Chapter 12
It’s the guy. The guy. The one who opened the door for me yesterday.
He must have come back to murder me. Why else would he be walking through my place unannounced?
Hot or not, I’m about to karate chop him in half and run, but Juju steps in front of me before I get the chance.
“Oh, hello, there!” she squeals, giving him a big hug, not even bothering with air kisses since there’s no way to reach up past his shoulders. She turns back to me. “I thought you said you were traveling alone!”
I blink frantically in the new guy’s direction, still ready to take a swing if need be.
He grins back at me.
“What are you doing back?” I manage to spit out, taking a step sideways. “And I didn’t say you could open my door again! Just that one time.”
Juju jumps up and down, grinning between this new man and me.
“Sooo” — she draws the word out like a mother coaxing a confession out of her toddler — “who’s this?”
“Yeah, who’s this?” Rex echoes, glaring at me.
Like you have any right to be mad?
“I have no idea.” I still feel alarmed. If worse comes to worse, I’ll shove Rex into him while I sprint away down the beach.
“Dominick,” the new guy says, his voice deep and familiar. “But pretty much everyone calls me Dom.” He reaches out to shake Rex’s hand, sizing him up like a little bug, and it hits me like a ton of bricks.
“Wait. You’re Dom ?” I drop my hands from their defensive position, no longer ready to deck him. He holds out his hand to shake, and I let him. His hand swallows mine right up before he releases me with a little smirk.
“Nice to officially meet you,” he says.
I take a step back, staring at his face while my veins turn to ice.
“But you opened my door yesterday. And then . . . How did you not know it was me on the phone?”
“I think I mentioned that I’m not really involved with my rentals. Phil handles all my acquisitions and listings. I’m too busy with my other businesses. I didn’t even know I owned this place when I helped you yesterday.”
I hear Rex scoff, trying to sound unimpressed.
“You must own Rex’s side of the rental too then?” Juju pipes up.
“Turns out, I own both sides,” he confirms, studying Rex.
I watch the puzzle pieces all move into place for him. Then he looks back and forth between Rex and me, like he’s at a movie theater. If he had a tub of popcorn, I’d smack it out of his hands right now. Incredibly attractive or not, he shouldn’t be here watching this mess unfold.
Between the four of us, Juju is the only one who has no idea what’s going on. A small part of me feels bad for her.
“Did you at least knock before you came in?” I’m somewhat horrified that this Airbnb owner thinks he can just waltz into my rental at any moment. Although I did tell him that he was welcome to come install the blinds at his first availability.
He holds up a stack of long, skinny boxes.
“I knocked, rang the bell, and texted you three times.”
Oh .
“Those are the new window shades?” I ask, already knowing the answer. Too little, too late , I want to add. The gig is up. I’m praying he doesn’t make this moment any more awkward than it already is, by saying something about our very recent public breakup in front of Juju. As far as I can tell, she’s completely oblivious to who I am. For now, at least. As much as I’d love to blurt it out, I’m not Rex’s girlfriend anymore. He owes her the story about our history, not me. I’m here to remain anonymous.
“They are,” Dom replies with a smirk, holding up the stack of boxes. I always found Rex to be attractive, with his shaggy blond hair and big hazel eyes. But Dom’s stature and mature charm make Rex look like a little boy in comparison. “You’ve given me the perfect reason to come over here and install them.”
Rex shifts his focus to me, looking nauseous, then back to Dom. “So, you’re just the Airbnb owner?”
We both ignore him.
I fold my arms, staring only at Dom. “I thought you said you were busy .”
“Your phone call about the blinds seemed, ah, rather urgent, and, since you’re here for the next two months, I figured why wait a minute longer?”
Rex chokes. “Two months ?” He spits the last two words out like I had the audacity to show up at his townhouse.
“Oh, how fun!” Juju starts jumping around like she just won the lottery.
I manage to smile weakly at Juju, then kick a stray rock off the deck.
“Well, she’s signed up for eight weeks,” Dom pipes up, sounding far too pleased about it. “If she’s not enjoying herself within the next thirty days or so, we’ll discuss the second half of her reservation.”
Rex runs one very tan hand through his sun-streaked hair. His telltale sign of annoyance.
“And where is home?” Juju asks me sweetly. She’s still grinning at me like we’re all in one big get-along gang. The innocent puppy in all this, just trying to make a new friend.
“New York.” I shift my eyes to Rex.
“No kidding!” she squeals. “That’s where Rex is from too!”
“No shit,” I mutter, unamused. “Small world.”
“I guess a lot of people are from New York.” She beams, nudging me. “But still, what are the odds?”
Rex looks like he wants this conversation to end right here, like I just let the cat out of the bag. He’s clearly not ready to tell Juju about us.
Rex’s profile was the only thing visible about him in the shortened clip of us that went viral, making him far less recognizable than me. So either she hasn’t seen the clip, and has no idea that he’s the guy from the meme, or she still can’t recognize me with this idiotic disguise on.
I’m curious how long he waited before moving on from me, since it’s barely been a month. “How long have you and Rex—”
“We better get going,” Rex suddenly interjects, pushing Juju back toward their side of the rental. “You still need to get ready to go, right?”
“We’re heading out to watch our friends at Pipeline,” Juju calls over her shoulder. I have no idea what Pipeline is. “Maybe we’ll see you later tonight!”
“Unless . . . you mentioned something about possibly checking out later today?” A glimmer of hope pools in Rex’s eyes as he turns around. I hate him for it.
How did we get here? I want to ask. How did we go from laughing at Ted Lasso late at night and love notes stuck on our bathroom mirror to this ?
Instead, I murder him with my eyes from under my seven-dollar sunglasses. I open my mouth to reply, but nothing comes out. So I close it again, feeling fresh tears rushing behind my lids.
Dom answers for me.
“She’s going to figure it out,” he says stiffly to Rex, giving him the evil eye. Or at least I think it’s the evil eye, from way down here with my blurry tunnel vision. I’m probably a foot and a half shorter than him.
Dom turns back to me, flashing me a pained look. “Come on, I’m going to install these right now, if that works for you? Then we’ll talk about what you want to do with your time here.” He starts nudging me inside with the corner of one of those long boxes.
I swat at the box and start to say something about his stupid reservation rules again, but stop mid-sentence when I see Rex and Juju shut themselves inside their half of the townhouse. One hand pressed against the lowest part of her back before closing the door.
My back tingles at the memory of what that used to feel like. Rex’s hand against my spine, leading me wherever we were going together.
I snap out of it when Dom uses a box corner to push me all the way inside my half of the rental before sliding the door shut.
I immediately slump down onto the couch, feeling exhausted from the weight of it all.
“Let’s get you some privacy.” Dom sets his pile of boxes down on the floor.
Without a word, he grabs a tissue from the Kleenex box on the coffee table and hands it over to me. Then he settles on the floor to start ripping into the boxes.