks, the dark curls my clumsy hands pulled free, the perfectly smooth skin where her shoulder meets her neck.
I want to kiss her there.
The thought hits me so strongly that I back away before I can give in to it. I shouldn’t be here with her. I shouldn’t be doing this. But I won’t regret one second. “Good night, Brinley,” I whisper, forcing myself to back away another step, even as every instinct begs me to stay close.
She opens her eyes slowly, bringing her fingertips to her lips as if she wants to hold the memory of the kiss there. “Thank you, Marston.”
I crack a rare smile. Brinley Knox, spoiled little rich girl, just thanked this delinquent punk for kissing her. This night has certainly taken an unexpected turn. “My pleasure.”
“Can . . . can I see you again?”
I might’ve been tempted if she hadn’t looked over my shoulder to make sure no one was here before asking. That one little glance is all the reminder I need of who I am and where I stand. “Better you don’t.”
“Why?”
I arch a brow. “Because I’m not like him.” I shift my gaze toward the balcony and the idiot ex below. “If you were mine, I’d never let you go.”
Chapter Three
Brinley
Present day
Marston Rowe still makes my insides flutter when he looks at me. He still makes my pulse buzz and my imagination run wild.
It’s easy to tell yourself you’ve exaggerated the effect someone has on you. We do that with our memories—smooth them, finesse them, make people into two-dimensional versions of themselves. I’ve watched my parents do this with my sister until their memories of her were hardly recognizable to me. Instead of the kind, joyful, but humanly flawed girl she was, they remember a saint, a perfect daughter, and then criticize me for my failure to measure up to that fictional version of her.
In some ways, I thought I did that with Marston. Maybe a single touch from him didn’t make my heart beat faster. Maybe seeing him again wouldn’t make me want to turn back time. But he’s everything I remember, validating every instinct that had me seeking him out and making all my reasons for not doing it sooner weigh heavily on my mind.
I push into the bathroom in front of Savvy, rushing past women touching up their makeup at the long counter and the ones washing their hands at the sinks. I race into the first open stall I see, and my heel snaps under my foot.
“Shit!” Before Savvy can say or do anything, I shut the door and throw the lock behind me.
“Brinley? Are you okay?”
I lean my forehead on the cool metal stall, my breaths short and jagged. “Fine. I just need a minute.” I dig through my purse and find the bottle I’m looking for. If any moment called for anxiety meds, this is it. I clutch the bottle in my hand.
“Sweetie,” Savvy says softly. Under the door, her black heels come into view. I can imagine her standing there, one hand on the stall, one clutching the tight muscles at the base of her neck, worry forming three little lines between her brows. “Talk to me.”
“What did I think was going to happen?” I’m asking myself more than her. “What was I thinking?”
“I don’t know, honey. What are you talking about? Your shoe?”
I laugh, but it comes out high-pitched. “Marston. Fuck the shoes.”
“Did something happen while you two were at the bar? Did he say something that upset you? Do you want to leave?”
“No!” I take a breath. Calm the fuck down, Brinley. “I mean, with us running into each other. I thought this was what I wanted, but I’m totally unprepared for everything I’m feeling.” I shove the pills back into my purse. I know they’d help, but they make me sleepy, and even as panicked as I’m feeling, I don’t want to miss the little time I get with Marston.
“How were you supposed to know we’d run into him? You can’t prepare for that.”
I unlatch the door and let it swing open. “It wasn’t a coincidence
. I knew he’d be here.”
She frowns. “How?”
I look around the bathroom and realize we’re catching the attention of the women around us. While they’re strangers who probably don’t care about my drama beyond a passing curiosity, I’m a private person and hate the idea of them listening. “It doesn’t matter how, but let’s just say if fate brought us together tonight, I nudged it along.”
Savvy cocks her head to the side and studies me. “You still have feelings for him.”
“Of course I do. Does anyone really get over their first love?”
Her smile is gentle, but she nods. “Yeah. Yeah, sweetie, most people do.”
