Chapter 17
Seventeen
S weat dripped down Tori’s back when she stepped off the dance floor. The Fireball shot Daniela had guilted everyone into taking with her was still burning in her chest as she looked around. Packed, the reception hall was half class reunion. Girls Tori hadn’t seen in over a decade hugged her and bombarded her with questions and made her feel welcome.
Tori wished she was taller while she scanned the room, music pounding against her ears. She’d expected to see Mia gloating after Tori voluntarily participated in the Macarena . To be brimming with I-told-you-it-would-be-fun-to-see-old-friends energy. But when Tori broke free from Daniela’s sweaty hug, Mia was nowhere to be found.
On the hunt for a bottle of water, Tori told herself wherever Mia was, she was not her problem to fix. She shouldn’t be wondering why Mia had been acting off since she picked her up hours earlier. Why she’d been uncharacteristically quiet.
Was it the divorce? Her detachment hadn’t felt like grief, but maybe?—
Nope. Not my place to ask. We’re just casual friends while she’s in town.
Tori felt the lie like a pinched nerve in her back. She straightened, gave up the self-inflicted rouse, and went to look for Mia.
While she walked through the crowd, rounded the mostly empty tables surrounding the dance floor, and checked the bathrooms, she thought about everything weighing on Mia’s shoulders. Tori had never experienced the loss of a parent, but she imagined the gaping hole losing her own mother would leave in her chest.
Grief, the internet had told Tori, was a strange and nonlinear thing. Mia’s ups and downs were apparently very common. Even having a good time could trigger guilt and sadness.
Tori’s stomach heaved. She heard Mia crying in her office and at home. Imagined her holed up somewhere alone to let it out. Tori’s legs moved faster. They carried her all over the exclusive beachfront hotel until she left the cordoned off reception space and found Mia sitting at an empty bar, staring out into an ocean too dark to see at night.
“Mia?” Tori called out over the rushing of waves. It was going to rain again. The smell of an impending shower was heavy in the air. A thick humidity that would only break when the storm arrived.
At the sound of her name, Mia turned her head. Tori didn’t bother pretending she wasn’t going to take her shoes off and walk across the sand in tailored Dior.
“What are you doing out here?” Tori asked when she reached Mia, her fair skin flushed and her eyes glossy.
“I don’t know,” she replied in something of a sigh.
Tori had expected Mia to make a joke. To deflect. The vulnerable honesty only made her want to pull Mia in and protect her from her own sadness. There was nothing Tori wouldn’t do to chase it away.
Relying on an old tactic, Tori eyed the unattended bar. She looked between the bottle of tequila and Mia until Mia smiled.
“I must really look like a sad sack for you to suggest tequila of your own volition,” she said with a smile igniting her heartbreakingly beautiful face.
“Desperate times call for reckless measures,” Tori decided before peeling off her jacket. She hung it carefully over the back of the bar stool before jumping over the counter to Mia’s outward delight.
“Did you just commit a crime?” Mia covered her mouth, but her smile was etched on every inch of her skin.
Tori reached for the bottle of tequila and found two tall shot glasses. “I better not get arrested. I wouldn’t last in prison.”
“Yeah, right.” Mia laughed. “You’d be running that bitch with prompt efficiency.”
Instead of arguing, Tori poured their drinks. Glass in hand, she doubted the wisdom of her actions and her stomach burned in advance. “I’ve taken more shots in one night than I have in, like, twelve years.”
Mia stared down at her glass. “It’s going to hurt like hell tomorrow, isn’t it?”
“Oh, don’t start considering consequences now,” Tori teased before picking up her shot. “To ride-shares,” she joked and clinked Mia’s drink.
Mia smiled, eyes trained on Tori. “To second chances.”
Three shots later, Tori was drunk and walking toward one of the hotel’s cabanas on the dark beach. There weren’t any signs warning them away from the small structures covered in white linen, so Tori plopped down at the edge of a chaise lounge barely big enough for two.
The ocean breeze on her slick skin was the best thing she’d ever experienced. High heels in hand, Mia laid on the lounger next to her like Cleopatra posing for a portrait.
“I don’t know how you can walk in those,” Tori said while rolling down her pant legs.
“Oh, it’s easy,” Mia said before setting her shoes on a little side table. “I can’t.”
Tori laughed, and before she could say anything else, Mia’s hand was on her bare arm.
“Lie with me?” she asked in such a small voice, Tori couldn’t deny her even if she wanted to. And she didn’t want to.
