“Until he wasn’t.”
My chin drops, my throat clogging up as I stare across the room and out the back window. “Until he wasn’t.”
“Cheers.” Bridget raises her glass, and we both drink them down, finishing them off. “Now you can fuck your neighbor.”
The last drop of alcohol decides to descend my trachea instead of my esophagus, and I cough violently, choking and sputtering.
“Oh. My. God.”
I turn away from her as I continue to die.
“You did, didn’t you? You already had sex with him?!” she shrieks.
I spin back to her, my face like a forest fire. Once I’m able to breathe, I snap at her, utterly incredulous. “How can you know that? There’s no way you can possibly know that.”
“Please, bitch. I lived with you for four years in college. I know your tells like the back of my hand. If you hadn’t slept with him, you would have given me a look or laughed. Instead, you choked. You’re crap at lying and hiding things. Besides, the looks you two gave each other were obvious. There was far too much heat between the two of you for it to have been a random rude neighbor thing. Spill it. I need to know ev-er-y-thing.” She fans her face with her hand. “I cannot believe you slept with Landon Fritz. He’s so… hot. Like epically hot. How—” She holds up her hand, cutting herself off. “No, wait, when did this happen?” She sighs, shaking her head. “Just start at the beginning and spare no details.”
“This is why I didn’t want to tell you.”
“You didn’t. But you’re about to. Talk and while you’re at it, pour me another glass.”
“I’m not telling you what happened.”
She points at me with one hand and her glass with the other as I pour. “Pour yourself one too.”
I shake my head. “Alcohol has already gotten me into enough trouble.”
Bridget cracks up, smacking her thigh as she laughs her head off at me. “Oh, this just keeps getting better and better. You have to tell me about Landon. You can’t drop a bomb like that on me and not give me the goods.”
“I didn’t drop the bomb on you. You figured it out.”
She waves me off. “Semantics. Was he good?”
I sigh, my forearms collapsing onto the counter. The truth is, I want to talk about our night together. And Bridget is all I’ve got. Plus, she may love her gossip, but she’d never repeat to anyone anything I tell her. I’ve told her plenty over the years about David, and if she wanted to blather that about, she would have. She didn’t.
“He was incredible.”
She lets out an audible moan. “I knew he would be. He just has that look about him, ya know? Silently screams god in the sack. Go on. Was this the night you moved in after he saw you in your bra and panties?”
I shake my head. “It was the night I spent at the hotel before I moved in.”
Her eyes explode with surprise and interest.
“He was at the bar. Picked me up with like ten words, and before I knew what I was doing, he was in my room, and we were going at it.”
“Hot. Like super freaking hot. No wonder he was staring at you like that tonight. He was totally hate fucking you with his eyes.”
Hate fucking me. How unfortunately accurate.
“Well, we both agreed to one night, and that’s all it was. All it will ever be. He showed up tonight and was not nice. He made it clear we would not be friends or friendly and that whatever happened between us would never occur again.”
She scrunches her nose. “What a dick. Why does he have to be so dickish? Do you want a repeat?”
“No!” I exclaim, setting my glass down. “Repeats lead to things I have no room for. I can’t even handle my ex-husband.”
She takes a sip, contemplating this. “Did you tell him your story? About what happened with David? About your parents or your sister? Or… Erika?”
I shake my head, and we share a small commiserative frown. “Of course not. I didn’t even know he had a kid until I met her. I only told him I’m newly single.”
Her expression turns grim, and she reaches out, taking my hand and squeezing it. I stare down at the counter, my heart aching. “You two have a lot in common. In the worst possible way.”
“I know.” I just didn’t realize the extent of it until tonight.
“Don’t fall for him, Elle,” she pleads with a concerned tone, her eyes soft and earnest. “He’s the definition of emotionally unavailable, and you have an awful tendency to fall fast and hard, and he’s a prime target.”
“Not gonna happen.”
“Good. Because I’d hate to cut a bitch if he breaks your heart.”
I roll my eyes. “Stop talking like your students. I’m fine. No hearts breaking here. He’s the last man I’d ever want to get involved with, not that I’m looking for something like that, because I’m not. Trust me. I doubt I’ll talk to Landon Fritz again beyond parent-teacher stuff.”
But right as I think it, believe that what I’m saying is the truth, that flicker of doubt—and worse, disappointment—lurks somewhere deep and dark. And that scares me most of all.
10
I am the poster child for all good things must come to an end. It’s actually my motto. It keeps me real. It reminds me shit isn’t actually a fairy tale and the real world is a total motherfucker. But on today’s dose of all good things come to an end…
“You’ve been avoiding me,” Luca says as he jogs the last couple of steps to catch up to me right before I enter my favorite coffee shop in town.
It’s not just you I’ve been avoiding. But instead I go with, “Is that why you drove all the way out here on a Saturday?”
He nods, giving me his signature I know everything smirk. “Yes. Mom called me. Said you were in a particularly shitty mood and told you to leave to gain perspective.”
“Mom never used the word shitty.”
“You’re right. She said you were being more of a grump than she’s seen you be in years. She was worried, and the last thing Mom needs right now is to be worried about you while she’s undergoing treatment.”
“Great. Thanks for the extra dose of guilt. It’ll go perfectly with my morning cup of coffee. Does this mean everyone else is coming too? Yet another Landon intervention.”
His eyes widen, glancing around the street, ensuring no one overheard us, but other than a few early risers going about Saturday morning errands, it’s pretty empty out here.
“You are in a shitty mood. Shittier than normal. What’s going on?”
My hands drop to my hips, my gaze landing hard on the sidewalk between us. It’s been two weeks since I kissed Elle in her classroom. Two weeks of completely avoiding her while being acutely hyperaware of everywhere she is. When she’s working in the garden in the front, I don’t go outside. When her bedroom window is open at night, I make sure mine is closed. Even when I take out the goddamn trash now.
I can’t stand it. Any of it.
I think about her.
So much more than I should and in so many ways beyond just trying to avoid her.
Her laugh. Her smile. Her voice with that accent. Her smart, sassy mouth that calls me out on my shit when no one other than my family ever does. Every damn time I take my cock in hand, it’s her face and body that surface behind my eyes, and no amount of trying to change the image or willing it away works.