Grimacing, I turn and lean against the side of the stall. “What am I doing?”
“Panicking in a Las Vegas club bathroom while a sexy-as-sin man waits for you at his private table. A sexy man, by the way, who looks as if he’d like to read your skin like braille. With his tongue.”
I cut my eyes to her, scowling. “That’s rather specific.”
She shrugs. “You asked.” She looks around then steps into the stall with me, pulling the door shut behind her and throwing the lock. “You know he’s probably sitting there thinking you have a husband back home. The way you exited that conversation was conspicuous as hell.”
I wince. “I know. I wasn’t ready to talk about Cami, and I panicked.”
“Is this about her? Or is it about Julian?”
Neither. Both? I chew on my bottom lip because I can’t deny that Julian’s proposition is what had me looking up Marston to begin with. “I don’t want to make a terrible mistake.”
“Do you hear yourself? That’s your red flag. Tell Julian thanks, but no thanks.” She pulls her phone from her purse. “Want me to do it? I can text him now.”
My eyes flick up to meet hers. “I meant tonight. With Marston. I wanted to see him, but being this close to him makes me feel like my world has spun off its axis—or like someone has yanked the reins to my future out of my hands.”
“Would that be so terrible? Maybe you need a break. You work so damn hard and do everything for everyone else. Take tonight—just one night—to really enjoy yourself.”
“I’m not sure a wild night of sex with my ex will solve any of my problems.”
“It can’t hurt.” She tosses her long hair over her shoulder and smirks. “I’d also like to point out that I said nothing about sex. That was all you.”
I ignore this. “I won’t apologize for caring about what happens to The Orchid and to everyone who works there.”
“We’ll all manage.” She puts a hand on each of my shoulders and squeezes gently. “Quit trying to fix everything. Trust that sometimes things work out, and even when they don’t, the sun still rises. These shoulders carry enough without piling on everyone else’s problems.”
I drag in a deep breath and exhale slowly. My life might feel like it’s on the precipice of disaster, but at least I have the best friends.
Savvy must take my deep breath as a sign that I’m pulling it together, because she smiles. “When you nudged fate along, what were you hoping for?”
“I was hoping seeing him would make it easier to decide what happens next.” I shake my head. “I think it might just be making it harder, though.”
She pulls me into a hug and whispers, “The night’s not over yet.”
When we walk back to the table—or hobble, in my case—Alec and Marston haven’t just gotten us drinks. They’ve ordered food—a lot of food. Soft pretzels, sushi rolls, and a charcuterie board fill the table. I know Marston said he’d feed me, but I didn’t expect a buffet.
“I wasn’t sure what you liked,” Marston says. “There are other options if nothing here appeals to you. This was just what they could bring out right away.”
Savvy looks at me and raises a brow. I’m not a mind reader, but I don’t have to be to know what she’s thinking: Fuck that man silly.
“I’m going to dance. You drink,” she says. She takes Alec’s hand and tugs him out of the booth. “Come on, pretty boy. I don’t like dancing alone.” As she saunters away, she throws a wink over her shoulder.
My heart swells. Some people are given a family to care for and protect them by virtue of being born. The rest of us have to find our family in the friends who’d do more for us than our blood relatives ever would, and I thank God for mine every day. We make our own family. Those words came from my sister weeks before she died. They were both advice and a promise to the sister she was leaving behind.
With the other side of the semicircular booth empty, it’d be awkward to sit thigh to thigh with Marston now, so I slide into the booth opposite him and take a plate with shaking hands. I’ve been so nervous about tonight—hoping my plan would work and terrified that it might—that I’ve barely eaten all day. “Thank you for the food. You really didn’t have to get all this.”
He shrugs. “Alec gets cranky if he doesn’t eat regularly, so the food really benefits all of us.”
“When did you two meet?” I ask around a bite of pretzel.
“College. We interned for the same company junior year.”
I look toward the mass of teeming bodies on the dance floor but can’t spot him or my friend. “Can I trust him to be good to Savvy?”
