Stevie’s throat went tight. Too tight, but she managed a raspy, “No.”
“And I miss you. I do.”
Tears welled into Stevie’s eyes. “Fuck, Adri.”
“I know.”
“You’re with Van,” Stevie said again.
“And you’re with Iris.”
Stevie swallowed. “I am.”
Adri leaned closer, rested her chin on Stevie’s shoulder. She was so close. So... familiar.
“See?” Adri said softly. “A lot of different things can be true at once.”
Stevie leaned her head against Adri’s—so easy, sonormal, even as her mind whirled like the ocean wind.
“I worry about you,” Adri said after a while. “I don’t want you to get hurt. And Iris seems like a lot.”
“So... what? You want me to break up with her?” Stevie asked. “Areyoubreaking up with Van?”
Adri said nothing. Stevie wasn’t even sure what she wanted that answer to be—she loved Vanessa. And Stevie didn’t want to get back with Adri, but god, she had to admit the thought was intoxicating. Sinking back into something she knew, something she understood, even if it was somewhat lackluster as far as great love stories went.
But maybe Iris was right.
Maybe those kinds of stories were simply that—stories. Myths humanity wove to thread hope through the meaningless chaos of life.
Still, that hope of a great love was there, fanned into an even stronger flame since she and Adri separated, and Stevie didn’t think she could ignore it now.
And she didn’t think Adri wanted to ignore it either.
Stevie pulled back to look at her ex. “You’re not breaking up with her.”
It wasn’t a question.
Adri’s teeth closed over her lower lip, and she shook her head. “I love Van. I do. But I love you too.”
Clarity glimmered on the edge of Stevie’s thoughts, a glimmer oflight in the middle of a storm. Adri’s attitude with Iris. The way she was all over Vanessa at the pool. This conversation right here, which felt like tentacles reaching out to lock Stevie back into place, back into Adri.
Tears spilled over and raced down Stevie’s cheeks, but she forced herself to stand up. She knew she needed to say more. Needed to tell Adri to stop, to let her go, but she couldn’t get the words together in her head. They jumbled together, a mishmash of things she knew were true and things that terrified her, that illusive clarity still hovering out of reach. But she knew she couldn’t stay here, and those words were, at least, easier to say.
“I need to go.”
“Stevie—”
But Stevie kept walking, and the wind and waves swallowed up whatever Adri was going to say to stop her.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
IRIS WATCHED STEVIElean her head against Adri’s.
She hadn’t meant to see. She’d come up to the room to grab a hair tie so she could go out on the beach to find Stevie. As she secured her still-damp hair into a low ponytail, she’d stepped out onto the balcony to look for her fake girlfriend, glancing left and right so she knew which way to head.
And there she was, sitting in the sand and staring at the waves, a tiny shape a few hundred yards down the beach. But just as Iris was about to turn away to head downstairs and outside, she’d seen Adri.
She’d seen Adri sit down next to Stevie.
