I know for a fact that my grandmother will make the time with Easton miserable, so I’m going to feel pretty guilty if this whole fake romance thing doesn’t work out for her. “I guess you haven’t heard from your ex?”
Her shoulders curve in farther, as if she’s guarding herself. “No. I mean...I wouldn’t have expected to yet. If Melissa gossips about it, she’ll do it today, but I now suspect that contact with me is sort of like getting lice...it might have happened, but you’re not well-served telling anyone about it.”
“If everyone’s this scared of him, your ex is a prick.”
Her face softens. “He isn’t. Truly. This isn’t coming from him, and he’d be horrified if he knew. But we’re discussing a group of people who care more about their research than anything else, and Thomas is their king. Even if he’s agentleking, you don’t fuck with someone who has the power to ruin you.”
“And you really want to marry this guy that badly?” I ask.
She frowns, tiny lines flickering around her eyes as she squints at me in the bright morning light. “I wouldn’t have been dating him for the past two years if I didn’t. Wielding a lot of power doesn’t make him a bad person.”
I release a tight breath. Do I doubt her because she seems unhappy, or do I doubt her because this fucking asshole has already proven he’s not worthy of her?
It doesn’t matter if I doubt her. Easton’s an adult now. And a smarter adult than I could ever dream of being. The days of second-guessing her should be long past.
Even if she seems unhappy.
Even if she’s got circles under her eyes, and no longer swims, and has her jaw locked half the time.
Even then.
10
EASTON
The traffic down to Miami was endless. The traffic from Miami to the Keys is worse. Bumper to bumper, the road ahead nothing but taillights.
We are crawling along at ten miles an hour when Melissa texts.
Melissa
Can I offer some unsolicited advice? Elijah seems like a really, really great guy. But the situation worries me. Just be careful, okay?
My stomach tightens. I knew I’d fucked up. I knew this was going to be an issue at school.
With what?
With him. He’s so in love with you. Don’t let him think there’s more there if there’s not.
I snort. Implyingmore is there when it’s notis Elijah’s specialty, not mine.
When the guy you’ve loved your entire life tells you he’s not interested and wasneverinterested, you will look for the least likely explanations first.
Even as he’s apologizing, telling you that he tends to say shit he shouldn’t in the moment and what happened was a huge mistake—one he’s super sorry about but youknew his reputationgoing in—you will search the universe for any conceivable way that he doesn’t really mean it.
Maybe he’s not telling you the truth. Maybe because he lost his dad at a young age, he’s scared of loving anyone. Maybe he already loves you, inparticular, so much that the loss would destroy him, or he promised his sister he wouldn’t go there, since you’re her best friend.
Or you live in different places, and he’s never going to leave his mom who needs him.
And then you remember that your life is not a Nicholas Sparks novel, and the guy in question is thirty, and smart, and not scared of anything, and that you’re a big girl, so if he wasn’t willing to do a long-distance relationship he’d just say, “Easton, last night was great, but I can’t do a long-distance relationship,” which would be far less painful than hearing him say, “I’m sorry, but I just don’t see you that way.”
At which point you finally remove the rose-colored glasses and look back over the past decades with clearer eyes.
How you made your crush so obvious it could be seen by satellite, and he never responded.
How you’ve been an adult foryearsnow and he never once made a move.
That even though you’d felt something there—the way his eyes would catch yours, the way he’d look at you a moment too long—he seemed to be avoiding you over the past few years, always out of town when you were home or too busy with work to catch up.
