She immediately shook her head, her hair flying across her cheek. “No, we got drunk and made out, got a little hot and heavy.”
“Who called a stop to it?” he asked past the razor blades in his throat. She had every right to sleep with anyone she chose, but…
“He did.”
Had the guy been drunk, blind, and stupid? Why hadn’t he taken what was on offer?
“Then what happened?” he prodded.
“We went back to New York, and we started working on a piece together. It was my choreo; he didn’t have any creative input. But he did help me refine it. It wasn’t part of a paying gig, simply my way of expressing my feelings for him.”
She sighed, looked down at her hands, and tried to smile. “Anyway, he went to LA, we spoke every day, a few times a day, as we always did. We didn’t speak about what happened, but I kept … hoping. Imagining. Projecting what would happen when he returned. I was trying to work out how we could spend more time together, whether I should move in with him, or he with me. What we’d name our first kid.”
“While I was off in fantasy land, thinking we were no longerjustfriends, he was in LA, falling for a West Coast dancer.” She twisted the fabric of her cotton cover-up between her fingers.
“All our friends knew about her, but no one told me. He didn’t tell me either, not on any of our phone calls.”
Dane rubbed his jaw, wincing at the pain in her voice. But she wasn’t done yet. “I went to pick him up from the airport, so damn excited to see him. And that’s when I saw them—him with this blonde. Idiot that I was, I ran to him, and he greeted me as he always did, with a huge hug lifting me off my feet. When he put me down, he wrapped his arm around me and introduced her as his girlfriend, me as his best friend. My world … it just dropped out from under me.” She fell silent, frowning.
“There’s more?” He knew it like he knew his own name.
“Mmm. The next time we were alone, I told him how I felt, but he said he wasn’t into me, and that he chose to be with Jess.” She sighed, the sound thick with old hurt. “And while he was in LA, he taught her my dance—my love letter to him—and someone filmed them.” Her shoulders lifted in a small, defeated shrug. “It was posted online, it blew up, went viral, and suddenly the internet was calling it things like ‘love expressed through movement,’ and ‘how to say I love you without a single word.’”
Shit.Another viral video? The chances of having that happen once were miniscule, but twice? That seemed like a ton of bad luck.
“I felt like an idiot, so, so foolish.” Her voice cracked. “And betrayed.”
Seeing her pale face, he covered her hand with his, squeezing gently. As he knew, it was one thing to be rejected, but when rejection was served with a side dish of humiliation, it scorched. “What happened next?” he quietly asked.
“I acted as if nothing happened, but I started ducking his calls. I was asked to go to Seoul to choreograph a rising K-pop star’s music video. It wasn’t a high-profile job, but it was good money, and it meant I would be out of the country for a while. With him being busy with his own career and Jess, he didn’t communicate the way he used to, neither did I. Our friendship slowly suffocated, and I was okay with it dying, thought that was how I needed it to be.”
“But he came back.”
She nodded. “He wants to give it a try. I’m not sure that’s what I want.” She looked out to where the lake rolled into deep, dark forests. “The words you said the other night resonated. If I want him back, if he’s the one, then why aren’t I over-the-moon happy?”
Thank baby Jesus.
“Have you told him?” he asked, his voice raspy.
Her eyes narrowed. “Still thinking, Trafford. I owe him that much.”
Dane swallowed, not wanting to ask the question but knowing he had to. For his own sanity. “Are you still in love with him?”
“What’s love? I’m not sure I know.” She shook her head. “But no, I don’t think I ever was, not properly, not the way I should be, I guess. He just made me feel safe, like he was the one person I could count on, who I trusted not to leave me behind.” She waved her hand, as if trying to wipe the pain away.
Until he did, by falling in love with someone else, Dane thought, folding his arms, his eyes darting between her face and the big screen, where the opening credits of the film flickered.
Music blasted from the massive speakers and rolled across the water, and everyone in front of them turned to face the bank. Dane spotted Hayes and Hadley in a boat together; Hayes refused to let Hadley watch the movie on her own or with friends—he didn’t want to have to deal with her nightmares later—and Dane thought that was a good call. Not far from them, Colt was on a raft with some friends, and he glanced over and gave him a friendly wave. Dane lifted a hand in greeting. Luna, the town’s head witch—Ann? Andy?—and Madame Calliope each sat in a chair-like inflatable, in a perfect row in the middle of the lake, and the three queens passed a bottle of red wine back and forth. It was small-town life, and judging by the greetings he and Wren got, both as a couple and individually, it seemed he’d somehow become part of this community. Not what he’d planned when he first set foot in this town.
Dane cleared his throat and turned to Wren. “For what it’s worth, when you tell him that you’ll only ever be friends, don’t do it over a text message or on a call. Face him, look him in the eye, show him that you are strong enough and brave enough to wish him well.”
He’d done that with Clare, and it had healed some of his wounds.
“Once you do that, it won’t feel as big, as constricting, so life-defining.”
“I still haven’t decided, I still need to think about it some more,” she reiterated, her spine straight. He hid his smile, thanking God, thanking every saint in every damn religion, that she wasn’t running back to Alex with open arms and a forgiving heart.
But the wordsthink about it some moresat in his chest like a volcano on the edge of erupting. Becausethinking about itimplied possibility; thinking suggested that she still had one foot in his world and the other in the past. Thinking suggested that she could change her mind.
