Nothing ever goes right in my fucking life. I was about to tell Olive what was going on when she dropped that bomb on me.

My hands go to the pockets on either side of my shorts, searching for something.

The box.

I take it out in my hand, watching the light of the bastard sun glint off of it. Not an engagement ring, yet, as much as I’d like it to be. I always hoped my grandmother’s ring would look beautiful on Olive’s hand.

No, this was to be a promise ring.

A promise to hold and to love her, forever and now. To be there for both her and Lark, when they need me and especially when they think they don’t.

But somehow, I fucked it up. Just like I fuck up everything. I don’t know what I did to make Olive hate me so much. I want to believe that deep down she still loves me, but I don’t know if I’m just deluding myself or what.

No. I’m not some insecure loser. Olive is my girl, and she always will be. But right now, something’s going on, and I’m pissed.

I take the ring out of the box and stare at it as I move farther down the beach. Closer to the shore and the girls in bikinis I’m supposed to lust after. Away from my love.

Eventually, I break away from all the crowds. The sand is colder here, where the sun hasn’t yet gotten to it. It’s wet between my toes, and I’m grateful that I didn’t put on shoes. I was rushing to get out of that house. I might not have if I had known Olive was going to come find me with that news.

Fuck!

I curse at the sky, not caring if some stupid family on vacation hears me. I swing my hand back and throw the ring as far into the water as I possibly can, but my throw is fucked in my anger and it bounces a pathetic distance into the sea before sinking.

This is so wrong. I need to make it right. But I need to clear my head first, so I continue down the beach toward some trees I admired earlier. I’m almost completely through the copse when I trip over something pink, and warm.

Hot, suntanned flesh.

Familiar flesh. Not in the sense that this is a girl I’d been with before, or ever intended to be with.

“Selena?” I ask, so confused, I feel almost drunk.

Wait, my girl’s best friend is lying at my feet, her body all tangled up with …

“Barry, you motherfucker!” This is all his fault. Everything was fine until that bastard came in here with his greed and his blackmail and got between me and my family. Better than fine, and now he’s ruined it all.

“This is all your fault!” I’m filled with venom as I move to attack him, but I slip in the sand.

“You’re losing your touch, Axel,” Selena says, a hand over her eyes to guard her gaze from the sun as she looks up at me.

She shoos away Barry, and he scurries off. They’re obviously worried that I’m going to fucking kill him. As well they should be.

Because I fucking might.

“Your new boyfriend is walking on thin ice,” I snarl.

But when she pats the ground next to her, I collapse down beside her on the sand. As upset as I am, it occurs to me that Selena might be able to help me.

“You need to calm down. What’s up?” I don’t answer, and she raises an eyebrow at me.

She still can’t raise a brow like I can, but she’s gotten better—clearly, she’s been practicing. “Olive?”

“Olive,” I repeat, “does not love me anymore.”

“You,” she pushes a finger to my chest, jabbing it at me with each word as she mocks my tone, “are full of shit.” Her voice turns to normal as she says, “You and Olive are meant to be together. Always have been, always will be.”

“You seem pretty smug for someone whose best friend just broke up with me,” I say, realizing that I like talking to Selena.

I can be a casual asshole with her because she does the same, and neither of us want to call the other out on it. I see how Olive would love the both of us, albeit in different ways.

“Did she really?” She turns on her back. She’s been lying on her stomach this whole time, I realize. Then she takes her phone out from under her towel and I’m confused. It’s not even on.

“Ah, you see,” she says, noticing my frown. “This phone isn’t on. This phone doesn’t even get any fucking service out here. But this phone? If it were on, I bet Olive’s been texting me, begging for ways to get back with you.”

“I didn’t breakup with her, remember?”

“I remember. But you forget,” she grins, turning her phone on, “that my friend is very neurotic. I have a plan. Come here.”

I move closer to her until she nods and pushes a hand against me, shoving me back a little—a playful reminder not to crowd her space. She’ll get me and Olive right again. We just need to work together.

Selena tells Olive that we still have some time together and we need to keep the family together as best we can, for Lark. And then they can figure out an explanation for the little girl. I feel bad about using my daughter as an excuse to get close to Olive, but …

What can you do?

Nothing, Axel. Calm down.

We get into a car I didn’t know anyone up here had and drive down into town. There’s a market Selena wants to go to, so she can buy some ingredients to make food.

The plan is for Selena to find a store she likes then she’s going to say they don’t have what she needs there and ditch me and Olive.

I nod at Selena from where she sits in the passenger’s seat, and she nods back. Olive and I are together in the back with Lark between us.

Barry is driving, so I can’t kill him right now without risking a car accident, as much as I want to. But my anger is subsiding now that I’ve convinced him to give me a few more days here.

I put an arm around Lark and touch Olive too. She doesn’t fight it, but she scowls.

I tell myself this is temporary, that she can’t mean any of it.

Once we arrive in town, we get out of the car and walk along the cobbled stones of the old road.

Barry drives away, looking for somewhere safe to park, unlike the space beneath the tree close by where we might be hit, he says. He works for a boxer but he’s adverse to danger. I make a note in my head to give him shit about this later.

The streets are filled with carts full of food, and Selena’s ruse is actually a good one. I grab an orange from a stall and pass some money to the man working there, then split it up into little pieces—even smaller for Lark, but she’s learning to handle big kid food now, more than ever—and pass them to the two most important women in my life.

“You know,” I say, catching Olive’s attention. “If Selena decides she doesn’t want to cook, I’m plenty capable of making dinner too.”

Olive snorts, slamming herself against my shoulder playfully.

“Since when?” she teases, her tone betraying that she’s happier around me than she ever is alone. “You’d probably burn it.”

“I’ll have you know I’d be a great housewife.” I wink at Lark, who giggles. I joke, but I am actually a great cook. Hopefully one day Olive and Lark will both know that. We walk through the market, making plans of what to do today to bond and have some fun, and we all smile. But I’m just thinking of them and the future, and how I can stretch this vacation out into the rest of my life.