“When did you drag your ass in last night?” Micah asks Trent as we’re packing and getting ready to head out.
“Around one.” He shoves a pair of his shorts into his bag and zips it closed. “Girl wasn’t as down as what I thought.”
“Did she bruise your ego?”
“Hardly.”
Standing in front of the mirror that hangs above the small desk, I tie my hair back and look at Trent through the reflection, asking, “What girl? You mean Kate?”
“Yeah. She’d been eyeing me like a bunny all day.”
I roll my eyes, and he catches me.
“What’s that about?”
I turn to face him. “Just because a girl thinks you’re cute, doesn’t make her a bunny. And it doesn’t mean that she’ll put out.”
“I spent the whole night talking to her,” he defends. “Chick was giving off vibes.”
I want to snap at him, tell him his behavior is disgusting and that I don’t like it at all. I know he’d never take advantage of anyone the way Liam took advantage of me, but still . . .
“Dude, grab your shit and let’s go,” Micah tells him.
They gather the bags, and I’m doing one last sweep of the room when Micah’s cell starts ringing from the nightstand.
“Will you grab that for me,” he says, and when I pick it up and read the screen, I go still.
Kason Stratton
In an instant, I’m closer to him than I’ve been since he last held me on the beach. My heart screams at me to answer the call, but I can’t move, no matter how badly I want to hear the sound of his voice. I can hardly even breathe as every cell in my body seizes.
He’s here. He’s right here in the palm of my hand . . . everything that I want, everything that I miss. Each ring rattles my heart, making me question every decision I made that landed us in this position. Then the ringing stops, plummeting the boulder of our once burning love into the pit of my stomach.
Like a faraway echo, I hear Micah’s voice filter in through the storm of thoughts in my head.
“Ady?”
And then it hits me.
He wasn’t calling me. He was calling Micah.
“Who was it?”
When I finally look up from the screen, I find the both of them staring at me curiously.
“Are you okay?”
“Why is he calling you?” I ask, my voice a little unsteady.
Micah’s expression turns cautious.
“Who called?” Trent asks, but I ignore him, keeping my attention on Micah.
“You talk to him?”
“I did,” he says, dropping the bag from his shoulder and walking closer to me.
“What did he say?”
“Ady—”
“What did he say?” I press, raising my voice, and he approaches me with two more steps.
“He was upset and demanding to know where you were. I guess he figured since we’re friends that I would know.”
My skin pricks in a sheen of chills. “Did you tell him?”
“No. I mean, you never told me why you changed your number, but it doesn’t take a genius to figure out it was because of Kason.”
I grow paranoid that maybe Kason might have said something to Micah about me. “I want to know what he said. What did he tell you?”
“What are you freaking out about?” Trent questions.
Again, we both ignore Trent, and I wait for Micah to answer me. “Like I said, he was worried and losing it, saying you’d disappeared and changed your number. He demanded to know where you were, insisting that I knew. I told him to fuck off and to just leave you alone. That was basically it.” He stares at me, and I know he sees my nerves raging from within when he insinuates with suspicion, “What is it exactly you want to know he said? Is there something you aren’t telling me?”
I shake my head as I cower into silence. The both of them look at me skeptically, and I take a moment before speaking again, asking, “So why is he calling you now?”
“He’s been calling me this whole time.”
I turn to Trent. “Has he called you?”
He nods. “After Micah talked to him, he did, but he’d already told me to ignore Kason’s calls, so I never took them.”
Flashes of a panic-stricken Kason sting my eyes, and I’m forced to bite my bottom lip to keep it from quivering. They both catch the movement anyway.
My words break into pieces when I look over at Micah. “Have you been talking to him all along?”
“Fuck no. I took that one call, that was it. I have no reason to talk to that loser. The only reason I even gave him the time of day after he cheated on you was because it was what you wanted.”
“Whoa! Kason cheated on you? What the fuck?” Trent exclaims, never having known the truth to why Kason and I broke up the first time.
“He’s been leaving voice mails,” Micah eventually says, drawing my attention back to him.
“Does he hate me?” I ask, tears finally pooling in my eyes.
“What does it matter? The guy treated you like shit.”
Micah has no clue how untrue that statement is. Kason never, not once, treated me less than perfect. He loved me with everything and fought himself every single day to be the best he could—for me. But all Micah sees is a guy who cheated, not knowing the reason behind why Kason did what he did.
