Thirty-three
Heath
The chaos calms when Brett and Ritchie disappear down the hall and Chet takes Jeremy away from the battlefield he scattered with bodies. Ryan’s drunk crying makes it more dramatic than it needs to be, but it is what it is. I didn’t expect vitriol like that from a group like ours—a group so used to each other’s bullshit, it’s habit—but no lies were told. We’ve all had it.
With distance between us, I let out a breath to calm myself down and sit next to Teagan. Her hand covers her face, and she has her knees curled up a little too tight. “Well, hot tubs used to be fun,” I joke.
Teagan laughs from behind her hand. She moves it and wipes a tear from her eye.
“Babe, no. Come on.” I pull her into a hug, resting my cheek against hers. “Crying because of Brett? Are you drunk?”
Her laugh sounds like a sob. “Yeah.” She hugs me tighter, not allowing me to let her go. As if I would anyway. Holding her calms me.
I run a hand up and down her back and my finger gets stuck in the tie of her bikini top, accidentally tugging it a little looser. Her leg floats against my side, threatening to wrap around my waist. My blood is rushing too much to focus on that right now.
“You gonna be okay?” I ask.
“I’m just embarrassed.” She cries again. “Mary is going to be so mad at me.”
“She won’t. You didn’t start this shit.”
“But I made it worse.”
“We’re all drunk and delirious. Everyone just needs to sleep it off and we’ll be fine in the morning.”
“ Shit ,” she groans. “I’m supposed to share a room with Mary and the bridesmaids.”
“Yeah, well, I’m supposed to share a room with Ryan and Ritchie. Wanna trade?” A sniffle interrupts her laugh. Such a cute, pathetic sound. It’s not even ten o’clock yet, but after a red-eye flight and hours of drinking, it’s only a matter of time. “Give it another thirty and everyone will be passed out.”
She nods, but I’m not sure if that’s what she wants to hear right now. I want to fix everything for her, make up for the stress she just went through, especially when I know she was stressed before any of us were even thinking about the wedding. She wipes her eye again and keeps staring down into the water. The LED glow of the hot tub dances mesmerizing lines over her body and the tearful look on her face.
“Teags,” I whisper. “What’s going on?”
She doesn’t look my way. “Is Jeremy right?”
“Which part?”
“That we should stop being friends,” she says. “I’ve said it, you’ve said it. We’re friends of proximity. But Jeremy is leaving, Ryan is making me reevaluate how close we can be without threatening his marriage, and I fucking hate Brett.”
“And Ritchie.”
“And Ritchie,” she agrees. “We’re all starting to live different lives, overlapping less and less. I know it’s natural. It’s happened with every new school we went to, but . . . am I the only one who can’t seem to keep other friends?”
“No,” I admit. “I don’t know how to meet people who can tolerate my bullshit. I couldn’t even keep Shelley around for a month before I ruined it.”
“What? You broke up with Shelley?”
I wouldn’t call it a breakup. You can’t end what never started. “Yeah. It’s over. Like, really over.”
“What did you do this time?” She pouts.
I hesitate to tell her, knowing it’s not the right time to explain. “The usual dumbassery.”
“Why can’t you let yourself have a nice girl for once?”
There is so much on my mind that I want to tell her. How I feel about her, how much I want her, how scared I am to lose her if I admit it. She had to have known I was talking about her before we paused. As oblivious as she has been acting, she’s the smartest person I know and she sees through me like I’m glass. It has to be a ruse.
“You know why,” I say.
Her eyes stare into mine, but I can’t tell what she’s thinking.
She loops her arms around my neck and leans in closer. “You really broke it off with her?”
“Yeah.”
Her plump lips curl into a smirk. I’m not sure if she wants to laugh at me or kiss me, but when she crawls onto my lap, I figure it out.
Her hips come to rest on mine. I instinctively grip them, my fingers sliding into the side of her bottoms, but I force myself not to pull on them. The pounding in my chest returns.
“Does that mean we can resume the contract?” she asks. My heart is beating too hard to put words together. Instead, I nod. Her arms tighten around me with a chuckle. “You have impeccable timing.”
“Yeah. Something like that.” My eyes drop to her lips, and I pull her closer.
“Sorry,” a staff member interrupts us. My eyes snap open and I remember where we are. “We need to close up the tub before we turn in.” He hands us towels, not giving me a chance to protest.
We leave the water and dry off. I keep Teagan from tumbling over when she grabs her clothes. She’s even drunker than I thought. “It hasn’t been thirty minutes,” she says.
“Fuck. Yeah.” I look around for an alternative and remember the lounge on the second level. “Let’s go up there.”
It’s difficult to get her up the stairs, but it pays off. A set of couches sit around a coffee table, overlooking the balcony. Each is as big as a twin-sized bed, but she pulls me onto one with her. The dark look in her eyes and teeth digging into her lip scream fuck me . I hate that she’s drunk right now.
“Let me grab us a blanket,” I say.
It takes me a second to find one, and by the time I turn back, Teagan is out cold.
Deep, even breaths slip between her lips, squashed against the pillow. Considering how hard I am and how hard it is to turn her down even when she’s sober, this is for the best. I shake open the blanket and lay it over her. When I settle under it, she rolls onto my chest, hugging my waist with an arm and nuzzling her head into my neck. I hope she can’t hear how hard my heart is pounding.
This is the best feeling. Not better than sex, but maybe a close second. If she wasn’t drunk I’d be between her thighs in a heartbeat, but have no problem waiting until tomorrow if this is how I will spend my night instead.
I breathe her in to slow my heart rate, and I’m asleep before I know it. When the sunlight wakes me, she’s already gone.
