That kind of tie would be trouble for the rest of my life.
So why did the thought of her moving on someday, smiling at some clean-handed boy who had never seen her with red paint on her fingers, burn so damn bad?
I opened my eyes.
Across the pool, Destiny was looking at me.
Her sunglasses hid her eyes.
Mine hid mine.
For a second, neither one of us looked away.
Then Regan stepped onto the terrace and called her name.
Destiny turned.
The tie pulled.
I picked up my beer and took a long drink, cold enough to hurt my throat.
Good.
I needed something to hurt somewhere safer.
By sunset, I had flirted with six college girls, accepted three fake Instagram follows on an account Nate had created in under five minutes, and endured dinner with a table full of sorority girls who thought we were “mysterious older frat guys with trauma energy.”
Nate called it excellent cover.
I called it punishment.
He loved every second of it, naturally. Leaned into the whole thing like he’d been born to wear linen, say “bro” with a straight face, and make girls named Madison, Brielle, and Kenzie laugh into overpriced margaritas. He told them we were staying at a hotel down the strip. He invented a business major, a failed lacrosse career, and one fake heartbreak so convincing I almost believed him.
I mostly sat there with a cold beer, sunglasses on even after the sun started dipping low, and let the girls decide quiet meant complicated.
Women loved complicated.
I knew that. I had used that. I wasn’t proud of it, but I wasn’t in the business of lying to myself either.
The problem was I didn’t care if they thought I was complicated. I didn’t care when one of them touched my arm. I didn’t care when another leaned close enough for her perfume to get in my throat. I didn’t care when Nate shot me a look over his glass that said, See? Easy. Normal. Harmless.
Because every time I laughed at something I didn’t find funny, my mind went back down the beach.
Toward the private villa tucked beyond the public strip.
Toward Destiny.
I couldn’t see her from here. That was the point. The villa sat far enough away from the beach bars and resort lights to keep her hidden, with gates, guards, cameras, and enough landscaping to make the place look like rich people privacy instead of protective custody.
But distance didn’t matter.
I knew exactly where she was.
Earlier, she had watched us leave from the pool terrace, towel wrapped around her waist, sunglasses covering half her face, mouth set in a hard little line. She hadn’t said a word. Didn’t need to.
Destiny pissed off was a weather system.
Regan had stood behind her with her arms crossed, looking pissed on Destiny’s behalf and just relieved enough to irritate me. Like seeing me leave with a bunch of pretty college girls settled something in her chest. Like maybe I was proving I could be the kind of man who moved on before anything dangerous had time to take root.