“Without a doubt,” he says solemnly. “I wouldn’t have let her sit with him to begin with if I didn’t think so.”
I love that he takes the question seriously rather than mocking my protective instincts. “I appreciate that.”
“I’m sorry if I upset you when I asked about your life,” Marston says. “All the times I’ve thought of you, it never occurred to me that you’d still be single. I just assumed you’d be pregnant with a third kid by now. Married to . . .”
Somebody my parents approve of. He doesn’t have to say it. Before Marston Rowe blew through my life like a Georgia storm in springtime, that was exactly where I was headed.
He swallows. “Anyway, I’m sorry about how I asked. Ten years later, and the idea of you waking up next to someone else kind of turns me into a jealous prick.”
My eyes widen at that—the idea that he cares enough to be jealous after all this time. “I’m not married.” I let out a long breath at the pang of guilt that slices through me. Would he forgive me if he knew about Cami? Would he understand? “What about you? Did you ever find someone?” I already knew from internet stalking that he’s never married, but that doesn’t mean there wasn’t someone special along the way.
“Oh, hell no. No one would want to put up with me.” His smile is grim and does little to soften this declaration. He shrugs. “I travel all the time and work too much.”
“A lot of people travel and work a lot.”
“True.” He swirls the amber liquid in his glass. “I guess I’ve never met someone who made me want to trade in my life for marriage and kids.”
It’s so hard to imagine that. Every memory I have of Marston is filled with his unconditional affection and protective and loving disposition. It was easy to imagine him with a family of his own. “Once, for a little bit, you wanted those things.”
“Only with you,” he says, his voice low and rough.
My laugh is half crazed. “I don’t know if I’ve had enough to drink to return that kind of honesty.”
He chuckles, then murmurs into his bourbon, “Me neither.”
I take a sip of my fresh martini and resist the urge to guzzle it, but no amount of alcohol can compete with the buzz from those words. Only with you. “I can’t believe I’m really sitting here.”
Marston’s chest swells as he draws in a deep breath. “I’m a little stunned myself. What are the chances?”
Our meeting would’ve been statistically improbable, but like I told Savvy, I helped the odds. She’s the one who insisted we come to Vegas to celebrate my birthday, but I’m the one who planted the seed.
Last month I did a web search for Marston on a whim—something I don’t allow myself to do more than a couple of
times a year—and I saw that his consulting firm was overhauling a Vegas resort and the grand reopening was scheduled for my birthday. I mentioned in passing that I wished I was the kind of girl who ran away to Vegas for her birthday, and Savvy took it from there. After that, it was as simple as a little social media stalking to see which Vegas clubs Marston frequented on prior trips to Vegas and . . . voila! “Coincidental” run-in.
“I mean more than running into you,” I say. “I mean that I’m surprised you even want to sit here with me.” Because when I last saw him ten years ago, I didn’t just push him away—I shoved as hard as I could. The pain of losing my sister made me crueler than I thought possible, and the desperation of my grief and guilt fooled me into believing that if I cut him out of my life, I might be able to salvage my disintegrating family.
“I want to sit here with you,” he says, piling food on his own plate. “Even if I didn’t realize how much until I spotted you across the bar.”
Emotion clogs my throat, but I swallow it down with more vodka. We eat in companionable silence for a few minutes, and I feel the alcohol work through me, loosening my muscles and locking away my worries for another time.
“I’m sure your parents are glad you’re in Orchid Valley,” he says, finally breaking the silence.
“They don’t live there anymore, actually.” I smile, ungrateful daughter that I am. “Too many memories, I guess? Dad always wanted to retire in Florida, and he finally talked Mom into it, so they sold the house and he spends his days golfing while she redecorates their place in Boca Raton.”
He nods as if this isn’t a surprise. It shouldn’t be. My parents are a perfect fit in the world of Boca Raton socialites. “So, tell me what I’ve missed. No Mr. Perfect yet, but you went to college? And . . . let me guess, you’re teaching now?”
