Angel: I’m fucked
Chris: ???
Raymond: Literally?
Angel: I’m not joking, man. I don’t know what I’m doing.
Raymond: Be specific or I’m putting my phone in my locker and going to work
Chris: What happened?
Angel: This whole pretending to be Stephanie’s fiancé thing happened.
Raymond: I told you you’re an idiot. Or a masochist. Not my kink but hey . . . more power to ya
Chris: :/ What happened, bro?
Angel: We made this deal to just . . . live out this weekend like we’re really together, pretty much enjoy the game, and then move on because I want to be w/ her and she doesn’t want to depend on anyone enough to be with them in a relationship.
Raymond: That sounds like some shit I’d have done with David tbh so I can’t even make fun of you
Angel: FML dude. This entire thing was a bad idea.
Chris: Let me guess: the whole enjoying the game thing just made you want her even more and now you’re stressing over the weekend ending and going back to jacking it all the time while thinking about her?
Angel: Yep
Angel: Except now it will be even more depressing because she told me she loves me. So basically . . . I’d have a shot if all of these circumstances I can’t control were different. It would prob hurt less if I didn’t know she felt the same
Raymond: WHAT
Raymond: She SAID she loves you??
Raymond: Hold up hell just froze over
Angel: Shut up man its not funny
Chris: There’s no chance of her changing her mind?
Angel: I dunno. I’m not going to pressure her. She has good reasons for being the way she is, but it just fucking makes me feel like I want to rip my heart out. Or move away.
Raymond: Move away? Dude this ain’t eat pray love, calm down
Angel: I’m serious tho. How the fuck am I supposed to ever move on if she lives right up the street? I see her all the time. I want her all the time. Just imagine David having told you he loves you but can’t be with you and he’s just . . . ALWAYS THERE.
Raymond: Ok yea that sucks my dude.
Raymond: Idk what to tell you
Chris: The only thing you can do is try to move on? Date other people and try to find someone else and don’t spend every date comparing them to her. I tried that when I was trying to forget Jace and Aiden, and it sucked.
Raymond: Or you could start sucking dick. That would distract you
Chris: Omg Ray shut the fuck up for real
Raymond: What? Am I wrong?
As much as I loved my boys, Raymond trying to distract me by making me laugh wasn’t going to do the trick right now.
I’d gone from being on cloud nine while hiking back to the lodge with Stephanie, hand in hand and bumping into each other like a couple of kids who’d snuck out for the night, to descending into a depressed cloud so thick I was shocked people couldn’t see it around me. Everyone was in a great mood while cooking and chattering about the last day’s activities, and I was trying my best to keep smiling, but my brain was stuck.
It’d been stuck as soon as I’d sat down on the bed we were sharing and realized tonight was the last time we’d share a bed. The last time I’d make love to her. Maybe tomorrow was the last time I’d kiss her. Maybe this morning was the last time she’d tell me she loved me.
All things considered, as emotional as I could be, I tended to suck it up. I angsted to myself, but rarely to other people. Except lately. And I hadn’t cried since my abuelo’s funeral in San Juan, but the idea of ten years of longing being officially over, with no more hope, crushed me. If smiling through suffocation was an art form, I’d be winning awards. When I kissed Stephanie on the cheek and told her I was going to shower, she didn’t seem to notice anything was off.
Good.
The last thing I wanted was for her to think I was guilting her.
I turned on the hot water in the bathroom, flipped down the toilet seat, and sat there staring at my phone. Chris’s words glared up at me.
Move on. Date other people.
My automatic response was to say it would never work. No one could replace Stephanie. I’d tried before, and it had failed. They’d known I was preoccupied. That I wasn’t invested. Or had I only been preoccupied and uninvested because I’d been comparing them to Stephanie the entire time? Had I spent the last ten years sabotaging all potential attempts to get over a girl I would never have?
The possibility was terrifying. What if I did that for the rest of my life? What if I never got over her?
My mind supplied two options: get over her or gradually pull back and cut her off.
A shudder went through me. I felt sick at the thought of not seeing her anymore. We’d spent years being solely platonic friends, and I’d watched her hook up with or date different people. None of it had cut as badly as the idea of putting our friendship somewhere in the back of a junk drawer. It wasn’t an option.
Chris was right. I simply needed to move the fuck on.
As steam billowed into the bathroom from the shower, I redownloaded Tinder. By the time the heat from the water had turned the small room oppressively warm, I’d swiped a few faces and already felt the mind-numbing disinterest of finding someone to date for the sake of dating.
It didn’t take a mind reader to figure out that something had changed as soon as we’d returned to the property. Angel turned inward almost as often as I sought escape in partying with Meredith and going out, and he was definitely internalizing something right now. Like the end of this trip and whatever we’d become over the past year.
It was an unpleasant thought. Frankly, a horrible one. In an attempt to escape reality, I held my breath and dunked my head beneath the water in the pool. It was the best place to seek refuge from my coworkers. Retreat or no retreat, I had more things to think about right now than their team-building games. And they’d have a hard time suggesting I pop in to join them if I was wearing a bikini and drenched.
