No contest.
Her shoulders fall as she exhales. “Well, I’m still very curious about this mystery girl.”
“Then you’re wasting your precious energy because nothing can ever come of it. We’re at an impasse.” I shut down my computer, grab my briefcase, and head for the door.
“Why not?” she asks, stepping into the hallway while I lock up.
“I told you. It’s complicated.”
“Maybe I’m not the best person to take relationship advice from,” she says as we walk to the elevator. “But I know a thing or two about love.”
We step into an open elevator and I press the button for the ground floor. Subtle floral notes from Jovie’s perfume fill the space, and I drag an intoxicating breath into my lungs, only allowing myself this brief moment to enjoy it.
Back in college, she used to wear this gardenia-musk perfume on her date nights with Jude. It used to linger in our dorm room long after she left, clinging to the air, to my skin, to the inside of my nose and the back of my throat. Once, however, she caught me on a particularly irritable day after I’d bombed an exam, and came home to the two of them making out in our dorm room. They stopped when I walked in, and Jovie asked me what was wrong. I snapped at her, instantly claiming her perfume was giving me a headache.
She never wore it around me again after that.
“I appreciate the offer.” I keep my attention trained on the glowing buttons despite the fact that I’d kill for another opportunity to delight in her hourglass silhouette and the way that emerald green pencil skirt caresses her heart-shaped ass just so.
The elevator deposits us on the main floor, and we head outside, her heels clicking on the marble and then the concrete as she treks behind me.
“I’m just saying, if you ever want to talk about anything, you know how to reach me,” she says before we go our separate ways.
The midday sun beats down on both of us and she shields her pretty eyes with her hand, reminding me of the time the three of us went to the shore for an afternoon and somewhere along the trip, she lost her sunglasses—which wouldn’t have been a huge deal if she hadn’t had LASIK surgery two weeks before. Her eyes were still sensitive to the sunlight, and she’d been instructed to wear sunglasses outdoors at all times.
Jude offered to buy her a cheap pair from a gas station, but when we got there, they were sold out. I ended up offering her mine. Jude didn’t bat an eye, didn’t insist on being the gentleman in the equation.
Looking back, it was like that more times than it should have been.
I climb behind the wheel of my car and watch from my rearview mirror as Jovie fetches a pair of mirrored Ray-Ban aviators from her bag and slips them onto her pretty face.
If I’m not mistaken, they’re the very same ones I loaned her that day at the shore.
She held onto them all of these years.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Stone
* * *
Age 22
* * *
I lean against the railing of my hotel balcony, watching as the azure blue sea laps along pristine white beaches. Tulum is a sight for sore eyes. We’ve been here one night and already I never want to leave. If I weren’t already set to start law school this fall, I probably wouldn’t.
“You coming out or what?” Jude calls from inside the room we’re sharing. I turn around to find him spritzing cologne on his starched shirt and stepping into a pair of loafers. We’re hitting up some club tonight that apparently has a dress code.
And here I thought this was supposed to be a casual guys’ trip.
“Yeah,” I tell him. I drag another salty ocean breath into my lungs and head back in to grab a quick shower and get changed into something nicer than the shorts and t-shirt I’m currently wearing.
An hour later, we’re sitting in some club where a pseudo-celebrity DJ is spinning dance cuts and throngs of beautiful girls are tossing back shots and living their best lives.
“You having a good time?” Jude asks over the blasting remix pumping through the speakers.
I nod, taking a small sip of my smooth-as-silk tequila-on-the-rocks. For eighteen bucks, I’m savoring the hell out of this. The night is young, our week is just kicking off, and my funds are far from unlimited.
A group of girls in colorful dresses that leave very little to the imagination stroll past our table. The tallest one—a bottle blonde dressed in virginal white that plays off her suntanned skin—locks eyes with Jude.
She smiles.
He smiles.
My stomach sinks.
“I’m going to grab another drink. You want anything?” Jude asks, his vision trailing her before she disappears completely into the crowd.
“I’m good.”
He makes his way to the other side of the crowded bar. I scan the place, searching for the blonde in the skintight dress with the Day-Glo tan.