California is palm trees and beachgoers. Fitness fanatics. Joggers, speed walkers, Yogalates instructors, they seem to dominate the streets of LA. And between them, there’s an army of small, well-groomed dogs. Compact ones that fit into trendy purses and spend their days at doggy spas.

Guacamole seems to be a big thing here because it’s on every menu. And when it’s hand-hacked, Julian tells me, that’s when it’s even better. He lives in a condo in the Wilshire Corridor. He tells me it’s exclusive, and I believe him. Like Daire, Julian has done well for himself. Unlike Daire, Julian had quite the head start with his trust fund.

The places he takes me to mean something to him. They are about status, and I think he wants me to be impressed, but I’d have to live in the same world to understand. And I don’t.

I eat cheap nachos and frequent happy hours. My restaurants are picked based upon proximity to my apartment and my current level of laziness. Almost all of my expenses are filtered by what I can snag for the smallest amount of money and also whether or not there’s a Retailmenot coupon available.

This scene isn’t me, and I feel out of place almost the entire time I’m with him. Mellie said it wouldn’t be awkward, but it is awkward sitting here drinking a twenty-dollar martini with him while he points out local business figures and celebrities.

Also, I can’t operate any of the stuff in his condo because everything requires some form of technical knowledge that I’m apparently not schooled in. The lights are operated by phones, and timers and voice-controlled speakers that talk back. Those same speakers also blast from the fridge when I open it in the middle of the night and I really just want the nosy bitch to mind her own business.

Everything about Julian’s lifestyle is flashy and expensive. And that’s great for him. But I miss home. I miss Lou Malnati’s pies, and I swear that when I get back, that’s the first thing I’m grabbing.

The concert is on Saturday and Julian comes out of his room wearing skinny jeans and glasses without lenses in them. I cover my shock with a cough and nod when he asks if I’m ready to go.

The band is an hour late getting on stage, and it’s standing room only. Which would be fine if we weren’t packed in here like sardines. This would be the only place that I’ve been all weekend where we are not separated by class. In this room, we are all one. One sweaty heap of bodies brushing against each other. It’s hot and claustrophobic, and when the music finally comes on, everyone starts jumping around and singing along, and all I can do is cover my ears. It’s too loud to be enjoyable, and I am officially old as fuck.

I feel awful when Julian looks over at me and frowns. He brought me here for this, and I want him to know that I’m grateful. But I also want to keep my hearing for the next thirty or forty years of my life.

“It’s kind of intense,” he yells over the music. “Huh?”

“Yeah,” I agree. “Really intense.”

We both try to play it cool for a while longer, but Julian is the first one to crack. “Did you notice that we’re the oldest ones in here?”

I shrug. “Retro is in, apparently.”

“Do you want to get out of here?” he asks.

“I thought you’d never ask.”

We burst through the exit in a fit of laughter, and Julian drives us through the city in his topless Ferrari. The urban lights twinkle in the rearview mirror as he races towards the sea. The salt air is invigorating, and it seems as if the tension between us has finally cracked.

“I feel so old,” he admits. “When did that happen?”

“Somewhere between twenty and thirty,” I reply.

“I try to keep up,” he says. “But the competition just gets younger and younger. The kids out here, they’re geniuses by the age of eighteen. Gone are the days of youth sports camps. Soccer is out, and coding is in. That’s what the kids are doing now. Thirteen years old, can you believe that?”

“You can’t fight progress,” I tell him.

He shrugs and turns into an empty beach access lot. “No, you can’t. But you have to adapt if you want to survive.”

“Well, it looks like you’ve adapted just fine,” I smirk. “You’ve got the hipster thing down. Who could tell you aren’t five years younger when you dress like that?”

Julian laughs, and so do I. It feels good. He parks and we walk down to the beach, and it reminds me of the morning Daire and I watched the sunrise. It reminds me of our past when so many of our days were spent by the water. Money didn’t matter then. Nothing really mattered because we were still young enough to be carefree. I wonder if Julian misses that too. I wonder if that’s why he brought me here.

“I think I may have gone overboard,” he admits. “I wanted you to be impressed by my life.”

“Then you’ve succeeded. Color me impressed.”

He tosses a rock out to sea. “I shouldn’t have said what I said back in Chicago. It was stupid. Those feelings were old, and sometimes, I get nostalgic for them.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s like that high of wanting someone before you really know anything about them. You put them on a pedestal. When you’re young, and you don’t think of the flaws or potential barriers in a relationship or what it would be like when she’s mad at you because you work all the time and never come home. And she’s sick of your shit too because now she has to do your laundry and clean up after you and the magic is gone.”

