16 Roxie
Roxie
The crooning voice of Stevie Nicks floated from the record player, filling the room as I woke.
The boathouse was bathed in the soft golden light of morning. I stayed perfectly still. A deep, all-encompassing ache settled into my limbs from the complete unraveling I had the night before.
And then I reached for him.
But my hand landed on a cool blanket and emptiness.
I blinked, then with a stretch, slowly sat up.
Rumpled couch cushions and a lingering beer bottle were all that remained on the coffee table.
The space where he had been was now empty.
The small bathroom was quiet, and there was no sound of his voice coming from outside the boathouse door.
No shift of weight from the chair across the room.
Just … nothing.
I rose swiftly. The blanket from the couch was still warm from our bodies as it slid down my lap. My heart hammered against my ribs in a frantic drumbeat I hadn’t felt in ages. It was a feeling I hadn’t experienced since the day I sat in front of my grandfather, and my life was destroyed.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” I whispered to the empty room.
When the déjà vu hit, it was like I was dreaming.
The sinking feeling in my gut grew heavier as I buried my fists into my eyes, the sting of unshed tears burning behind my eyelids.
I hadn’t cried over a guy since I was seventeen.
Now I bit my lip, doing my best to prevent the tears from escaping.
Sebastian Whittaker wasn’t worth a second more of my mourning.
“You are so fucking stupid, Roxie,” I huffed under my breath as I pulled on my clothes and stormed across the room to rip the needle off the vinyl.
That asshole got what he wanted from me last night, slipped out in the early morning hours without disturbing me, but thought it would be funny to restart my favorite album of all time.
I looked around the space with a growing desperation, as if some hidden clue as to why he’d snuck out might present itself.
A piece of paper with a message written on it.
A sign, perhaps, to prove that my decision last night wasn’t just a foolish mistake.
My eyes scanned the area, but I didn’t find a reason why Sebastian ditched me with no explanation.
He couldn’t have been gone long, judging by the fact that the record was still playing.
What kind of sick joke was that, when he couldn’t even wake me to tell me he was leaving.
I sank back against the arm of the couch, staring at the ceiling beams like they held the answers to what happened.
God, I am such an idiot.
I was an idiot the moment I replied to Sebastian’s first email. I should have deleted it immediately. I knew he was bad news when I saw him at McGuire’s that night. Hell, he was on Page Six more times than I could count for his escapades—drugs, partying, and lots of women.
All that talk about second chances. All that fake honesty in his voice. All those looks that made me think we were on the same page for once in our lives.
I’d been made a fool.
I swallowed the tight knot rising in my throat and reached for my phone.
The screen was full of unread messages, mostly from Hallie asking me where I was.
I flipped over to my email and searched for the thread with Sebastian.
Without a second thought, I swiped left, deleting it entirely. Then I searched for his contact.
Blocked.
There. Done.
Clean break. Again.
I wouldn’t let him have another opportunity to slip back into my life.
The fact that my chest was tight and my stomach twisted into a miserable knot as I headed back toward the main house was my problem. My punishment for being stupid enough to believe that people like Sebastian Whittaker changed.
Because they didn’t.
Not really.
They just morphed into a version of themselves that earned your trust long enough to get what they wanted before they left you. This time, I had no intention of sticking around to give him yet another chance to prove me wrong.
“You’ve been awfully quiet since we got home,” Hallie noted as she wandered back into our living room with two plates of fresh pasta she’d made us for dinner.
I had been staring at the rug for ten minutes, my glass of wine remaining in my hand, but I didn’t look up.
Shrugging, I pulled my legs up onto the couch. “Just tired.”
Hallie snorted. “Bullshit.”
I finally glanced up. She was studying me intently.
“You and Sebastian both ghosted me and James this morning for breakfast. Sebastian didn’t come back to the house at all, and you didn’t until almost noon.
You didn’t say anything during lunch or the car ride back.
And you barely took any photos like you said you were going to.
So, no, Rox. I don’t believe that you’re ‘just tired’. ”
The smell of garlic and butter wafted toward me, but I still had no appetite. Ever since I woke up to find the boathouse was deserted, my stomach had been churning.
