Sergio, not in the mood for Rose ruining his day with a lecture he’s already heard enough that he can recite it to her, ignores her accusation. “Shouldn’t you be chatting up potential sponsors for Allison?”
She presses her finger against Sergio’s cheek and forces him to look at her instead of Jeremy, who’s shuffling his feet and standing with his arms crossed while talking with Chadwick Levinson on the other side of the party. “Don’t change the subject.”
“Fine. So what if I kissed Jeremy? He didn’t push me away. In fact, he kissed me back.”
Rose groans. “This is exactly what I did not want to happen with your arrival this week.”
“What? Two grown men rekindling what they started four years ago?” Sergio asks, annoyed. He lays a tip down on the bar as the bartender delivers his drinks. “Honestly, what goes on between me and Jeremy really isn’t any of your business.”
“Of course, it’s my business,” she says and grabs a glass of champagne. She immediately takes a sip, then eyes Sergio up and down when she brings the flute away from her lips. “He’s my best friend.”
“Some best friend you are.” Sergio scoffs. “Your husband Holden ismybest friend, and I never once stood in the way of the two of you getting together like you’re doing to me and Jeremy.”
And this, believe it or not, is absolutely true. Short of him teasing his best friend about how smitten he was over a certain red-headed figure skater flitting around the Olympic village eight years ago, Sergio let them be. After seeing Holden’s interest, he stopped his own initial thoughts of pursuing her and was thereafter nothing but helpful. They were all nineteen-year-old idiots, and Holden, who’d always been so narrow-eyed focused on his skiing career, had somehow managed to forget girls existed until Rose walked past him. The fact that Holden was suddenly all starry-eyed for someone was a revelation for Sergio. Especially since Holden had spent their entire friendship up to that point making brotherly fun of Sergio, who jumped from girlfriend to boyfriend to girlfriend to girlfriend's brother like he was flipping pages in a magazine.
“Bullshit,” Rose says.
Sergio shifts himself to stand in front of her point-blank. “You really don’t know me at all, do you?”
Rose laughs bitterly. “I know you too well, Sergio.”
“You obviously don’t, if you can’t see that I genuinely like Jeremy.”
“You only like someone for as long as it takes for you to get your dick in their mouth.”
Tired of arguing and having this same exact fight with her every night on the rare days that he does get to kiss Jeremy, and subsequently caught by Henry, Sergio sighs, then takes a sip of his drink.
“It’s not like that with Jeremy,” he says. “I really care about him.”
“I seriously doubt that. But regardless. Can we please get through this week without you breaking my best friend's heart?”
“Why do youalwaysassume I’ll break his heart?”
“Because history repeats itself.” Rose raises an eyebrow at him. It’s an infuriating move that Sergio now officially takes as a personal challenge to prove her wrong. Not that it matters. Until he finds a way out of this loop, she’ll never realize how wrong she is about him.
Taking a sip of his drink, he turns away from her and focuses back on Jeremy. Judging from the history of this evening, Jeremy is currently listening to Chadwick boast about himself and repeat the fallacy that four years ago, he was the better skater, and Jeremy was nothing more than a flash in the pan.
Sergio grabs Jeremy’s drink from the bar in his other hand, then takes his attention back to Rose one last time. “I have no intentions of ever hurting Jeremy again,” he says. “Now, if you’ll excuse me. I would like to take Jeremy his drink and save him from having to continue talking to that insufferable Chadwick Levinson asshole. Andmaybeeven seal the deal on a second kiss from Jeremy when the clock strikes twelve.”
With both drinks in hand, he sets his shoulders back and stands a little taller than he already is and makes his way across the party to Jeremy, arriving right as Holden hops on stage to announce the countdown.
“Alright, everyone,” Holden says into the microphone. “Grab a glass of champagne, the countdown starts in less than a minute.”
“Here you go,” Sergio says, handing Jeremy his drink and inserting himself in the space between Jeremy and Chadwick, effectively blocking Chadwick from being able to talk to Jeremy anymore.
“Thank you,” Jeremy says. He uncrosses his arms, and his shoulders relax.
“Sorry, that took so long. Rose had some words for me.”
Jeremy, smiling and bringing his drink to his lips, says, “I’m sure she did.”
“She thinks I’m bad for you,” he says while Holden starts the countdown from the stage with a “Ten!”
Jeremy leans in close. “She might be right.”
“Nine!”
“Do you really believe that?”
