Chapter Twenty-Seven
Alicia
“Hey.” A guy wearing a baseball cap moved to Remi’s side and gestured toward me with his can of Bud Light. “Is that actually your ex-wife?”
I was technically in a conversation with a few people about the local high school basketball season, but I wasn’t invested by any means.
I’d overheard people asking about mine and Remi’s past relationship a couple of times, so I knew what was coming next.
No matter how loud the party got, I could always hear Remi’s name or, God help me, his voice.
It had been a few hours, and more drinks than was wise, since my conversation with him.
My feelings were still a little frayed, but staying at the party had turned out to be productive.
When he’d said that he would help me, it hadn’t been empty words.
“Yeah, we used to be married,” he said. “Have you met Alicia?”
He didn’t wait for the other man to answer before calling out, “Leese, do you have a sec?”
I gave him a smile over my shoulder and held up a finger in the universal sign of, one minute. While I removed myself from the group I was a part of, I overheard Remi talking to baseball-cap-guy. “You know that state land you hunt on?”
“Yeah.”
“They’re trying to sell that off and put in an amusement park or some shit.”
“Goddamn, really?”
I was walking the few feet to Remi as he nodded, gravely. “She’s here to stop it.”
He gave me a big smile that made me curl my toes. I had to force myself not to lean into his side, that hug outside was still fresh in my mind—how it had felt like the entire world was reduced to him and me. The security. The gentleness.
Were my emotions frayed? Or was I resisting the one thing that felt the most right?
After introducing me to baseball-cap-guy, Brian, a local construction worker, Remi stayed just like he had the two other times he’d initiated this conversation, acting as a built-in hype-man.
“So, what is this petition supposed to do?” Brian asked.
“To give the opportunity for the county to vote on rezoning the land to protected status,” I explained.
“You’d still have to win the vote, even if you get enough signatures.” He was a bit standoffish, and I couldn’t get a good read on how to appeal to him. I hoped my connection to Remi would be enough.
“I would, but it would also stall their progress and give me more time to let people know why this land is so important.”
A crease formed under his lower eyelid as he considered me. “Yeah, no thanks.”
Remi straightened. “You won’t sign the petition?”
“Nah.”
“Can I ask why?” I took a sip of my drink to keep from sighing.
“I don’t like telling people what to do.”
“But you’re not telling people what to do,” Remi argued pinching the frames of his glasses and pushing them back on his nose. “You’re telling the Michigan government what to do, which you do every time you vote.”
“Nah, I’m good.”
“That’s bullshit, man—”
I placed a hand on his forearm to cut him off before he created more tension between Brian and my cause. “No, it’s okay.” To Brian I added, “I hope you change your mind. I would love to talk more extensively, if you have any questions.”
After a tense few seconds, Brian walked away claiming that he needed a fresh drink.
I raised an eyebrow at Remi. “You can’t bully people into signing.”
“That mother fucker—”
Laughing, I shushed him. “Not here.”
His eyes locked with mine. “At home, then.”
My stomach flipped, and my cheeks warmed. Remembering that home was Chicago came as an afterthought. One that couldn’t hold up to the feeling that the city was just where I lived, but home was wherever Remi was.
“Yeah,” I agreed.
The musical selection did not have a through line.
In the past three songs, we’d listened to Brand New, Jay-Z and currently the whole party was screaming out the lyrics to “Nothin’ On but the Radio” by Gary Allan.
Well, not the whole party. The first chorus Sebastian obviously didn’t know the words, but he was catching on and singing it directly to Nora.
Which I suspected she didn’t actually find annoying.
With each drink she consumed, it became more clear: She liked Seb.
Brooks also didn’t sing along; he swayed with a beer in his hand.
One time I thought maybe he glanced at Olivia, but she was grinning up at her designer-styled fiancé, Anton.
He reminded me of an Abercrombie & Fitch model from the aughts.
When he took off his coat in the kitchen, I expected him to be shirtless.
His lips were always parted. I didn’t know how eyebrows brooded, but his definitely did.
He was the total antithesis to Brooks, but when Olivia looked over her shoulder it was always in Brooks’ direction.
I could not figure out the dynamic there.
I was on the drunk side of tipsy. So when someone suggested that we play Never Have I Ever, I loudly said, “I’m gonna need a full cup for this.”
The room full of practical strangers laughed, and I wondered if that was a bit too far. If playing the game at all was a bit too far. There was a line between integrating into the community and losing credibility.
“I’ll play.” Olivia shrugged.
“Looking for an excuse to stay sober,” Nora deadpanned.
“Fuck you, Nor.” Olivia laughed, but behind her Anton’s expression grew harsh. She took in the party goers ending at Brooks. “This could be fun.”
A woman with a sharp-edged chin-length bob scowled at the group. “Are we seriously playing a drinking game? No one else thinks we’re too old for this? Nostalgia can only be justified so far.”
