Chapter Three
America
I scan the crowd for Dove. She’s usually easy to spot. The girl with the long silver hair is usually surrounded by guys everywhere we go. It’s amusing watching them trip all over themselves to flirt with her when she’s normally nothing more than polite. Despite being single, she’s not shown an ounce of interest in anyone. Until EJ.
Even with the two of them all over each other, there should be some kind of masculine circle around them.
Regardless, EJ is tall enough to spot in a crowded club, but I don’t see a glimpse of him. “Do you think they left?”
“I think that’s a definite possibility.” Gray scans the shadowy corners for our friends before he pulls out his phone, presumably to check to see if EJ sent a text. Gone is the stricken look he had. “They’re not in here and he hasn’t messaged me.”
I check my device too. Nothing from Dove.
“Perhaps they went outside,” he says.
“Dove loves her vape.” I lead the way off the dance floor with him at my back. “And an old fashioned cigarette or two when she’s drinking.”
She had a pack in her purse. I noticed it when she was checking that she had everything before we left our villa.
His hand steadies on my hip when a couple rush past fast enough to make me stumble. “It’s a madhouse in here.”
“Yeah.” But I don’t hate it. Being here with him. Hanging out. Talking. I’ve lost count of the number of times that this scenario has run through my head in the last few months. The many different ways that I worked out how it could go.
I didn’t expect that it would be the first time in months that I feel like myself.
“Hey. Come on. Take my hand.” His bigger, warmer one engulfs mine, creating static under my skin while he leads me out onto the cobbled street.
My sweat slicked skin cools as we peek through the cloud of cigarette and vape smoke to see if Dove is among the crowd.
“There is no way she’s here,” Gray says. “Not if she and EJ are still together. You know he can’t stand smokers. They’ve probably wandered down to the beach. Or gone back to the hotel.”
“You’re right.” Still, I need to be certain she’s safe. I pull out my phone and bring up Dove in my contacts. The call rings out. Once. Twice. Voicemail kicks in. “I’m going to go back to the Airbnb. Call me back, D. Let me know you’re okay.”
“You know she is,” Gray says. “Even if they weren’t all over each other, EJ would never leave her on her own.”
EJ probably doesn’t know that he’s lip locking with Britain’s next pop princess. We don’t go out much locally because people recognize her. They crowd her for autographs, or try for their fifteen minutes of fame, or a kiss and tell. It’s why we’re spending our girls’ weekend here, where she can still go places without being recognized or needing to be surrounded on all sides by security. If I hadn’t vouched for EJ she might have flirted, but she wouldn’t have left with him.
“Still I’ll be more at ease when I hear from her.” I tuck my phone away. “I’m going to go back to our place.”
“I’ll come with you,” Gray says.
“I’m a big girl. You don’t have to—”
“I know. But I want to.” He places his hand on the small of my back. “Should we get a cab? Is it far?”
How am I supposed to say no? I’m in a foreign country. Alone. Surely it would be the smart choice to let him accompany me. It’s about time I made a good one. “No. We can walk. It’s not far.”
We fall in step, walking along the road that follows the beach. The waves rumble as they wash up on shore, silver threads of sea foam bubbling on the dark surface. Up above the moon hangs like a wheel of Jarlsberg.
It would be romantic with the right person. We come across several couples on the beach who think so.
One particularly amorous pairing rolls around in the sand, their lusty moans growing more frantic while he moons everyone with an ass paler and brighter than the moon overhead.
“EJ?” I ask Gray, unable to keep the amusement from my voice.
“Not a chance. The closest he’d get to exhibitionism is looking at himself in the mirror while…” He chuckles while miming the masculine version of self-love.
“Would you ever…” I stop myself there, as I mentally catch another whiff of Indy’s perfume. As his expression tightens.
Girls talk. It’s what we do. I’ve heard the TMI details of his sex life. Both the fascination he has with being on his knees, and the extent of his spontaneity, which is one car accident away from non-existent. That was with Indy though. Things could have changed.
“No,” he says bitterly. “I wouldn’t. People who can’t control themselves don’t have some destined kind of chemistry. It’s not love. It’s lust.”
“Surely lust is the chemistry that allows us to fall in love.” It feels like we’re talking about Indy and Theo, and though we said we wouldn’t, I can’t help but stand up for my bestie.
“You can fall in love without hurting other people.” He sneers. “You can be attracted to someone without impulsively acting on it.”
“She never wanted to hurt you, Gray.” I grasp his wrist and pull him to a standstill. “I know you’re in pain, but—”
“You don’t know.” He tugs free. “How could you possibly know what it’s like to love someone for almost a decade? She cheated on me.”
Is it the same sensation to love someone when they don’t love you back? When they never so much as noticed how you feel about them? “She didn’t.”
“She had an emotional affair. She chose him.” He starts walking ahead. “She might as well have been fucking him too.”
“I’m sorry.” I hurry to catch up as we take the steep steps up and up. I truly am. He’s wrong about my not knowing what it’s like to love someone, knowing they will never be yours. “I keep putting my foot in my mouth.”
“It’s not your fault she broke me,” he says as we enter the little courtyard in front of our Airbnb. “And we both knew this interaction would be awkward. It’s probably why you didn’t call me after.”
“And why you didn’t text me for six months.” It felt like he walked away from me too. I tried to tell myself that wasn’t accurate. I can be too sensitive. Take things too personally. But the months bled into each other. “It’s a long time.”
“It’s hard.” He rubs a hand over his heart. “It fucking hurts. It doesn’t stop. Every day I wake up and have this blissful moment where everything is normal and right, and then I remember that she married someone else. That the life I knew for so long is someone else’s. I miss home, but I can’t go home because memories of us are everywhere.”
“You sold your condo.” When Indy told me that, it had felt so final.
