Of course he has someone. Why wouldn’t he? Hell, I’d want him, too, if things were different or if I lived here . . . No.
The expansive patio is suddenly too small. My shoes tap against the brick pavers, ready to flee as soon as my brain gives the go-ahead. Instead, I lift the glass to my lips and drag in a mouthful of Rocket Razzle. And then another. And then a third until there’s nothing left but sugar granules along the brim and my head is covered with a thick fog that numbs me.
Everyone at the table is watching for my reaction. I could probably play it off—and I should play it off because what does Dane talking to some gorgeous woman matter to me?—but I can’t.
I need air.
“Is there a bathroom out here?” I ask, looking at Claire.
She motions behind her, her eyes wary. “It’s back there. Go around the tiki-bar thing, and you’ll see the door. Want me to go with you?”
“I’m fine.” I push away from the table. The alcohol hits my head in a hurry, and the shrubs along the far wall tilt to the right. Penn grabs my arm and steadies me.
“Easy there,” Penn says softly.
“I’m fine.”
“Didn’t say you weren’t.” He watches me with a curious bend in his brow. “You want an escort?” He looks up with a wide grin. “I’ll have everyone know that’s the first time I’ve said that and didn’t mean anything dirty.”
My laugh sounds wobbly. “Thanks, but I’m fine. Honest.”
“Okay. But if you fall and need CPR, I won’t hold it against you.”
I keep my hand on the back of his chair, and then Matt’s, as I round the corner of the table. My instincts tell me to look toward the building and see if I see Dane, but I override them.
The inside of my skull screams with contradictory responses to this situation. One side of my brain tells me to waltz in there and stake a claim. The other side, the one that’s logical and not completely buzzed, reminds me I have no claim to stake.
My heart lobbies for another drink.
CHAPTER NINE
NEELY
The door is right where Claire said it would be. Before I tug it open, Penn rounds the corner.
“You found it?” he asks.
“It was pretty easy.” I focus on his features, not sure if I missed something. “This is the right door, right?”
He nods. “I was just, uh, coming back here to see if they stuck the chalk in the tiki bar. They hide it from me.”
I bite my lip, seeing right through his bullshit but appreciating it all the same. “You’re all right, you know that?”
“Don’t tell anyone and ruin my rep.” He makes a face as he reaches over me and pulls open the bathroom door.
“Thanks, Penn.”
“I’m holding a door,” he deadpans.
“You’re not just holding a door.” I pat his shoulder as I walk by. “I appreciate you holding the door and checking on me. Don’t worry,” I say, laughing as he balks. “I’ll never mention you being nice in public again.”
“Good. We don’t want to stir up the natives.”
The door closes, capturing me and my giggle inside the little bathroom. I find the light switch. There’s a little sink and a hand blower. The room bends into an L shape where I assume the toilet is located.
Fiddling with the lock, I try to latch it. It’s old and a screw is missing, so it hangs haphazardly. The alcohol does me no favors either. After a few seconds of sliding it around, I get it. I think.
My back hits the wall, and I look at myself in the mirror above the sink. My cheeks are rosy, my eyes a wide, steely gray. The concrete block wall behind me is nothing like what I normally see in a bathroom mirror when I’m out and about. There are no chandeliers. No white cloth towels for drying your hands. No line of women with expensive clothes and perfect makeup waiting to use the facilities.
Just me.
A hollowness descends over me. I push off the wall, slipping my phone out of my pocket. Pulling up my emails, I sort through the names and subject lines. There’s nothing there that I hope to see—no responses from companies looking for sports writers. Just a bunch of romance writers’ newsletters and offers for dollar flip-flops and discounted shirts.
My shoes shuffle against the concrete floor as I turn the corner and spy the toilet. Just as I’m unbuttoning my pants, I hear the door squeak open and realize the lock must not have fastened after all. My heart flies to my throat, and the alcohol sloshes around like an angry volcano.
