Our Love Story
“When your career took off,” I ask him, “was it hard to accept the change in fortune?”
“Really hard. It wasn’t until this last year I started spending my money. I’d been terrified I’d wake up one day and our sponsors would have dropped us.”
“What changed?”
“My pessimism started pissing the guys off.”
His hold on me tightens, and I sink into him. “So, they convinced you this was all real?”
“They convinced me life was fucking precious. And to walk around on eggshells, waiting for the other shoe to drop, was a waste.” He pulls my hair back, kissing my ear, my neck. “Don’t be scared of this ending, Chloe. We aren’t going anywhere.”
“I know, but this arrangement is complicated. I hardly understand it, let alone the rest of the world.”
“You care about the rest of the world?” Ethan asks.
I sigh, the booze catching up to my already exhausted body. I don’t think drunk-Chloe is very wild after all. I’m ready for a nap. “Sort of,” I admit. “Does that make me weak?”
Ethan kisses my neck. “Chloe, I think that makes you human.”
He walks me to the bed and pulls back the covers, telling me I need to lie down. Exhaustion taking over, I’m unable to argue with his request, and instead, I close my eyes as he shuts the curtains. When he leaves, he keeps the door open so the sound of the gentle waves can lull me to sleep.
I fall asleep, wrestling with not knowing how to make sense of my emotions, and wondering how a love like this fits into the real world.Chapter 21MasonSitting around the campfire on the beach, I take the bottle of rum from Noah’s hands. The sky is dark, stars are out, and it feels like a lifetime ago that we were in Jamaica, even though the reality is we just flew into Tahiti this afternoon.
Chloe was out cold moments after entering her room, but Enzo, Noah, Ethan and I are wide awake even though we should be trying to sleep off the impending jet-lag too.
“Think Chloe’s doing okay?” Ethan asks. “She seemed a little down today.” He tosses another log on the fire and the crackling sound reminds me of when I was a boy scout. Not quite as innocent as I was back then working on earning badges. Looking around at my best friends, it is crazy to think how we’ve all grown up. Come a long fucking way, that’s for damn sure.
“Really?” I frown. “She seemed so happy, tossing back those cocktails in the lobby this afternoon.” Truth is, I don’t want to believe anything different.
Noah grins. “I know taking her to Disneyland one of these days will make her even happier.”
“Disney?” Enzo asks.
“Yeah,” Noah nods. “I promised to take her to the happiest place on earth.”
“Well she deserves all the happiness in the world,” Ethan says. “She’s been through so damn much.”
I take another pull from the rum, letting the warm liquid slide down my throat. “Seriously. I’ll do anything in my power to give her everything she wants.”
The other guys nod in agreement. We’ve been friends for a long fucking time, and I’m glad that through thick and thin we’ve been able to keep things real.
“I feel like the luckiest man in the goddamn world,” I tell them. “But I want to make sure everyone else is cool, I mean, I don’t take this arrangement lightly.”
“Neither do I,” Enzo says. “Chloe is my world.”
“Mine too,” Ethan agrees. “I still can’t believe she found us and we found her. It was destiny.”
“You’re a sappy fool, Ethan,” Noah teases. Then his jaw tenses, and he runs a hand through his hair. “But damn straight it was destiny. Chloe is our woman now and we need to make sure she knows we’ll always have her back. Her everything.”
“What was she worried about?” I ask Ethan.
“I think she gets worried about having enough time for all of us,” he says, shaking his head.
“We need to do our best then, to make sure no one is keeping score here. This isn’t a contest,” Enzo says.
Noah nods. “We need to make sure she knows that we get that—love isn’t always going to translate into equal time with all of us.”
I smile, raising the bottle of rum in the air. “But Chloe will always be worth the wait.”Chapter 22ChloeWhen I wake it’s dark, and when I step outside my hut, I see the sun is just beginning to rise. I yawn, counting the hours. I must have slept fourteen hours straight after all.
Across the water, I see Noah stepping out onto his deck. I wave, and he calls me over. It’s early and still chilly, so I grab a hoodie from my bag and slip on my flip flops before walking down my deck, and then up his.
He greets me with open arms. “Hey, sleepyhead,” he says kissing my cheek and squeezing me tightly around the waist. He picks me up and the hoodie that barely covers my ass lifts, and I wonder for a moment if I should have worn panties, but then I remember the five huts in a row are ours alone and anything that happens here is private.