“Ahh.” I drag my finger through the sand, taking comfort in the cool earth that lies just beneath us. “I guess I can see that.”

“It’s like the way you feel with Daire,” Julian says. And I wish he hadn’t brought him up, but that’s what it always come back to. “You don’t do his laundry or wait for him to come home. So the magic is still there.”

“I’m pretty sure he has a maid for that,” I answer. “And trust me when I say there’s no magic. Only misery.”

Julian looks at me and laughs. “I dated this girl for a while. Showed her all the things that I showed you. But it wasn’t enough. She was hot as fuck, so I figured it was worth the effort to try and impress her.”

“Naturally.”

“But the bar always moved further away. Her standards were impossible. And in the end, I couldn’t stand her. So, I fucked her best friend in the bathroom at a cocktail party.”

“Ughh.” I cringe. “Why are you telling me this?”

“My point is, this is what relationships do to people. They fuck you up. They make you do things you would never normally do because you go insane. You’re either trying to bend over backward to please someone or thinking of someone else while you’re with a match who should be ideal. The grass is always greener. Always. You never win.”

“Thanks for the pep talk,” I mutter. “Guess I should just go ahead and buy a few cats when I get back home.”

Julian goes quiet for a beat while he stares out at the water lapping at the shore. “I was jealous.”

I turn to him, but he isn’t looking at me. His thoughts are far away. In another time and place. And I don’t understand what he’s talking about. “Jealous of what?”

“You and him.”

“Ryan?” I ask.

“It was the way you looked at him. I’d never seen a girl look at someone like that before. You didn’t know it, but everyone could see it. Even Ryan. And I was jealous.”

Daire.

He’s talking about Daire. I take a breath and try to determine the best course of action to put an end to this conversation. I’m so sick of this record. It’s played on repeat for half of my life now. Daire. Daire. Daire. Even when I’m able to forget him for a second, someone always manages to throw him back in my face.

Julian shifts and his jaw flexes. “I guess that’s why I didn’t tell you.”

I call time out on my internal battle to pay attention to him. “Tell me what?”

“He’d kill me if he knew I was telling you now.”

“Julian.” He still won’t look at me.

“I guess I’m an asshole either way. But if I was you, I’d want to know.”

“Julian,” I snap.

He seems almost comatose now. My words don’t affect him because he continues to ramble on.

“You don’t have that problem, Lola. The one that everyone else does. But the sad thing is you don’t even realize it. You never think you’re good enough, when in fact, your whole life you’ve been blind to the effect you have on men. Ryan and Daire and even me. You could bring any man to his knees if you knew what you were capable of. And the only reason that I think you can’t is because he hurt you so bad.”

“Ryan?” I ask again.

He finally looks at me, and his eyes are haunted. “Daire, Lola. He’s the one that really hurt you.”

Now it’s me that wants to turn away, and I do. I stare out at the sea and wish I was back in Chicago again. With my books and my cramped office and my comfortable numbers that take the bad thoughts away. But I’m not. And reality is a pain in the ass. I reach for a clump of sand and watch it fall through the spaces between my fingers.

“That girl in the boat wasn’t with Daire.”

My fist falls open, and the sand spills from my fingers in one fluid motion.

“Ryan picked her up that night. He said she looked like a treat. He always said that about the girls he fucked behind your back.”

My throat goes dry, and I can’t feel my tongue. I’m too numb to speak. And I want to tell him to stop talking, but I can’t.

“Everyone knew about it,” Julian says. “Even Daire. He tried to shield you from it, I guess. But Ryan did what he wanted. Everyone treated him like a god. And when he had even a little bit of competition in Daire, he didn’t like it. He used you to rub it in his face. He told him over and over again what a nice lay you were. How you sucked his dick and let his friends have a go afterward.”

“Stop.” I manage to find my voice. “You’re lying. That never happened.”

But he doesn’t stop. “He was such a prick.” Julian laughs. “But fuck if we all didn’t love him anyway. Even in the end, we felt we needed to be loyal to him.”

Tears threaten to spill over my eyelids as I rise to my feet. I don’t care if I have to hitchhike, I’m leaving. But then Julian speaks again. And everything I thought I knew disintegrates into the ocean air.

“Daire wasn’t driving the boat that night,” he says. “He wasn’t the one who crashed into the break wall. Ryan was.”