My breath stills in my lungs as I look into the dim light. Dane is standing at the sink. One hand is planted on each side, his head bowed.
I blow out a breath. “It’s just you.”
His head whips to mine as he staggers to his feet. “How’d you get in here?” He shakes his head, running a hand over his chin. “Dumb question and not what I meant.” He sighs. “I didn’t know you were in here.”
“I know you didn’t. You were inside with the girl from the café.” The words come out before I have time to think about them. If I’d thought them through, I would’ve picked a better tone as well, because the accusatory way I said the words doesn’t help much. There’s nothing I can do, so I shrug.
“You mean Haley.” He shifts his weight, his brows tugging together. His lips begin to tug toward the ceiling.
“I don’t know what her name is.”
“You got a problem with her?” He grins.
“I don’t know her.” The light appears to move above the sink, but I’m present enough to know it’s really not. I lean against the wall and take a slow, deep breath. “She seems lovely.”
“She is lovely,” he says. “You’d like her.”
“I’m sure we’d be besties.”
He turns his back to me, but the way his shoulders vibrate tells me he’s laughing.
I wonder who Haley is and who she is to him. Does he screw with her on the side, or does he know her little girl too? It’s the last thought tonight, the one of Dane with a family, that draws my ire.
I do what comes natural: I throw my shoulders back, lift my chin, and pretend I have all the confidence in the world. It’s an old gymnastics trick that works on the mat. It’s not as effective against men. At least not this one.
Dane faces me, taking me in. “You know, if I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were jealous.”
“Of what?” I curl the corner of my lip like it’s an absurd thought. “What would I have to be jealous of?”
“Haley.”
A sound that isn’t ladylike or explainable hiccups out of my mouth. I don’t worry about it, though. I roll my eyes. The motion makes me a little sick, but it’s worth it to make a point. “You obviously don’t know me. I don’t get jealous of pretty women, Dane.”
“I didn’t say you were jealous about that.” He half laughs. “I mean, come on, Nee. You’re the prettiest woman in any given room. Of course you aren’t jealous about that.”
My knees go limp, and I tell myself it’s the rum. I also tell myself I misheard him, but when I look into his eyes, I know that’s not true.
He takes a step toward me. And then another. With each step, my chest constricts harder. By the time he’s standing in front of me, I can barely breathe.
“I hate it you’re here,” he says. His voice is almost a whisper, yet somehow, despite the softness, it doesn’t lose a bit of grit. The words and texture are at odds, roughing over my ears and heart, and all I can do is take a step back against the wall. “I had just about forgotten you.”
“I had forgotten you.” I tuck a strand of hair behind my ear, my hand shaking against my neck.
The wall is cool against my back, the unfinished concrete rough. I fidget, and the edges of the material bite against the fabric of my shirt.
Dane closes the distance between us. We’re so close that our chests are nearly touching. He towers over me with an intensity in his eyes that almost sets me aflame. Letting my jaw fall open in an attempt to breathe easier, I hear the vibrat
ion in my inhale. He hears it too. A smirk settles over his kissable lips.
“You hadn’t forgotten about me,” he says. “If you had, you wouldn’t be reacting like this.”
“Like what?”
“Like you know just how good it is between us.”
“It was good between us,” I admit. “‘Was’ being the key term.”
“I have a feeling it would be even better these days.”
I might gasp. I might whimper. I might confess that I was thinking the same thing, but my stomach is clenching so hard I’m not sure, and I can’t hear anything over the echo of his words shooting through my mind.
Squeezing my eyes shut, I will my body to behave and my brain to take over and get me the heck out of here.
He reaches out and brushes another strand of hair out of my eyes. The back of his hand tickles against my cheek. A storm of goose bumps races across my skin, silently begging for more.
My stomach curls and I drop my hand to it to try to quell the ache. Before it makes it to my midsection, it bumps Dane’s.
“I didn’t mean to do that,” I tell him.
“I’m not complaining.”
