He frowns at me. “It’s too late to cancel the rental anyway, and you can’t possibly think that I’m going to let you stay on your own in Key West.”
I laugh. “We’re not staying on Cannibal Island. I think I’m probably safe.”
He shakes his head. “It just takes one drunk idiot following you around to make it not safe, and in Key West, there are a lot of drunk idiots.”
I groan. “I promise to be careful. I won’t even leave the rental. Go spend time with your grandmother. As you said yourself in various ways, these aren’t opportunities you’ll have forever.”
His face is carved in stone, with no give at all. He’s not even going to consider my request. “I would worry about you if we were in separate places. It’s just not worth it.”
Great. Add that to the long list of things his grandmother is going to blame me for when this is all said and done.
“At least go out to dinner with her or something.”
“Weare going to dinner with her tonight. It’s already set up. And you’re awfully worried about a woman you were ready to let die a couple hours ago.”
I roll down the window and stretch my arm out into the breeze. “By pretending I’m concerned about her welfare now, I’ll have some plausible deniability when I fail to save her life later.”
He grins. “I’m pretty sure that only works if you don’t announce that plan to me in advance.”
Eventually, we reach Key West. As a kid I hungered to be included on these trips with the Cabots, though I never was. Key West, back then, seemed infinitely glamorous—1930 preserved, with Ernest Hemingway sitting on his porch and girls in tea-length dresses riding on trolleys down to a soda shop.
It’s not much like that, but I wouldn’t have been disappointed. I just wanted to be here with them, the Cabots, but of course they never asked.
I made excuses for it when I was younger. But once Judy started avoiding me, once Elijah used me and sent me packing…I saw it all more clearly. As Kelsey’s best friend living a few houses away, I was not expendable. As someone living seventeen hours north, they didn’t need to pretend. My mother was furious when I refused to move with her. “You think the Cabots love you? They don’t. Theyput upwith you. See how interested Judy is onceKelsey’s got her own life. See how interested Kelsey is once she’s out of this fucking town.”
If my mother and I were still speaking, I’d probably admit she was right about some of that.
Elijah pulls up to an adorable little cottage that sits right near the heart of the island, with a white picket fence and a wraparound porch. The Easton of a decade ago would have used this as an opportunity to fantasize about married life with Elijah. Now, however, I simply pretend that I don’t still possess the impulse to do so.
He unlocks the door, carrying in my bag and his own. The foyer opens to a large living area, with sliding glass doors at the far end. Outside, there’s a stone patio and a pool with water so blue that it looks solid, as if you could shape it into a ball and throw it across the courtyard.
This will be two nights in a row he’s spent money he didn’t have to and spent far more than he should have. Once again, I’m wincing at the cost.
I collapse onto the baby-blue linen sofa and kick off my shoes, stifling a yawn. “Are you trying to buy my forgiveness?”
His eyes twinkle. “Your forgiveness forwhat, Easton? You want to go ahead and get it out of the way?”
He’s not really answering the question, I notice.
“I do not,” I tell him primly. “Because then I can’t say something in front of your grandmother.”
His smile fades. He perches on the arm of the sofa and sighs. “I, uh, told her about the Thomas thing by the way.”
Great. I’m sure she just ate that up with a spoon.She probably thinks it’s the wisest thing Thomas has ever done. “And why, exactly, did you need to tell her I’d been dumped?”
He tosses his keys and catches them. “How was I supposed to explain your presence on the trip? ‘I’m worried you might die?’So I told her you’re trying to make Thomas jealous. I doubt it’ll even come up.”
If that’s not a testament to how little he knows his grandmother, I’m not sure what is. She’s going to bring it up daily until this fucking wedding is done.
“I’m definitely not eating with you guys now.”
“I’m not going without you,” he says firmly. As if even here, in this incredibly expensive house in Old Town Key West, my life is at stake. I might attempt to argue, but I’m just too tired. I also know I’d lose—no one is more stubborn about shit than Elijah when he wants to be, though it’s irritatingly always on someone else’s behalf.
I yawn for probably the tenth time since we walked inside. I don’t know what the hell is wrong with me. At school, I run every morning, then work a twelve-hour day, and I’m fine.
“I need a nap first,” I tell him. “Which room is mine?”
His brow furrows, and I half-expect him to argue about this too, but he nods to the left instead. I stagger to the room, exhausted, briefly noting that he’s given me the primary.
