Jamie was getting married.
I took a deep, cleansing breath, closing my eyes for a moment before blinking them open again.
It hurt. That was the first thing I realized — the first thing I admitted. Knowing Jamie was marrying another woman hurt. It was a regretful sort of pain, a twisting knot of what if mixed with the notion that it didn’t matter. It wasn’t just that he was marrying another woman, it was that he loved her. I’d never loved another man in my life, not even Ethan. It was only Jamie.
So it hurt.
I was going to miss him. That was the second thought that had sunk in. I knew his fiancé had put up with me this past year and a half, but I also could tell by the tone of her voice that she wasn’t my biggest fan. Once they were married, I knew she’d pressure him more and more to distance himself from me. Hell, she was more understanding than I think I would be in her position. I wanted to hate her for being suspicious of me, but the truth was she should have been — and I wouldn’t blame her if she didn’t want Jamie being as close with me as he was.
The last thing that sank in was the most surprising, and I sat up a little straighter in the tub as it hit me.
I was happy for him.
It hurt, I was going to miss him, but he was happy — really, really happy — and that made me happy, too. I had always been selfish when it came to Jamie. I wanted him even when I couldn’t have him, when I could have him but wasn’t ready to. But now, because I still loved him, I was going to put his happiness before mine. I was going to deal with the pain, if only for just that weekend, because he needed me to.
He was my best friend.
I wasn’t sure if that would ever change. I was scared it would, I felt that gnawing possibility deep in my core.
Without even thinking, I reached for my phone, toweling off my hands before finding Jamie’s name and tapping out a message.
— I’m scared, Jamie… —
I stared at the screen with the blinking curser, waiting for me to finish the text. My chest felt thick, my breath hard to find, and before I did something stupid, I hit the backspace until the screen was blank again and dropped my phone back to the floor.
“It’ll be okay,” I whispered to myself, closing my eyes and resting my head against the back of the tub.
That night, I didn’t sleep. I tossed and turned, mind racing with strange, fleeting dreams of Jamie and me. Finally, around four in the morning, I gave up trying to rest and turned on The Piano Guys, letting myself drown in everything Jamie. I let the memories wash in, forgot to breathe for a while, and reveled in the crushing weight of it all.
Thinking back on it now, I loved the way it felt that night. My heart was broken — completely, utterly shattered — and I liked the way that pain felt. It reminded me I was alive, filled me with hope that what we had was real — even if it had technically never truly existed. Jamie was never officially mine, but I had always been his — ever since the first taste.
Losing him hurt like hell, but in the end I still smiled, because at least I’d got to have him.
One more weekend with Whiskey, and then I’d have to let him go.
For good.
AS SOON AS MY plane touched down, before I even made it to baggage claim, I grabbed a Venti Iced Americano from Starbucks. Not sleeping the night before an early flight and seeing Jamie for the first time in over a year had been a mistake, and I was feeling a strange mix of exhaustion and nerves. I figured why not add caffeine to the mix?
Sipping from the bright green straw as I took the escalator down to baggage claim, I focused on my breathing. I thought of the hot yoga class I’d taken with Mona a few months before and tried to channel that frame of mind, and it worked — at least until I opened my eyes again and saw him.
God, Whiskey had aged beautifully.
He was no longer the boy I knew. His features had shifted, even in that short year and a half we’d been apart. His jaw was always the first feature I noticed, and it was even more pronounced now, framing the smirk that rested on his lips as he held up a piece of notebook paper that said JUST B in big, sloppy handwriting. I smiled, and it made him grin wider, flashing white teeth and bright honey eyes. I stepped off the bottom step of the escalator and we each took three steps until we were standing face to face. He dropped the paper to his side, and we both took our time drinking the other in. His hair was short again, styled, almost like River’s. He was dressed in dark jeans and a white v-neck t-shirt, but he wore a light-blue button-up over it. None of the buttons were fastened and it was cuffed at his elbows, showcasing toned forearms that told me without words that he was still surfing.
The barrel had aged him well, and even with the Angel’s tax, he’d only gotten better over time. He was still just as potent, stinging my nostrils and making my mouth water. But now, his flavors had matured, his color had smoothed, and I knew without hesitation that if I was brave enough to try to taste him and he was stupid enough to let me, I’d never recover.
My eyes found his again and he let out a short laugh, opening his arms wide. “Come here.”
I adjusted my carry-on bag on my shoulder and stepped into him, smelling the spicy oak of his shirt as he wrapped his arms all the way around me. Inhaling deep, I sighed into him, and I think we both felt it — like a piece of our soul had been found again. Like it was slowly melding itself back into place. “I told you not to come, I could have taken a cab.”
“I guess I still haven’t learned how to listen very well.”
“You have learned how to dress, though,” I said, my voice muffled in his shirt.
He chuckled, pulling back and grabbing my small bag from me. “And you learned how to walk in heels.” His eyes dropped to my feet and one brow quirked. When he looked at me again, I swore I felt a heat behind his gaze.
I swallowed, tucking away a rogue strand of hair. “That’s what happens when you dress business casual everyday.”
“I know the feeling,” he said, nodding toward the carousel with the bags from Pittsburgh. “I miss wearing basketball shorts or swim trunks ninety percent of the time.”
“And I miss tank tops and sandals.”
It was small talk. It was stupid. But we were treading lightly, testing the waters, feeling each other out.
Jamie grabbed my bag off the carousel, not letting me take it no matter how I argued, and then we were making our way to the parking lot. We didn’t say much, a few sentences of small talk, Jamie telling me which way to turn to find where he’d parked. Once we reached his Jeep, he loaded my bags into the back and opened the passenger seat door for me.
“Welcome home, B,” he said as I slid in. I wasn’t sure if he meant South Florida or his Jeep.
The problem was, something had changed since the last time I’d been home. Mom was no longer here, Jenna was, but she was out of town, and Jamie’s Jeep suddenly felt uncomfortable. I sat with my hands in my lap, trying not to be obvious about the way my eyes stuck on the evidence of another woman being in my spot. There was a hair-tie wrapped around the gear shift, a pair of women’s running shorts in the back seat, a small picture of the two of them tucked into the corner of Jamie’s dashboard. I didn’t sink back and kick my shoes off, planting my heels on the dash in front of me. No, I sat rigid, hands folded in my lap, and looked out the window as Jamie drove me to my hotel.