He holds my gaze, a tempest brewing inside his green orbs. I peer into the swirls and feel his curiosity, hear the plethora of questions that mirror my own. Looking into his eyes doesn’t put me on edge or feel like I’m invading someone’s privacy like it does when you meet a stranger or go on a first date. It’s the opposite. That’s the problem.
The knot in my gut begins to unravel. My heartbeat slows. I start to lose myself in the pools of jade but am jolted back to reality by a drip of water falling into the sink from the faucet.
“I need to go,” I say, shoving a swallow down my throat.
He shifts backward. “Need a ride home?”
“I drove here,” I say, not moving a muscle.
“But you’ve been drinking and you’re a lightweight.”
Damn it. “I’ll get Claire to drive me. Or Penn.”
Tucking his hands in his pockets, he rocks back on his heels. “You afraid of me?”
“Hardly.”
“Then let me drive you home. What could it hurt?”
Four simple words is all it takes to knock me sideways. I’ve replayed that exact line—What could it hurt?—over and over in my mind. Hearing it from his lips again is enough to nearly paralyze me.
He doesn’t seem to remember. There’s no light coming on over his head, no realization sweeping his features like I’m positive is happening on mine. He reacts to my reaction with narrowed eyes and a curious tip of his head, and somehow the fact he doesn’t remember causes a pain to swell in my chest.
The force of emotion strikes a panic that radiates from deep inside my soul. I haven’t allowed myself to delve too deeply into this situation for a long time. It’s pointless. It will change nothing. But as my jaw hangs open and I try to bring precious oxygen into my lungs, I fight the urge to bound forward and smack him across the face—for what? For not remembering? For causing my chest to ache so painfully? For proving that everyone is a liar when they spout off you can have everything you want out of life?
Because I can’t. I can’t have him. And he doesn’t even remember.
“Funny you should use that language,” I say, clearing my throat.
“Why?” His face scrunches in puzzled confusion.
“It’s like when you say, ‘What could possibly go wrong?’ and then everything actually goes wrong. When you say, ‘What could it hurt?’ I seem to remember it hurting so terribly I didn’t think I’d survive.” My voice breaks on the last word. Standing taller, desperate for him to get nothing from me but anger, I lift my chin. “Remember that, Dane?”
His gaze falls to the floor. His bottom lip sucks between his teeth as he toes his shoe against the concrete. “I don’t remember that line specifically, but I get what you’re getting at.”
He looks up at me, the lines on his face etching into his skin. The water continues to drip in the sink behind him. Each ping of a droplet like a tick of a clock. Each second of our standoff like a fuse being burned.
The air crackles around us, wrought with an awkwardness neither of us can navigate. When I envision this late at night sometimes, I have a lot to say. Now, words seem impossible to articulate.
“You know,” he says, bringing his eyes to mine, “I never got to tell you I’m sorry.”
“I bet you are.”
My response has his hands coming out of his pockets. He looks at me with an arched brow. “You know I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
The fuse has burned through.
“And that makes it all right, doesn’t it? You didn’t mean to hurt me. Gee, thanks, Dane.” With a heated glare, I cross my arms over my chest. “I bet you were thinking that while you screwed Katie. I bet you were thinking, ‘Boy, I hope this doesn’t hurt Neely.’”
“It wasn’t like that.” He growls. “And you know it.”
“I do? How would I know it?” I shake my head, fury singeing my veins. “Because all I remember is how bad it hurt to know you were—”
“We were broken up!”
“Because you broke up with me!” I shout back. Words pour out of my mouth, each syllable coated with so much pent-up emotion it surprises even me. “I thought we’d get back together. I knew it. I . . . loved you.”
Blinking back tears, I step away.
“I loved you,” he says softly. “I . . . You know, I didn’t . . .” His Adam’s apple bobs in his throat. “I didn’t expect for what happened to happen.”
My fists squeeze at my sides as my heart cracks. “You didn’t mean to have a baby with my best friend while we were on a break.”