”Remove the stick from your ass, Janet. You don’t have to play if you don’t want to,” Nora suggested.
Seb lifted his drink just above shoulder level. “All right, I’ll go first. Never have I ever had a one-night stand.”
Hazel gasped. Her boyfriend threw his head back laughing.
While Nora and I exclaimed in unison, “Bullshit.”
I had officially drank too much. I did not know this man, and I was acting like a fool. This was the kind of game I would normally remove myself from, but I felt Remi’s attention like a weighted blanket around my shoulders. I was too curious to walk away.
“It’s true, I haven’t. Sex gets better the longer you’re with someone. Why would I do it only once?” Sebastian explained.
“Not always,” Olivia said. Her eyes widened and she started blushing as soon as the words were out of her mouth.
“Lucky, that’s not the case with us.” Anton clasped her hand and kissed her knuckles.
Smooth, dude.
“To one-night stands.” Nora held up her cup then took a hearty drink.
A good percentage of the room followed suit, including Remi and me.
It was followed by, “Never have I ever been naked in public.”
I drank.
Remi didn’t.
“Never have I ever had sex at work.”
Hazel took a discreet drink through her straw. Elijah tried but failed to hide a shit-eating grin.
I could barely hear Remi whisper, “Tell me it was your office.”
“You already know too much,” she whispered back.
I snorted.
Her brown eyes met mine for the first time all night.
“Good for you,” I said, trying to lighten the mood between us.
She narrowed her eyes in response. “Never have I ever stayed out until six in the morning.”
Heat bloomed on my cheeks, but I took a drink. The statement was clearly for me, as I flashed through memories of him calling or texting wondering where I was. But that was the whole point of those nights. To make him angry and worried. To push him past the point of sullen petulance—provoking him.
Remi glowered at her in warning, and his jaw set.
Someone else started saying the opening phrase, but Hazel cut them off. “Never have I ever had a breakup so bad that I almost failed my senior year vet finals.”
The room grew quiet enough that we could hear Sterling mutter, “That feels really specific.”
My whole face burned, and I was absolutely positive that I was the brightest shade of red.
This was definitely not a good look for me—not for my job or whatever it was that was going on between me and Remi.
He crossed his arms over his chest and shook his head once.
Elijah rubbed a hand across Hazel’s shoulders, and she settled into him as if realizing what she’d just said—how she’d laid our past out for other’s consumption.
She turned her face down to her feet. The whole interaction felt very different from the quiet girl I used to know, but then we all changed. I had, but she didn’t know that.
I didn’t feel like playing anymore, but I couldn’t remove myself without it being noticed, so I stayed waiting for the attention to shift away from me.
The silence that followed only lasted for a few seconds before Olivia’s too bright voice called out, “Never have I ever . . . dated two people at once.”
Nora drank, but at least three different people said, “Define dating.”
“Dating,” Olivia repeated.
To my surprise it was Emmett who spoke up to clarify. “No, but is it non-exclusive relationships or is it two people who think that you’re monogamous and you’re actually cheating?”
“Let’s go with open relationships. Cheating is just depressing,” Nora confirmed, but I caught her fleeting accusatory glare cast toward Anton. If she killed him tonight, I’d help her bury the body.
“Never have I ever . . .” Nora began, “had a threesome.”
Remi drank.
Despite my mood, I was wildly curious.
“Brooks?!” Olivia gasped.
His shoulders remained relaxed, one finger hooked in his belt loop. “Hm?”
“You have?”
He nodded.
“Shit, Brooks,” a guy to my right said appreciatively.
“Was it you, a guy, and a girl? Or you and two girls?” Olivia’s dark brown eyes were huge.
He tilted his head toward his shoulder. “Yes.”
“Which one?”
“God, Liv, both. He’s had more than one,” Nora explained.
Olivia’s lips formed into a circle, before she swallowed. I could have thanked her for shifting the attention from me so efficiently.
“Brooks, do you fuck?” asked a bald man.
Using her cup, Nora gestured toward a quiet Brooks. “He’s drank more than anyone else in this room”—she jerked her chin toward Sterling—“sorry, I forgot you were in here.”
He smiled. “Nothing wrong with a little experience.”
The broad-shouldered man with red hair standing next to Sterling rolled his eyes.
“Never have I ever had sex outside,” Seb said.
Remi’s eyes pinned me—a memory hot and bright in his midnight blue depths.
Cold rain falling heavy on our rain-soaked clothes, as we kissed and moved together.
My shorts and underwear in a pile on the ground, his around his thighs.
Neither of us lifted our drinks. We both knew. And it was ours. Only ours.
Just us.
A reminder that we had been good together, so good. And that we were good now. It didn’t matter what anyone else thought of whatever we were, or of me. It was us that mattered.
Even with how sloppy and careless we had been with each other’s hearts I’d go back there now, even if it meant living through everything that would come later. I’d take the pain to have the good.
I’d do it all again with him.