Chapter 20
sofía
I’ve been hit by a bus named vodka cranberries.
Sunlight filters through the blinds, and last night’s events return in flashes while my head pounds. The bar. Oliver and Amy’s raunchy make-out session. Dancing and drinks. Pizza. Kissing Jett.
I fly upward in bed, clutching the sheets.
I kissed my boss.
Oh, shit. I kissed him. And then I slammed the door in his face. This is bad. Downright awful. “Getting fired from the job I’m enjoying” type of bad.
Oh, Sofía, you fucked up this time.
Panic clutches my chest, and I dig through my purse for my phone. 6:07 a.m. The screen shows a handful of emails, a few social media notifications, a missed FaceTime from Luisa, and one text message.
Jett: We should talk.
Nope. No. I hop out of bed and pace the room. We don’t need to talk about it. Not about the kiss or the emotions or how, when I think about the kiss, my stomach flurries at the idea of doing it again.
Those are not things we need to address.
I can send a formal written apology via email, and then I’ll put myself on a plane home. There’s no way I can face him.
A knock rattles through the room, and I pause, going stock-still. If I’m quiet, they’ll go away. We don’t need to be at the marina until seven forty-five, which means I have an hour and a half to fix this.
Another, louder knock sounds, followed by the last voice I expected. “Sofía, can we talk?”
I rip the door open to find Oliver, his hair disheveled and his glasses off-center. His gaze drops to my pajamas, and he scratches the nape of his neck.
“I-I can come back later.”
Oh, what the hell. We can panic together. I let him into the room, and he sits on the untouched bed closest to the door.
“What do you want?”
He needs to get whatever’s bothering him about his relationship with Amy off his chest so I can fix it and go back to trying to solve my massive problem created by drunk Sofía, who let her sober thoughts get away from her.
“I fucked up.” At the obvious look on my face, he adds, “I shouldn’t have started something again, and now everything is messy. I don’t know how to make it right.”
Huh. Would you look at that, we both regret our choices last night.
I anticipated his regret; I did not expect my own.
“Why don’t you ask Mateo for advice?” I ask him, rifling through my bag like I might find a time machine at the bottom beside the snacks.
“And risk wronging Charlie in the morning? I’d rather not.”
Fair enough. The only person safe from her wrath before eight a.m. is Mateo, and even then, she glares at him if he blinks too loudly.
“You could fall off the face of the planet and resurface when the dust settles,” I offer.
Yes, that’s what I’ll do. Go into hibernation until I can stomp out my rogue emotions connected to Jett. We can call off our little PR relationship, and I’ll commune with nature until I can figure out what provoked me to kiss him.
“I don’t want this trip to be weird,” Oliver says. “Last night was a mistake.”
“Too late for that. You kiss your boss, and shit gets weird.”
“I—what? No.” He pauses when he clocks the abject horror on my face. I did not mean to say that out loud. “Did you kiss your boss? Did you…did you kiss Jett?”
“What? No,” I shout in a shrill voice. “Why would you accuse me of that?”
“You said it, not me.” A smile pulls at his lips. “So that’s why he was in such a good mood this morning.”
“Jett was in a good mood? He’s not angry?”
My heart leaps. Oliver quirks a brow. “He was heading to a coffee shop when I was on my way here. Big smile. Goofy look on his face. Almost like he was kissed by a girl he likes.”
“He doesn’t like me,” I say, shaking my head as if that will make my brain discard the words instead of latching on to them.
Oliver laughs. A full, deep belly laugh right in my face. The apples of his cheeks darken to a bright red, and he falls back onto the bed, removing his glasses to swipe away tears. His response grates on my nerves, and I kick his shin. It’s too early in the morning for this.
“He was talking about how he needed to get an iced matcha latte,” he continues, and my heart pounds. Thud. Thud. Thud. “I’ve never seen him eat anything green, let alone drink it.”
A knowing look crosses his face like he’s caught me with my hand in the cookie jar. “I thought you came here for advice, not to interrogate me.”
“Just making some observations.”
“Observe your own actions.”
His smile falters a bit, and guilt bites me.
“I don’t know what to tell you about Amy. You need to figure out what you want, Oliver. How long are you going to keep leading her on? We all know you told her it would never be anything more than this. And we both know she wants more.”
“I don’t know what to do.” He sighs, running a hand through his hair.
“Do you love her?” I ask him, grateful for the small reprieve from my own issues.
He lowers his head, but he doesn’t answer. I don’t think he needs to, not really. He wouldn’t be so torn if he didn’t love her. “We can’t be together.”
“That’s not what I asked, but even so, both things can be true. You can love Amy and think you can’t be together. One truth doesn’t negate the other.”
