1
KEANE
I fucked my best friend.
That was the only logical explanation. But still, it was not logical.
I stared at my reflection in the mirror, taking in the scruff I’d neglected and the hair that looked wild, like it’d been pulled in a dozen directions. In the mirror, I could clearly see the very female, very naked body in my bed.
I didn’t remember it actually happening, though. Which meant it didn’t, right?
You fucking liar. You remember.
Technically, it was still coming back to me in pieces. I didn’t remember the actual moment of naked contact between us.
Jesus, I was having conversations with myself. What the fuck happened last night?
Dragging a hand down my face, I made my way to the toilet.
It was entirely plausible that we’d just happened to fall asleep naked together. It was entirely possible that I lost my clothes en route to the bed, not paying any mind to my company. People slept naked all the time. It didn’t mean they had sex.
I half-heartedly chuckled at that. Sure, I told myself, you always sleep naked next to women, in a totally platonic way.
There was a first time for everything, though.
Yeah, like having sex with your best friend.
Waving that thought away like it was merely an annoying fly, I nodded to myself, convinced that this was all just a big misunderstanding. It had to be.
But after flushing, my eyes caught on the circle of shame in the trash can. I didn’t need to pick it up to examine it, because I knew precisely what that little piece of latex protection meant. It certainly looked used. And the gold foil wrapper that lay outside the toilet wasn’t exactly absolving my guilt.
I glared down at my dick, as if it’d acted alone in whatever had transpired the night before. Maybe the shots had helped too.
A small, feminine-sounding noise forced me still. That sound. It sent a quiver through me, a memory bursting through like a starburst.
Oh, I remembered what happened, all right.
Fuck.
Shuffling across the tile, I glanced back at the bed. The mass of dark hair hadn’t moved, and neither had the one tanned limb that poked out from the end of the sheets. I washed my hands quickly, trying to work out how this had happened. I mean, I knew the step-by-step, the mechanics. But I couldn’t remember where we’d crossed the line. Or who had first. And those details mattered.
“Fuck, fuck, fuckity mother fuck,” I murmured, once again dragging my hand over my face as if this was all some kind of fucked up mirage that I could will away.
I remembered the shots she’d ordered. Then the sea breezes. Had I moved onto whiskey after? I could still feel a slight burn in the back of my throat and the fog in my head it had left me with. Squeezing my eyes tight, I tried to summon every memory of the night before.
Fucking blank.
I fucked my best friend. And now I would have to deal with the consequences.
2
The Day Before
NAVY
“Are you sure you’ll be okay?” my Aunt Isabel asked after she dropped her suitcases off with baggage agents.
Giving a meaningful look at the bags, I said, “I think it’s a little late for that, don’t you? The bags are well on their way to Greece, with or without you.”
My aunt’s dark eyes widened dramatically, as if the gravity of what she was doing was finally setting in. “Oh, would they, really? Go without me?”
I wasn’t positive, but I wasn’t going to tell her that. “Definitely.” I put an arm around her, guiding her toward the security area. She was small like her sister, my mother, and I had to bend to speak directly into her one good ear. “You deserve this, Auntie. You know you do.”
“Delilah knows she has to be there on the weekend, right?”
“Let me handle it,” I assured her, as I had a dozen times already. “I’ve got Delilah and Roger figured out.”
“If Delilah calls you to offer you a coffee on her way in—”
“Tell her no,” I finished. “I know. She’ll drive across town to the Starbucks where Brad works.” Delilah, one of my aunt’s employees, was competent at her job—when she showed up on time. And I knew her “Can I pick you up a coffee?” schtick like the back of my hand. She liked to drive to her ex’s coffee shop—even though there was a coffee shop right next door—and flirt with Brad at the window until the cars behind her honked impatiently. Which made her at least thirty minutes late for her shift. “Sorry, it was so busy there!” is what she always said.
I knew, because she’d done it multiple times. And had admitted to it when my best friend Keane called her out on it once—since he’d been one of the impatient drivers stuck behind her.
“I just feel bad, leaving you in charge of everything.”
“And I feel bad that you feel bad. You’re supposed to be enjoying your trip and you’re already stressed before it’s begun.” We stopped outside the roped off areas for security. “Besides, when have you ever known me to screw up something with the store?”
She angled her head so that she looked up at me, reaching a hand to brush one of my curls away from my face. “Yes, my baby, my responsible one. If it were Violet, or the twins—”
“You wouldn’t go if it were them.” I loved my sisters, all three of them, but they weren’t known for being the most… responsible young adults. Thinking of my sisters made guilt wash over me, though, because I hadn’t told her about the message Violet had left for me at work, providing a number I didn’t recognize and an explicit request to call that number. That meant something was wrong. Violet was just as flighty as our mother so if she was the first to toss out a line, I knew it wouldn’t be good. But the last thing my aunt needed before her well-deserved trip was another thing to worry about. “I got this,” I told her with a reassuring shoulder squeeze. I held up my pinky. “Pinky promise.”
Aunt Isabel smiled at me, the only woman who had never broken a promise to me. She hooked our pinkies and said, “I believe you. I trust you.”
“Good. Now, you need to get going. You’re going to go to Greece and sip tropical drinks and feast upon all the man candy your eyes can take. And three weeks from now, you’ll be waltzing right back through those doors with your yummy boy toy on your arm.”
She humored me with a laugh and a playful swat. “Boy toy. How foolish.”
I knew it was. My aunt was just like me, which is how I knew just how to distract her. “Come on; there’s a restaurant just past security that serves the best gin and tonics you’ve ever had in your life. You don’t want to waste your time reminding me of all the things I already know how to do, do you?”
She placed a warm hand on my cheek, her eyes taking on more lightness than they had in the last four months leading up to this trip. “What would I do without you?”
Blowing out a breath, I said, “Not get drunk before flights. Now, go.” I picked up her carryon and handed it to her. “I’ve got this, Auntie. I promise you.”
“I know.” The hand slipped from my cheek. “I do know. I’m very lucky to have my little girl.” I was the oldest of four, but she always called me her little girl.