Chapter 3
ABBY
“Abby?”
My heart stutters in my chest.
I would know that voice anywhere. In a crowd of one thousand people, I could pick that voice out from a hundred feet away.
Everything inside me freezes, like I’ve been blasted with ice. If breath is moving through me, I can’t feel it.
I close my eyes. Maybe I fell asleep at the pool and I’m dreaming. Maybe I will open my eyes and the person saying my name won’t be here, at the same resort as me. Maybe he’ll be bald or time will have been unkind to him.
But I open my eyes and there he is. Miles Barker is at White Sands Resort in Cabo, Mexico.
He’s not just here. He’s half-naked and walking toward me, pushing through the water.
I said I would be open to whatever the universe has for me on this trip, but I didn’t mean my college ex-boyfriend and first love.
My mouth goes dry as he cuts through the water.
Time has been more kind to him than maybe anyone ever.
He doesn’t have a full beard, but he has well-groomed scruff, and a silver chain dangles from his neck, drawing attention to the body it rests on.
I haven’t seen him in years, but I don’t remember him having that many muscles.
For fuck’s sake, his muscles have muscles.
His chest is so chiseled it looks almost fake.
The desire to touch that work of art is so strong that I have to curl my fingers and press my nails into my palm to resist. His abs are prominent, but softened a little by… age? Beer? Who knows. Who cares?
He places his hands on the side of the pool and hoists himself up. I practically whimper, watching the muscles in his forearms and biceps work to haul his body out of the pool.
I lick my lips as the water cascades over him, rolling over his tanned skin.
My eyes travel over him freely, my sunglasses hiding the exact things I’m looking at, and the last thing my eyes land on are the way his shorts have tightened in all the right places from the water, suctioning to his body, showing off the curve of his thighs, the bulge of his…
Oh, fuck.
I am in so much trouble.
“Miles?” I say, like I’m not one thousand percent sure it’s him.
“Holy shit, Abby Ashe. What are you doing here?”
He stands in front of me, pool water dripping off of him in a way that can only be described as cinematic. From behind me, the sun lights him as if he’s at some kind of model shoot. My mouth feels dry, and I fight the urge to lean toward him, to be closer to him.
“Oh, um, it’s…my honeymoon.”
The bright excitement on his face fades faster than cheap fabric after one wash cycle. And then his face transforms. His lips curl into a devilish grin, his eyes darken, and he sticks his hands on his hips.
Jesus, those hands. They easily engulf mine—that detail is not difficult to recall.
He used to be able to wrap his middle finger and thumb around my wrist and his fingers would overlap.
His hands seem somehow bigger now than they used to be, thicker and meatier, but I guess being a professional athlete will do that to a person.
Veins pop out on the backs of his hands, snaking up his arms, telling stories about his strength.
He used to be strong enough to pick me up and put me in all sorts of positions, and just thinking about it now has my breath coming a little quicker, my cheeks distinctly warmer than they were mere minutes ago.
“Honeymoon, huh? Where’s your husband?” He says “husband” like it’s a dirty word.
He doesn’t even look around for my non-existent spouse; he holds eye contact, challenging me.
A familiar flame of defiance flickers to life in my belly.
Miles always had a way of riling me up, and it wasn’t always in a bad way.
College me would probably find something witty to come back with, but he feeds off that shit and I don’t think it would be wise to stay in this conversation for a long time.
Not with the way my body is overwhelmingly signaling me to please for the love of god reach out and touch the marbled statue of a man in front of me.
I cross my arms over my chest and lean back into the reclined chair, fighting those old instincts.
“It was supposed to be my honeymoon. My fiancé left me six months ago and the trip was non-refundable, so here I am.”
A pained look crosses his face—a quick furrow of his brow, something in his eyes softening. But it’s gone as quickly as it was there and his expression returns to neutral.
“And Hazel isn’t here with you?” he asks.
I’m taken aback by his memory. Hazel used to hang out with me and Miles all the time in college, but he and I broke up eleven years ago. That he remembers my best friend’s name is a surprise, and I am, begrudgingly, a smidge impressed.
“No, I’m here alone,” I say. “What are you doing here? Bachelor trip? Honeymooning?”
He raises an eyebrow at me, probably considering whether he’s going to call me out for digging into his relationship status. But Miles has never liked the taste of his own medicine.