Most of my coworkers’ partners had the same idea. Dee in particular had been camped on a floatie since early morning, and was idly swiping at her phone while sipping on a beer.
I broke the surface with a gasp, trying to throw my hair back like a Norwegian Sun commercial and probably looking more like I was about to take someone’s eye out. After smoothing wet hair out of my face, I peered through the patio doors and saw Angel sitting by himself in the sun room.
I swam to the edge of the pool and braced my arms along the side, watching as he sat in a recliner and pulled out his phone. Random things about him caught my attention and drew me in these days. The way he sat up straight all the time like someone had beaten the need for good posture into him at a young age. How he held his phone one-handed as he rubbed the back of his neck with the other, a simple motion that made his biceps bulge beneath his T-shirt.
But mostly, I was caught by his expression. So pensive. Always worried and thinking. It looked like he was doing both at the moment, and I was dying to know what was going on in his brain. We’d had such a good morning, but things shifted fast between us on a regular day, let alone on a day when we’d fucked, said I love you, and made a semi-promise to . . . leave this all behind starting tomorrow or the day after.
“Are you staying out here for a while?”
Dee’s voice drew my attention away from Angel. “Yup. Why?”
She raised an eyebrow and peered at me through her pink cat-eye sunglasses. I loved Dee for primarily this reason. Well, for several reasons. She was like Lana Del Rey but short and curvy and did not give a fuck what anyone at the law firm thought of her. You had to love a girl who wasn’t going to waste her mini-vaca pretending to care about team builders.
“Just curious.”
I swam away from the edge, went under the water to kick my way across the pool, and popped up next to her float. She jumped, startled, and I snickered. It turned into a full-on laugh when she sniffed and rubbed her now-damp phone against her bikini top. If it weren’t for Angel, I’d probably be all over her. Then again, I’d said the same about Meredith before she’d hooked up with Tonya, and every other person who’d almost sparked my interest lately. My “that could be interesting” flag would half-heartedly go up, then wilt almost as fast.
“Because,” she drawled. “It’d be nice to have some company. After the first day, everyone is focused on work-related things.”
“Yeah, I’m here because of work, but I don’t plan to talk about work.” I swam around her floatie, being careful not to splash her any more. “Are you having any fun?”
“There’s a pool, free booze and food, and I’m out of that armpit of a sweltering city. So yes.” Dee turned on her side so she could peer down at me. “You’re the first person to ask me, by the way. I think I’ve been dismissed as Kip’s arm candy.”
I stopped swimming and hung on to the end of her floatie with one arm. “That’s shitty, but you’re probably right. This—” Maybe it wasn’t the best time to go off about the sexism in the firm. “This weirdly doesn’t seem like a venue conducive to getting to know new people? Everyone is cliquing up.”
At her slow nod, I glanced over my shoulder again but could no longer see Angel through the doors. I’d been so preoccupied with him that I’d barely hung out with anyone else.
“So, Dee, why don’t you tell me about yourself?”
“My name is Diana.” She wiggled her toes and got into a comfortable position again. “And I’m a nurse.”
“Oh, nice! When I was applying for colleges, I was torn between the nursing program and the legal studies program,” I admitted. “But I had a specific interest in the law.”
“Why didn’t you go to law school?”
She asked like it was the most natural thing in the world, and I’d somehow overlooked it. “I didn’t have money for law school. I put myself through undergrad.” I swam backward a little and looked up at the sky, feeling my hair drifting around me. “Besides that, my primary interest at the time was understanding the law. Specifically, my rights.” And Victor’s. I’d been preparing myself for a lifetime of having to fight for him. “I was disappointed about that reality when I was younger, but I’m happy with where I am now. My work matters, and I feel successful on a regular basis.”
Dee, or Diana, made a satisfied sound. “Good for you, girl.”
“Thanks.” I pushed through the water again and ran a hand through my hair. “I’m going to head inside and get something to eat. Do you want to come?”
“I’ll be in soon.”
“Cool.” I started to backstroke my way to the edge of the pool, but something about her expression threw me off. The way she twisted her mouth and glanced at the patio doors, then back at me. “What was that?” I asked, laughing. She pursed her lips, expression going serious, and my smile faded. “Are you okay?”
“I am, yes.” Another pause, another glance toward the doors. “And it’s not my business.”
“What are you talking about?” I followed her gaze, and my eyes fell on Angel. He’d started pacing in the room. Something he only did when agitated. “Does it have to do with me?”
“It has to do with him.” This hesitation was shorter before she said, all in a rush, “I was on Tinder, and his profile popped up for me. I don’t know what your situation is, or if you guys are open, but—”
“Wait.” I held up both hands to stop her talking. “You saw Angel on Tinder?”
Dee stared at me silently, which was all the answer I needed. My body went on autopilot, swimming to the edge of the large pool and dragging me up out of it before my brain caught up with my actions. Water sluiced down my body as I walked quickly across the patio. A large fan blew a surprisingly cool breeze that should have sent a chill through me, but I didn’t feel anything but anger.