I start tapping my thumb to my fingertips. The sensation brings calmness.
“I couldn’t breathe there. She was everywhere. Not just the apartment. In my office. In my car. I can’t be around the people I consider family, because they’re her family. Even my friends… you… EJ… you remind me of her. I don’t know if I will ever get over it.”
I blink back the sudden burn behind my eyes. I know his sentiments all too well. Being on the outside. Unable to be around the person I love without it being painful. It’s why I moved to another continent.
“You wouldn’t understand,” he says, then points at a window. “Well, I think we found EJ and your friend.”
“Oh.” I clap my hands over my eyes when I spot our naked friends doing unsanitary things on the kitchen island. That is way more than I ever needed to see. “It looks like you can add accidentally leaving the curtains open to special occasions where EJ takes part in exhibitionism. My freaking eyes are burning. Have you got anything acidic I can wash them out with?”
“It looks noisy in there.” Gray chuckles, right before Dove cries out like she’s performing an opera for the whole of Positano.
“Christ.” I whimper. I’d be able to handle it if EJ wasn’t like my older brother.
“Want to come back to the hotel with me? You can take my bed. And I’ll take EJ’s. That way if he comes in tonight, it won’t wake you.”
“That depends.” Another ear-piercing cry comes from the kitchen. “Actually, never mind. Let’s go.”
We walk back along the beach until we end up at the hotel. It’s built into the cliff face with a view over the sea. A warm breeze swirls around us and rustles the leaves on the olive and lemon trees that dot the terracotta balcony.
The inside of the building is white with blue and terracotta accents everywhere. The bathroom is full of vintage blue and white Positano tile.
I rinse my hands and face in the sink, the summer night heat clinging to every pore. Gray is emptying tiny bottles of spirits into tumblers when I return to the main room. He hands me one. “Have you considered changing schools? You could go back to the good old U of C. Finish your doctorate there.”
“Have you ever been uncertain of what you want to do, Gray?” I take the drink he offers and move to the balcony where I sip the vodka.
He’s always seemed so certain. He loved baseball, but couldn’t play professionally, so he became a sports agent. His choices are far more logical than mine.
I’m fluent in a half dozen languages, thanks to my parents nurturing my ability to hear and pick up a language almost effortlessly. I have a decent understanding of Latin. Yet… I don’t know that the logical choice is the right one anymore. “I thought I wanted to build a career around languages, but I can’t manage to communicate openly with the people in my life.”
“You can practice on me.” He takes a seat in a wrought iron chair, his own drink resting on the top of his thigh. “Tell me what you need to say to them.”
I catch a glimpse of him watching me. Those blue eyes, that lush mouth with its bottom lip meant to be nibbled on. His thumb moves idly over the condensation on the side of his glass. It used to be a lot easier to ignore the things I liked about him when Indy was between us.
Swallowing, I retrain my focus on the sea, and then the hotel pool below. It looks inviting as I roll my glass over my feverish skin. “I can’t.”
“Sure, you can.” He stands in one fluid motion before joining me at the railing. His hand, chilled from holding the glass, wraps around my wrist and draws me around to face him.
“You’re a very good friend,” I say.
“I think I’ve let you down,” he says. “I’m sorry.”
“You don’t need to be.” I put my hand on his chest. I should move it, but I can’t seem to send the electrical signal down my arm to make me pull it away. “I didn’t reach out either.”
“Can we make a deal to do better from here?” He puts his glass down and wraps that hand around my hip.
“God, I hope so.” I giggle. “Because I have been doing so shitty lately.”
“That guy?”
The vodka has loosened my lips, or perhaps it’s because Gray and EJ have always been who I turned to for advice when it wasn’t something I wanted to discuss with my parents. “Was angry while grading my papers. His wife is the head of faculty. There doesn’t seem like much point fighting it.”
He stares at me, and I wait for the sound of disappointment. I close my eyes, prepared for it, but not wanting to see it on his face. I’m not eighteen. There are people my age who are settled into their careers and marriages. I’m old enough and smart enough to know and do better. Or I should be.
“He should be the one out of a job.” Gray’s voice has a viciousness to it.
He’s angry on my behalf, and while that will change nothing—not the choices I’ve made. Not the consequences I’m dealing with—it feels a little less shameful now. “Thank you.”
“Ever think about dating a reasonable guy?” he asks when the lull in conversation starts to stretch out. “Someone who won’t turn out to be a raging asshole.”
“Oh…” My pulse races. He’s too close to the truth. I make bad decisions around men like it’s self-preservation. Or more accurately, for their preservation. They’re never the man that I want. Not really. Bad decisions almost seem like a reasonable consequence to dating when there’s no future in it, but I keep trying because pining for a man who doesn’t see me as anything more than a friend is no future to look forward to. “What? Like you?”
“Well, no… that’s not what I meant.” He looks grim, like the thought of dating is painful. “I think I’ll be an old man before you’ll see me want to start something new.”
“I was joking.” I laugh it off without actually laughing. It’s not funny that he’s hurting. Or that I love him so much I can’t have a real relationship with someone else even though I know, logically, that I don’t deserve to be so unhappy.
Indy moved on and she had his love. I’m so broken I need a factory reset. But then I always do hyperfixate on things I’m into. Languages and Gray, mostly.
“It’s just after… I don’t think I’ll ever…”
“Say no more.” I lay my hand on his jaw. “We don’t have to talk about it. But if you ever do want to talk about it…”
“You’re an angel.” He turns his head so that his lips press against the center of my palm.
I close my eyes and relish the feel of that small token of affection. It’s not even a real kiss, but it gives me butterflies.
He’s drunk, though, or getting there. So am I. I shouldn’t let it mean anything. In fact, I should probably go to bed.
“How about another drink?”