“Washn’t mine, but I luuuuuurrve her anywaaaaaaays.” He’s still singing it, but he pauses and sniffs. And then it’s back to the singing. “An’ you smell like potato peels sticking up a garbage disposal.”
Yes.
Hesangthat.
“Thank you. You smell like a distillery. What are you doing here?”
“Live here. Not like you. You don’ live here. You’re press—tess—protest—”
“Trespassing?” I suggest.
“Uh-huh.”
Dylan’s one of the few people in town who haven’t actively been suspicious or tried to get rid of my family.
Him calling me a trespasser now? That hurts.
“Did I step on you?” I ask.
“Don’ care.”
“You will in a few hours.”
He twists and rolls over to fling an arm across my thighs and bury his face in my hip. “Quit rockin’ the boat.”
“We’re on land, Dylan.” And he’s snuggling me, and God help me, I would sit like this for the next seven years, because he’s adorable and as real as Naomi, and I could soak this up forever.
I likereal.
I hate the games.
I hate hiding.
I just want to disappear back to Costa Rica, be able to afford launching our inaugural line of products, and figure out how to expand operations without the benefit of my trust fund, which is honestly terrifying.
I hate the money but don’t know how to live without it.
I hate that I’ll have to trust anyone we’d let invest in our business to not screw us over, and that I’ll spend the rest of my natural life waiting for the other shoe to drop if we do find an investor.
I also hate that I’m letting myself run my fingers through Dylan’s hair. This is what you do for a friend when he’s down and out, right? I’m not coming on to him.
He’s drunk. Of course I’m not coming on to him.
“You wanna talk about it?” I ask.
He’s quiet for so long I think he’s fallen back into a drunken stupor.
But then—“She’s having his baby.”
The singing is gone. The slurring is almost gone.
All that’s left is pain in a sound wave.
Naturally.
Cheating sucks. Even when it’s part of your normal, everyday life—and it very much is back in Manhattan, and also in LA, and anywhere my parents are—it still sucks.
“Oh God, Dylan, I’m so sorry,” I whisper.