“I’ve got work nearby. Client wanted a house in Cabo.”
That doesn’t tell me what he’s doing at an all-inclusive resort. He wants me to ask more questions, to talk to him more, to keep me here in conversation with him, and that makes the flame in my belly heat my blood to a low level of frustration.
It doesn’t help that he’s still dripping wet, and the sight of his half-naked body is incredibly distracting. His shorts are slung so low that the V of his hips is visible, and it is making me think the most unholy things. Which is creating a different kind of frustration in me.
And all of the swirling frustration is probably why it takes me a second to really register what he said.
“Client?”
But he’s a hockey player…?
“I’m a contractor.”
Can you have side jobs as a professional athlete? When would he have time? I feel like I’m missing a piece of information…
“Don’t you…aren’t you—what about hockey?” I ask.
“I don’t play anymore.” His tone is clipped, his eyes ice cold.
Surprise lances through me, like I’ve been whipped. Did he quit? Was he injured? How long did he play? Was it worth it in the end? Choosing his career over me?
“I can’t do this, Abby. I can’t do… I can’t be a hockey player and be your boyfriend.”
All the flames inside me extinguish at the memory of our breakup. His last words a eulogy to our two years together delivered over the phone, etched in my memory like an engraving on a headstone.
After Miles smashed my heart to pieces, I had hoped to never see him again, and the universe has been kind to me for eleven years, but apparently the cherry on my shit sundae of a year is being confronted with my college ex-boyfriend on what should have been my honeymoon.
It might be funny if it wasn’t so…unjust.
“Well, it was…nice to see you,” I say, even though it really wasn’t that nice and I would like to tell him to please go away, but that feels rude. Even if he does deserve it.
I go for a more subtle message, propping my e-reader in front of my face and blocking him from view.
Instead of getting the hint, he somehow sees this as an invitation.
Or, more likely, he doesn’t give a shit that I have no interest in continuing a conversation because he’s not done.
Classic Miles.
The scrape of plastic across concrete as Miles brings the chair closest to me even closer sets me on edge. He props his elbows up on his thighs.
“Man, has it really been ten years?” he says.
“Eleven.”
I don’t even look up from my book, but I’m not reading the words—how can I when he’s this close to me?
His presence is magnetic, like he’s got his own gravitational force and everyone who touches it gets swept away.
That’s what I remember about meeting Miles in college: feeling like I got caught in his charm, his wit, his playfulness, his undercurrent.
I had no interest in getting out of it then, but I’ve got enough going on right now without also having to fight the riptide that is Miles Barker.
A waitress comes by to take my empty glass and asks if we want something. I order another strawberry daiquiri, and Miles orders a Corona with lime.
“Your book must be good if you’re ignoring me. What are you reading?” Miles asks.
“You wouldn’t know it.”
“Try me.”
“The Lost God by Sheila Masterson.”
“Never heard of it.”
I give him a pointed “I just said that” glare.
“It’s not really your genre,” I say.
“Is it fairy porn? I hear that’s really popular now.”
“It’s witch porn, thank you very much.”
“Any scenes you want to reenact?” he asks with a smirk.
My cheeks heat, but I give my attention back to the same paragraph I’ve read three times now.
I’d forgotten how easy banter is for us, the way conversation flows like a tennis match, the ball pinging between us, one of us—usually me—dropping off when we can’t keep up with the other.
Nostalgia wraps me up in its warm embrace, but it’s gone almost as quickly as it arrives.
Heartbreak sweeps in, a dark cloud over a spot of sunshine.
Not just my heartbreak from Miles, but my more recent heartbreak as well.
Because there was good with Todd, too.
Not playful, sexy, makes-me-light-up-like-a-Christmas-tree good, but grounded, steady good.
And now I’m on my honeymoon alone.
I try to swallow the lump in my throat, but it lodges in my chest—a bubble of sadness.
I shift in my seat. I don’t really want to be here anymore, sitting by the pool on a bright sunny day. I want to lie in my bed and watch The Office until I fall asleep. That dark cloud in me is spreading, and I think being near Miles is making it worse.
But I just ordered a drink, and I can’t disappear before then. The bartender took the time to make the drink; the waitress went and got it for me. It would be really rude to just not be here when she comes looking for me, not to mention a waste of a drink.