~
I was right. The minute everyone woke up we were back to smiling and laughing again as if the fight never happened. The buffet-style breakfast and numerous lounge areas provided enough space for the most upset of us to keep from crossing paths, just in case. We can’t un-ring the bell, but sobriety makes it easier to maintain civility. We’ll get through the wedding, have fun while we do, and we’ll handle it later. Or never.
When we arrive at the island in the early afternoon, the resort is a great distraction. Everyone goes their separate ways, getting massages, jumping into the pool, or disappearing onto the beach. Teagan and I move into our room separately, our only exchange her slipping me a key while walking past me to the pool. I can’t read her mood, but the room changed mine for the better.
It’s cool as shit. Separated from the main building, the only way to get to it is through an outdoor pathway that snakes through a bamboo garden, or to swim up. There are only three rooms like this, all opening onto the same semiprivate pool, and so far, the others are empty. The room is small, only big enough for a bathroom, a coat closet, and a single queen bed. Nowhere to run.
We’ll be alone soon, and when we are, I’ll tell her. I have to.
Our contract ends with the summer, just a few days after we get back home. That’s what I agreed to, what I thought I wanted. I was lying to myself then and I’m lying to myself now.
Convincing her to do this with me wasn’t my way to get laid or avoid commitment, it was my way of getting Teagan close to me again, even if all we would have was sex. For years I convinced myself I didn’t want a relationship with anyone , but the last few months made me realize the truth. The reason I didn’t want to give my heart away was because it wasn’t mine to give. It has always belonged to Teagan. It always will. I will ruin every relationship I have as long as there’s a whisper of a chance to be with her.
I love her. The only thing I hate about Teagan is that she hates me.
I practice ways to tell her, how I’ll pull her aside and what I’ll say when I do. Words jumble in my head on my way to find her, none piecing together into something coherent before I arrive at the hotel pool. Everyone is here, some floating on inflatable unicorns, the others sunbathing beside it, everyone basking in the Mediterranean sunshine softened by a few clouds. With the company of about fifty other guests, it’s loud but chill, full of all the laughter we should have had last night.
I find Teagan standing with Brett at a drink stand. She wears tall sandals that defy physics, the added height making her legs look impossibly long. Her potato-sack shirt hangs from her like a sexy rag—yeah, I don’t know how that makes sense either—the thin white fabric displaying the strappy black swimsuit she has on underneath.
She wears her braids in a big bun on top of her head like a crown, looking like a queen. All I want to do is drag her off her throne and into bed with me.
When I calm the thudding in my shorts, I see how rigid she is. Arms and ankles crossed, she isn’t thrilled to be next to Brett again, but she’s not intimidated either. While he talks, she gives that practiced, polite smile she does when talking to a stranger. As I go to save her from his bullshit, Brett brushes his hand down her arm and walks away. She deflates with relief, closing her eyes when she drinks from the straw sticking out of a young coconut.
I make her jump when I say, “Tell me he’s behaving.”
She clutches her chest, then moves her hand to grip my arm. “Do not sneak up on me right now, Heath. I almost peed.”
I laugh and slide her coconut my way to steal a drink. “Is he being good, though?”
“Mostly.”
“So, I don’t need to murder?”
“I didn’t say that.” She smirks. “Whatever he does tonight, I’m blaming it on you.”
“Fuck. What is he doing now?”
“Not completely sure. Sounds like he plans to start his apology tour after the rehearsal dinner.”
“Are you for real?”
“Sadly. Fuck my schedule, I guess.”
“Sorry, babe.” I chuckle. “Weddings are the worst.”
“They’re trash,” she agrees. We share sheepish smiles.
A loud rumble of thunder sounds in the distance. I look up at the sky, swearing it was sunny a few seconds ago. “Jesus. It sounds like it’s going to—” I can’t finish my sentence before it starts pouring.
People scramble from the pool. I cover her with a towel and we run toward our room.
The winding wooden planks are a bitch to navigate in the rain. I slip a few times, she does the same, and we’re cursing and laughing at the absurdity the whole way.
Under the cover of an awning, we stop to catch our breath. The rain comes down in sheets. We can barely see the door to our room, even though it can only be a few steps away.
Teagan is still laughing. “You could walk better if you weren’t holding a towel. My hair would have been fine, and look at you.” She runs her hands over my hair to squeeze out the water. “You’re sopping wet.”
While she tries in vain to dry me off, I’m captivated by her effortless beauty and the carefree look in her eyes. I want that smile to stay there forever. I want her to stay. “Teags.”
“What? I can’t help that you look like a wet dog.”
She wipes my cheeks. I grab her wrists, not wanting her hands to leave me. Her smile dims. Those big eyes look into mine.
I stare back for a moment, mesmerized, longing for more. Then without another thought, I do what I’ve wanted to do for weeks. I pull her into my kiss.
In the warm rain, alone in a garden, I lose myself in her. Her plump lips fit perfectly with mine, and when I coax them apart, her tongue is smooth and delicious. It’s everything I’ve craved for weeks, maybe even months. She melts into me, her hands pulling me closer, her breath heavy against my cheek when I press her back against the wall.
I don’t want to stop, but when I try, she pulls me back in for more, the electricity rumbling through me like the clouds above us. When our lips slowly part, I lick mine to taste what lingers. The look of desire on her face is more than lust. There’s something else hidden behind her heavy gaze.
Maybe she feels it too. Maybe I’m only seeing what I want to see. Either way, I have to tell her.
“Teags,” I whisper. “Please don’t hate me for saying this.”
Her brow stitches. “For saying what?”
It feels like the rain is drowning me, stealing the last of my oxygen. “When you asked me if I was catching feelings . . . I wasn’t talking about someone else.” My heart pounds hard in my chest. “I meant I was catching feelings for you .”