I jerked the door open and slipped inside, startling Angel into fumbling with his phone. The guilty way he shoved it into his pocket spoke volumes. As did the way his fair skin flushed red.
“You couldn’t wait one day?” I pointed at him, and was hit with déjà vu. Wasn’t this how all of this had started? Me yelling at him while half-dressed? Him looking at me in confusion like he had no idea what my deal was? I was so fucking sick of the pattern. The way he gave me that ‘Who me?’ look. “You were on Tinder. Just now.”
His brows crashed down, eyes narrowing. “How the fuck do you know?”
“Because Dee was on, and she told me!”
Angel inhaled through his nose, but deep breathing exercises weren’t keeping him from reddening further. “Look—”
“Why couldn’t you wait one more day?”
“What difference does it make?” The incredulity on his face was killing me. “Mira, nena, we just said last night that this is over starting tomorrow. It was my idea, I know that, but—”
“So why couldn’t you give me one more fucking day?” My voice was too loud, too shrill, too goddamn angry. And there was no way it had gone unheard by anyone in the vicinity, but I couldn’t stop the rage that was contorting me into a version of myself that I hated. The one who let people know they’d gotten under her skin. Judging by his slack-jawed expression of surprise, he knew all right. “You think I have no feelings because I’ve never been in a relationship?”
“What?” Angel shook his head quickly. “No, of course not.”
“Then why couldn’t you wait?”
“Because I didn’t think it would matter! It’s not like I’m going to meet a new girlfriend—” He stumbled over the words at my flinch. “I mean, my . . . whoever I’m looking for.” Angel cringed harder. “Fuck. Stephanie. I wasn’t seriously looking for a girl in Lake George, okay? I was just . . . preparing myself.”
“To find your new girlfriend,” I repeated bitterly. “I guess that’s on tomorrow’s agenda. Maybe the bus ride.”
He lifted his hands and buried them in his hair, closing his eyes and taking another deep breath. It made me want to shout at him, because I hated this act. Like he’d done nothing wrong, and he was dealing with some irrational, out of control person. Or maybe that was just how I felt? How the hell was it possible to tell anymore?
“I told you I loved you, and you respond by . . .” I looked down at his pocket as if I’d be able to see his phone. Or his Tinder profile. “By immediately looking for someone else.”
“I responded by trying to do the only thing I can think of to save myself from pulling way back from you,” Angel said roughly. “Because if I don’t move on, I’ll end up staying away from you, and I fucking know it. I’ll put up a wall between us because it will be too hard to see you.”
My stomach sank, so I crossed my arms over it as if that would help the sick feeling. It didn’t, but the anger seeped from my body and dripped onto the floor like the water sliding down my skin. I was suddenly very aware of how ridiculous I looked. How fucking stupid I was for charging in here and demanding anything of him after I’d once again asked him to do something against his own best interest—coming here and pretending to be my lover. My fiancé.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, looking away from him. “It’s none of my business. I have no right to be jealous. Or angry.” Angel made a sound low in his voice and took a step toward me, but I held up my hands quickly. “Please don’t. Just let me be sorry. Let me feel like an asshole.”
“But you’re not an asshole.” He maintained his distance for a moment longer before taking two steps closer and pulling my wet body against his dry clothes. My back straightened, and I wanted to pull away, but instead I tilted my forehead against his chest with a sigh. “Mamita, if you’d been out there flirting with some dude so you could hurry up and move on, I’d have cracked his skull open on the side of the pool. For a hot second I thought you knew I was on Tinder because you were on it, and I got instantly pissed. How fucked up is that?”
A hysterical laugh burst out of my mouth, but it borderline sounded like a sob. Bringing my hands up, I clenched my fingers in his shirt and squeezed my eyes shut. “Why are we so bad at everything?”
Angel kissed my forehead. “We’re bad at trying not to be in love with each other. That’s it.”
He was right. He was so fucking right. The truth of it cracked the dam inside of me, and tears welled up in my eyes, spilling onto his shirt. I sucked in deep breaths, trying to control myself, but the tighter he held me . . . the harder it was for me to hold myself together.
“Let’s get the fuck out of here,” he said softly in my ear. “We can get a taxi to the nearest car rental, and go home.”
“God, that sounds so good.” I pulled away, gazing up at him miserably. “But it would look really—”
“I’ll kill off a relative. My tio Ivan.”
Another wet laugh escaped me. “You’d kill Ivan for me?”
“I’d do anything for you.”
Forget Ivan, he was killing me, my resolve, and all of my rationale as to why this would never work for me. Why promises I’d made to myself as a kid still mattered today in the face of someone I’d never replace. Someone I never wanted to replace. Someone I didn’t want to lose.
I bit down on my lower lip, and he kissed my forehead again.
“We’re leaving. Ivan’s toast.”
He was trying to make me crack another smile, but I was all smiled out. Instead, I nodded wearily and let him leave the room to make our excuses while I dripped all over the floor.