As soon as Tori was lying on her back, Mia curled in at her side. It didn’t matter that a lifetime had passed them by. That they were in fancy clothes at an extravagant wedding rather than in sweats in Mia’s room. They fit together like they always had. Reflexively, Tori curled her arm around Mia when she rested her head on Tori’s shoulder.
“Is this okay?” Mia’s voice was unsure, nervous, small.
Tori absorbed the question. She could pretend it wasn’t okay. Pretend that she didn’t still crave Mia’s touch. Pretend that she hadn’t already relapsed.
Squeezing her, Tori signaled her consent. Mia relaxed into her like she’d been waiting for Tori’s permission to unclench her entire body. Mind hazy, Tori drowned in the sensation of Mia tucked into her nook. In the warming from the inside out she hadn’t experienced since the last time they’d done this.
“When did you get so good at picking out clothes?” Mia asked, fingers skimming the edge of Tori’s vest. Her touch left a trail of heat along Tori’s skin and brought her back from nearly falling asleep.
Tori’s chuckle was little more than a rumble in her throat. “Things change when we grow up,” she murmured, tempted to close her eyes again and drift away. In her life, she’d never slept more soundly than with Mia.
“There’s something to be said about some things staying the same,” Mia said like she was talking about more than fashion sense.
The breeze turned cooler seconds before it rained. Shielded in the cabana, Tori shook her head. “Who plans a wedding in Miami in August? It’s, like, guaranteed to rain.”
“At least it’s not a hurricane.” Mia fidgeted with the last button on Tori’s vest. “And I think rain is romantic,” she decided after a beat. “Like a clean slate, you know? Like a blessing from some ancient goddess whose name we’ve forgotten.”
If Mia was resurrecting dead religions, she was in an even weirder place than Tori guessed. “Do you want to talk about it?” She ran her open palm over Mia’s lower back in soothing circles.
“I don’t want to sell the house,” Mia confessed like she’d endured hours of grueling torture before giving up her secret.
Tori breathed a laugh. “Yeah, I know. No one takes that long to clear out a house. I’m not sure you don’t have more stuff than when you started.”
Mia laughed, the bright sound joining the rhythmic melody of rain on canvas.
“We can talk about other options when my brain isn’t soaked in booze.” She let her hand roam over Mia’s hip. “But you don’t have to sell it if you don’t want?—”
“I’m not divorced yet,” Mia blurted.
Tori’s eyes snapped open. Instinctively, she let her hand drop away from Mia and land on the cushion. “What?” Her stomach morphed into a cold pang even though it shouldn’t make a difference. Mia being married had no impact on Tori’s life, and yet jealousy and disappointment did a weird jig in her gut anyway. “Are you hoping to reconcile?—”
“No.” Mia sat up like she needed Tori to look into her eyes when she spoke. Like it mattered what Tori thought about her marital status. “It’s just a matter of signing the papers.” In the low light, Tori couldn’t see the details of Mia’s face, but she felt her gaze burning into her. “Our relationship died long before we called it. It’s very over,” she said like she was begging Tori to believe her.
“Okay, so is it like a financial thing?” Tori sat up, wishing she wasn’t so drunk.
Mia shook her head. “I guess… If I’m forced to look at it… I guess it’s an emotionally depleted and paralyzed by overwhelm thing.”
“And avoiding it is the only way you can cope with the other stuff?” Tori reached over and took Mia’s hand to stop her from picking at her cuticles. When Mia interlaced their fingers, the last of Tori’s defenses melted away.
“Why didn’t you just tell me that?” Tori ran her thumb gently over Mia’s hand.
“You mean why didn’t I tell you , the human who has fully figured out life, that my life is an unattractive dumpster fire?” She tipped her head to the side. “Gee, I have no idea.”
Tori shook her head. “Mia, no one has life figured out. If you want to talk?—”
“Actually,” Mia interrupted her, voice soft like the syllables were heavy. “Can I just take a break from processing? Just a tiny one?”
Before Tori could answer, Mia shifted, gripping her wrist and tugging her back down onto the lounger. Tori barely had time to register the movement before Mia was curled against her again, pressing in close like she needed the warmth despite the balmy night, like she needed her .
Somewhere in her rational mind, Tori knew this would hurt later, but she couldn’t bring herself to care. She wanted to indulge in the high even if the hangover kicked her in the teeth tomorrow.
“I just want to feel this with you,” Mia murmured against Tori’s collarbone, her words an incantation putting Tori back into her trance. Putting a willing Tori under her thrall.
Fuck it. Without an ounce of resistance, Tori closed her eyes and listened to Mia’s breathing tangle with the sound of the rain and the crush of the ocean.