“Is that why you broke up with him this time? Because he did that to you again?”
As much as it kills me, I don’t deny his presumption. It’s so much better than him knowing the truth to our split. I don’t confirm it, either, but my silence is confirmation enough for him. He closes the gap between us, and I drop my head before he takes me in his arms.
“That guy’s a piece of shit, Ady.”
His words hurt so badly. I wish I were brave enough to tell him. To give him all the truths inside me, but I’m not.
“Dude, I always thought that guy was solid,” Trent says, and when I step back from Micah, I glance over to him. “I’m sorry.”
I shrug, and then notice that I’m still holding the cell. I turn it over to see that Kason left a voice mail, but too soon Micah takes it out of my hand. He makes a few swipes and taps on the screen.
“What are you doing?”
“Blocking his number.”
Another jab to my heart, but I know deep down that it needs to be done. It’s the only way for me to heal, and it’s what’s best for Kason as well. The sooner he can forget about me, the better off he’ll be.
“Done,” he says and then shoves the phone into his back pocket. “He’s gone.”
I swallow back the knot that begs to be ripped open, the knot that holds all the misery of missing Kason. Losing it in front of them isn’t something I can allow myself to do. I refuse to fall to my knees when I need their strength to move forward with my life.
He picks up his bag and grabs his board. “Come on. Let’s get out of here.”
Trent slings his arm around my shoulder as we head to the elevators, saying, “Forget about that chump.”
If only it were that easy.
“He’s right,” Micah agrees. “He isn’t worth your time.”
I remain quiet and tucked under Trent’s arm as we make our way out to the parking lot. Micah ties down the boards while Trent tosses our bags in the back.
“Ady.”
I look over my shoulder to see Kate part off from her friends and walk over to me.
“Hey.”
“You all heading out already?”
“Yeah.”
“What’s up?” Trent says indifferently as he closes the hatch to the SUV.
I catch her nervous smile as she watches him hop into the driver’s seat. When she finally drags her eyes away, she turns back to me. “Anyway, it was good hanging out with you last night.”
“Same here. I don’t really have any friends here, so it was nice to talk to someone new.”
No doubt my words are forced, but I have to do what I can if ever I want to expel the ever-constant ache that follows me around.
“Well, hey, we should totally get together some time.”
“That’d be great.”
She pulls out her cell, and I give her my number.
“I’ll call you this week so we can plan something.”
“Sounds good,” I say before she jogs off to join her friends.
When I slip into the back seat, Micah is already giving Trent a hard time. “Dude, Ady scored that chick’s digits before you.”
“Shut the fuck up, man.”
“Don’t get all sensitive about it.”
Trent throws it into reverse and pulls out of the parking space before shifting into drive. “That girl is already too interested. I can spot a clinger.”
“What does that mean?” I ask.
“It means I’m not down to have some girl suck all the energy out of me.”
“You know what amazes me?” I shake my head in disbelief. “The fact that you’ve managed to hold your reputation together as well as you have.”
“What can I say? Your boy has a heart of gold, and it keeps the girls flocking.”
Even though Trent comes off as being arrogant, one thing is for sure, his heart is in the right place. He talks a good game, but he’s always looking out for me, even if it’s from the sidelines whereas Micah is in the trenches right along with me.
When we arrive back in Miami, there’s a heaviness I feel while I’m unpacking my bag. It’s the same heaviness I’m determined to claw my way out from underneath. I’ve gained an inch, and I refuse to get pulled back. So I walk across the hall to Micah’s room and tap on his door.
“What’s up, Guppy?” He smiles at me from his spot on his bed.
“You think maybe the three of us could go do something? I don’t really want to be alone with my thoughts right now,” I tell him honestly, because the last thing I want to do is sit around my room while I type and delete texts to Kason.
Micah sits up. “He hurt you that bad?”
I shove my hands into the pockets of my shorts. “Doesn’t really matter anymore, does it? I’m here now, and I’m trying hard not to look back so much.”
He gets off the bed and walks across the room to me. Somehow, he’s able to lift the weight, if even for a moment, when he says, “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
He tucks me under his arm as we head out to the living room where Trent is.
“Come on. We’re taking Ady to South Beach.”