“Something happened with Sebastian this weekend,” Hallie said, softer now as she set the two plates down on our coffee table and took the seat beside me. “Didn’t it?”
I finally looked at her. Really looked at her and let her see everything I’d been keeping in, which I knew was now written all over my face.
My best friend could read me better than anyone.
But she had no idea that this weekend hadn’t been just awkward banter and the occasional biting exchange between me and James’s best friend.
Or even between two people that once had a one-night stand—which was the excuse I’d given her when she asked me how I really knew Sebastian over the weekend.
Rather, it was a slow, quiet resurrection of all the things I had desperately tried to suppress.
“I might not have told you the complete truth earlier this weekend,” I started, “about me and Sebastian.”
Hallie raised an eyebrow. There was very little that we kept from each other—which is a ridiculous thing to say when you take into account that I’ve excluded my entire upbringing from what I’ve told her about my life, and rewritten it to suit the person I wanted to become.
But this weekend had drained everything out of me.
The woman that I’d built myself into, brick by city-girl-life brick, was slowly crumbling, and the only thing I could think that would keep me from falling apart entirely was to finally tell Hallie the truth.
“You know how you’ve never met my family outside of Winn?” I asked.
Confusion clouded Hallie’s face at the sudden change in conversation. I couldn’t blame her.
“Yeah,” Hallie replied slowly. “You said that they are workaholics or something, right? That you didn’t really agree with their beliefs, so you cut them out?”
“It’s a little different than that.”
The fact that Hallie sat and listened without interrupting spoke volumes about how strong our friendship was.
“I grew up in Connecticut,” I said. “In a wealthy family that made their money practicing law. You know the type—debutante balls, parties with people whose names are on the Forbes list, and far more expectations than the average family.”
“So you’re telling me you were presented to society in a big white fluffy ball gown?” Hallie asked me after a moment passed between us.
I huffed out a small laugh and shook my head. “Of course you’d catch on to that small detail.”
“So what’s the big deal?” Hallie asked. “Your family has money, and you never mentioned it before. You’re a real-life Rory Gilmore. So what? I just don’t get why you scrounge and save so much, and chose to live here with me, when I’m guessing you could afford somewhere much nicer.”
“Actually, that’s another part of my story I wanted to tell you about, and something I should have mentioned long before. But the truth is, yes, my family has money, but I no longer do.”
“What do you mean, no longer?”
I took a long slow breath in. “I was disinherited.”
Hallie’s mouth dropped open as I watched her take in all of this new information. “Why?”
“Sebastian Whittaker,” I told her simply as I swirled the wine around in its glass.
“Okay, now I’m really confused. What the fuck does Seb have to do with this?” Hallie exclaimed. “And why have you never told me any of this before?”
“Because when my family forced me to start over, I took that seriously,” I told her. “I didn’t want to associate myself with them if they didn’t want to associate themselves with me.”
“But don’t you still go home?” Hallie asked. “I thought you still had family lunches most weeks.”
“I do. Winn convinced me to come back a few years ago. Well, him and my grandmother,” I told her. “I think they wanted someone else there to take up my grandfather’s attention, rather than sit through a lunch with his ire directed at them.”
“Okay, that makes sense I guess. But I still don’t understand the connection to Seb. Can you please explain, before my head explodes?” Hallie pressed. She was being sympathetic and patient, of course she was. But I knew she was also eating this up—she was still a gossip columnist, after all.
“He was the reason I was disinherited.” I turned away from Hallie so I wouldn’t have to see her reaction. I wasn’t sure I wanted to see the moment she realized just how deep my connection with Sebastian went, and how recently I’d lied to her.
“You two grew up together?” she asked.
I nodded. “We did. We were best friends and nearly inseparable.”
Hallie hesitated before asking her next question. “Did you two ever … date?”
“Not officially. But there was a time when I thought I could’ve loved him. I know I was a teenager, but I don’t think I’ve ever felt like that since, or if I ever will again.”
Hallie sucked in a breath next to me. I dared to look over at her, and there was no mistaking the concern in her eyes.
She might feel betrayed by how much of the truth I’d omitted about my past, but I could tell she understood.
That she didn’t hold it against me. God, how did I get so lucky to have a best friend like her?