The words sound wrapped in cotton, but they hit him squarely. His arm flexes like he’s going to reach for me. He doesn’t.
I squeeze my eyes shut to block out the picture of him standing in front of me. All I see is a nineteen-year-old version telling me that my best friend is having his baby followed by visions that have haunted me for so long of him holding a baby that’s not mine. That should’ve been mine. He was mine.
When I open my eyes, he’s in the same spot. Yet somehow, it feels like we’ve been shoved together. The drip of the water echoes through the stillness.
“Neely—”
I hold up a hand. “Like you said the other day, it doesn’t matter.”
“I know,” he says. “It doesn’t. Not really. But I would like to talk it out. Don’t we owe it to ourselves?”
“I owe it to myself to not feel this way anymore.” Running a hand through my hair, I notice the edges are damp from perspiration. “In a couple of days, I’ll be back in New York doing whatever it is I do. You’ll be here playing house or whatever it is you do with Katie and your kid. I mean, if you and she are still talking.” Dropping my hand, I laugh angrily. “Probably not. You probably ruined our relationship for a one-night stand, didn’t you? Good work.”
“You have no idea what you’re talking about.” He cuts the distance between us in half.
“I know enough to know there’s no reason to let you take me home. You made your choices and I made mine. Now we have to live with them, and I’m just fine with that.”
He works his bottom lip between his teeth, absorbing my words. One of his hands claps against the back of his neck as he tries to release some of the stress in his shoulders. Finally, he shrugs. “You know what? You’re right. Everything happens for a reason, Neely.”
It takes everything I have not to fire back at him that I had to sacrifice my happily-ever-after because he decided to give some other woman a piece of him that was supposed to be mine. My tongue is heavy with questions. I want to demand he explain what reason is good enough to account for my suffering. But I don’t. That will only give him more power. And it doesn’t matter.
“Everything happens for a reason, huh?” I ask. “I don’t know what caused you to sleep with Katie, but that’s your problem. I won in the end.”
<
br /> His eyes darken. “Careful.”
“Careful?” I laugh. “I’m not the one with a reckless history, bud. You got a kid by a woman you barely even knew, really. I got my dream job in the city. I’d say the end result was favorable to me.”
He opens his mouth when someone pounds on the door.
“Hey, Dane. You in there?” Matt asks.
Dane doesn’t look away from me. “What do you want?”
“Haley needs you.”
“Guess it’s a good thing I don’t need a ride home, huh?” I shake my head, knowing he’s going to go with her.
He does. He heads to the door but stops short of opening it. Looking at me over his shoulder, he flips me a look of pity. “Glad you got everything you wanted out of life, Neely.”
The door squeals open, and I take a step toward him. “Dane . . .”
But he’s gone.
CHAPTER TEN
NEELY
The sound of air whirling above my head lures me awake. My eyes open and expect to see the bulletin board across my childhood room that holds some of my gymnastics medals. Instead, there’s a yellow-and-white-striped chair and a window overlooking a tobacco field.
My head pounding, I pop up on my elbows and try to remember where I am. Memories from last night filter through my mind. Matt and Penn singing karaoke. Mr. Mucker telling us it was time to go. Claire helping me to her car.
Dane’s face in the bathroom.
I wince.
A soft knock raps on the white painted door, and it opens with a gentle push. Claire’s head pokes around the corner. “Good morning,” she says. She steps into the room. She’s dressed for the day, her hair and makeup done.
“What time is it?” I ask, stretching my arms overhead.
“Noon. You’re more than welcome to stay here, but I need to head to the café in about twenty.”
“No,” I say, coughing as the words get tangled in my throat. “I’m supposed to go to Aerial’s today, and I don’t want to be a pain in the butt.” I throw the blankets off me and notice I’m in the same clothes as last night. “Do you mind if I ask how I got here? And maybe what happened last night? Because I don’t think I’ve ever woken up in someone else’s bed before. Except this one night in Boston, but that’s a long story.”
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