The breakup.
And if we break the contract, well…
Who decided a contract was a good idea anyway?
The spa smells fresh, like eucalyptus and mint. Very spa-ish. Soft music drifts overhead, playing some sort of pan-flute monstrosity that’s been drilling into my brain since I stepped into the room. Candles flicker in glass holders, casting a dim, eerie glow from under the massage tables.
“Breathe,” Svetlana commands.
I breathe. Or at least, I try to.
I try to focus on the sensation of her hands working out the knots in my shoulders. On the warmth of the heated table against my stomach. The rich smell of oils. Anything other than the roiling anxiety bubbling up through my chest.
This is supposed to be relaxing.
Why isn’t it relaxing?
Oh, I don’t know, maybe because every time I close my eyes, I see Brody. Standing in the morning light, looking rumpled and soft and like he didn’t sleep well. Speaking French to waiters. Holding my hand under the table. Looking at me in the woodslike he was about to say something important before Maya interrupted.
You see the dragon underneath the scales everyone else wants.
Who says things like that?
Brody Kane, apparently.
The man I thought was all performance and charm and carefully constructed image. The man who turned out to be vulnerable and scared and kind and real underneath all of it.
The man I’m absolutely, completely in love with.
“You are tensing again,” Svetlana says disapprovingly. “What is wrong?”
“Nothing. Everything. I don’t know.”
“Man problems?”
“How did you?—”
“Is always man problems.” She digs her thumbs into a particularly stubborn knot near my shoulder blade, making me wince. “You love him?”
“Yes,” I admit. “I think I do.”
“Then tell him.”
“It’s complicated.”
“Is always complicated.” She moves to my other shoulder, giving me a brief reprieve before starting in again. “But life is short. You tell him. He loves you too, probably. Men are stupid but not blind.”
I want to laugh. Or cry. Or both.
When she finally finishes—patting my shoulder in what I think is meant to be an encouraging way but feels more like a warning—I’m ushered into another room for the facial. This one smells like cucumber and roses, the air humid from the facial steamers. Maya’s already there, lying on a table with her face covered in what looks like green mud, cucumber slices over her eyes.
Maya lifts one of the slices and peeks out as I settle onto my own table beside her. An aesthetician, who introduces herself as Amber, starts cleansing my face, applying some kind of exfoliating scrub with her fingers. I close my eyes, trying very hard to focus on relaxing, keeping my mind from wandering back to?—
“So,” Maya says from her table, “I didn’t tell Mom, but you and Brody…in the same room?”
“He slept on the couch, so don’t go crazy.”
“Well, for the record, I’m happy for you, Chloe. You deserve someone who chooses you. Who makes you feel like you’re the most important person in the room.” She’s quiet for a moment. “That’s how Derek makes me feel. And I think Brody does that for you.”
