I sit with Lucy as we watch them in the water together.
“Easy view, huh?” She nudges my arm, smiling out at the gods before us. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen four men so physically fit—playing with their balls out in the ocean. Didn’t know I needed it.” She waggles her brows at me.
“I’m just watching the sunset.” I defend myself, and she giggles.
We fall quiet again as we watch Megan trying to climb onto Scarlet’s shoulders. They stumble, almost making it, but then fall, splashing back into the water with a screech.
“I wasn’t surprised, you know,” Lucy mutters.
I turn my head and catch her frown, her eyes still on the water. “You think that you’re a certain way. That you always leave.”
“Well, I have run out on Mase at every opportunity so far,” I remind her.
“And you always go back. Like how you’d come to mine when your mum was working. You’d have no trouble leaving, getting the space you needed because it was what felt right foryou. But you always went back, willing and hopeful for it to be better when you got home.” She looks at me, her lip turning up on one side. “It’s why I knew you’d go back to him. You shouldn’t feel bad about it. And you shouldn’t let it hold you back. Marrying Mason Lowell would be…” I raise an arched brow at her. “Scary. Hot as hell, but petrifying. I mean, he isn’t your typical husband.” She laughs. “But you have to make shitty mistakes to learn. We both know that. And for the record, I don’t think marriage would be a mistake. No matter what he did, you decided to put it in the past.”
I haven’t told the girls about the studio and why Mason sold it. They know he did and that Erin isn’t who she says she is, but I agreed that no one else should be involved beyond that, and the girls never asked questions once I explained it was all I could say.
I run my fingers through the sand beneath me. “It’s the trust thing. It will come in time I’m sure. Or I hope it will. But right now. it’s not there—not fully.”
“Because he sold the studio?” I look at her. “Because of the things that he kept from you, that you have to keep from me?”
“Exactly that.” I chuckle.
“It will come, Nina. I think he’s a really special guy. It’s obvious he adores you.”
I drop my head back and look up at the sky. Soft pink hues painting it a mesmerising shade as the night draws in. The air is warm, and I feel completely relaxed.
“Twenty-nine tomorrow, Luce.” I grin, feeling her lie down next to me.
“Ugh, don’t. I’m getting old.”
“You are not old! You’re in your prime. Embrace it.”
“Remember when we were young, and twenty-eight-year-olds seemed so mature and put together.”
“Uh-huh.” I nod, reminiscing.
“Well, I don’t feel like that. Put together or mature. In my head, I am twenty-one still. I consider going back to uni on the daily, yet I love my job. I can’t hold down a relationship because what I want isn’t real.” She blows out a harsh breath. “I applied for an internship in New York.”
“What? When?”
“Three months ago, I got it. They gave me four months to respond.”
I sit up in a rush, turning to look down at her. “Luce! That’s huge.”
“I turned it down.”
“What?!”
I see her throat bob as she swallows the lump there.
She regrets it.
“I didn’t think I could do it on my own. I’m twenty-nine tomorrow,” she sniggers. “and I don’t feel independent. I don’t feel like I’m my own person.”
“What makes you think you aren’t independent? You’re one of the most grounded people I know, Luce.”
She shrugs, looking for the right words. “I guess it’s me holding myself back, and I feel like I should be loyal to Jean. I don’t know what she’d do without me.”
