“Okay, okay. If you must know, he works—” she starts, but before she can finish her sentence, a giant splash from the pool blasts both of us.
I gasp and stutter, then whimper as I realize my shrimp skewers are now coated in pool water.
Theo surfaces fifteen feet away, out in the pool.
“Afternoon, ladies,” he calls. “Just reporting for being-babysat duties.”
The old Theo is back.
Acting like he didn’t drop the bombshell of all bombshells on me an hour ago.
And is it a bombshell?
Yeah.
Yeah, it is.
BecauseI liked him too, but I never, ever,everwould’ve said it out loud. I could barely admit it to myself.
He was forbidden. He wasfun. He was dangerous.
AndI craved that.
I knew better. Clearly. I had—havea big future at my family’s company. In high school, that meant my immediate future was defined by getting good grades so I could get into a good college and get a good education that would lay the foundation to one day step into my parents’ shoes and run Kingston Photo Gifts.
There was an element of obligation that I’d continue what they started, but Iwantedto do it.
I still do.
There’s pride in being a part of continuing what my parents built. I love that we make products that bring so much joy to families and friends and people connected in so many other ways.
But there are other expectations to being a Kingston too.
Expectations that I don’t want anymore. But I still haven’t shed them.
Not entirely.
Nor have I tried as much as I’ve been telling myself I want to since I broke up with Christopher.
“You owe Laney a new plate of shrimp,” Sabrina calls to Theo.
“Put it on my tab,” he calls back.
And then he’s gone, swimming like he was born in the ocean instead of in a dry-as-dry-can-be Colorado mountain town.
“He’s still wild and unpredictable,” Sabrina says, continuing like he didn’t interrupt us, “but he takes ownership now, and he pays for his mistakes.”
“Oh my god. Are you trying to make me like him?” I hiss.
“It would be nice if you two could at least be friends.” She shrugs. “Em’s gone out of her way to avoid making plans with either of you that would have both of you in the same place at the same time with her, because she knew he’d be a dick and you’d get all stuffy about it, which you rightfully should, but I figure if you knowwhyhe’s a dick, maybe that’ll help you tolerate him better.”
“I don’t like dicks.”
Theo coughs and sputters at the edge of the pool.
But it’s the way his face goes a deep burgundy before he pushes off and glides through the water to the full opposite side of the pool that has me dropping my head to my knees on my lounge chair. “Tell me he’s not going to walk around the rest of the weekend telling people I’m not into men.”
“I’ll handle that,” Sabrina assures me. “I know where he keeps his dirt.”