“I don’t want to hurt her.”
“Do you want my real opinion? Or do you want me to blow smoke up your ass?”
For the first time ever, I no longer want to help solve someone else’s problem. I want to focus on mine. He’s a grown adult; he can fix his own shit.
“Uh…truth?”
“If you’re uttering the words ‘I don’t want to hurt her,’ it’s usually followed by hurting her, whether you mean to or not.
So if you’re convinced you can’t be together, then save her any more heartbreak and stop.
Whatever you two are doing, cut it out. Neither of you are getting out unscathed, but if it happens now, maybe it will hurt less. ”
How many times did I contemplate leaving Tommy but stayed anyway? Oliver is not Tommy, but maybe it would have hurt less if I had left earlier. Maybe I wouldn’t be where I am, still trying to find a new mold of myself years later.
He hums, but then says, “Your phone keeps vibrating.”
Oliver flops back onto the bed, mumbling to himself and rubbing the bridge of his nose, and I read the messages I’ve received from Jett. Perhaps I am not the only one panicking.
Jett: Hi, Sofía.
I hope you slept well.
We have plans to get on the liveaboard today.
I messaged you earlier.
Are you awake? Can we talk?
That sounded bad. Not a bad talk.
I got you an iced matcha latte.
Could you meet me in the lobby where they serve breakfast?
Have you taken a Dramamine? In case you get seasick again.
I’ll be at a table waiting.
Oliver reads them all over my shoulder.
“Better go get that latte before the ice melts.” He reaches the door and pauses. “Amy will…she will always have my heart, but sometimes that’s not enough.”
The door slams behind him, and I scramble to pack my things, annihilate my hangover and eye bags, and get down to the lobby. Nerves flutter in my belly as the elevator lowers to the first floor, and by the time I’m in the lobby, I’m queasy with anxiety.
Jett sits at a corner table with two drinks and a nervous look I can only imagine mirrors mine. His head lifts, and the smile that appears strikes me dead center in the chest, and I falter a step before I reach the table.
“Hi,” he says, bashful. He slides the to-go cup in my direction. “I got this for you. I-I was hoping we could talk—”
“I am so sorry,” I start, barreling over him in hopes I can salvage my job and our friendship.
“I didn’t mean to cross boundaries, and the last thing I want is to make you uncomfortable.
I understand if you need me to step back from my position.
” Tears pool, and I fight hard to keep them at bay, focusing on the condensation collecting on the side of the plastic cup.
“But most of all, I’m sorry if I ruined our friendship. ”
“Who says anything is ruined?” Jett leans over the table and pokes my forehead. “You might be overthinking up here.”
“Maybe a little,” I whisper, mustering the courage to look at him.
“Me, too,” he admits, pink rising on his cheeks. “It’s embarrassing, but I haven’t…”
“Kissed your employee?” I supply, trying to add some humor to this horrifying situation.
“Well, no.” He scrubs at the back of his neck. “But I was going to say I haven’t felt so conflicted about something in a long time…”
Between the hangover, the fear of losing my job, and now Jett’s confession, my brain has lost the capacity to accept and process information. My brain is broken. That’s the only logical explanation for why the first words out of my mouth are “You hate me?”
As if I couldn’t fuck things up more, I somehow managed to make him hate me. Way to go, Sofía.
“No?”
“What are you saying, then? Am I fired? Do you hate me? Have I ruined our friendship?”
Each question adds to my downward spiral. I’m panicking, and he’s staring at me like I’m a goddamn fish out of water while nervously picking at his label.
Speak, man! Put me out of my misery.
“I’m not going to fire you.”
“You should. This is harassment. You have every right.”
Why am I campaigning for my firing? I should shut up.
“I am not going to fire you, Sofía.” His tone leaves no room for argument. “I need you to stop freaking out.”
“Oh my god, I kissed you, and you didn’t even like it.”
I recognize my descent into madness, but there’s no stopping it now. There’s no list or task I can complete that’s going to make any of this better. And he’s too kind to fire me. I have to quit.
“Who says I didn’t like it?”
“What?”
He leans over the table, his face inches from mine. “Who said I didn’t like the kiss?”
“You liked it?” My tongue darts out to wet my lips.
Jett nods. “A lot, to be honest. I want to do it again.”
His confession rips the air from my lungs. “That would be—”
“Unprofessional,” he finishes. “I think that’s overrated. And if you’re done freaking out, I have a proposition.”
“Uh?”
“For the rest of the trip, let’s see what happens. I want to kiss you again, and I don’t want to live with the regret of not doing it.”
He’s lost his goddamn mind.