I’d ask him again why, but I know better than to think he’d answer.
“Pack up your stuff, Princess. We’re leaving, with or without the project.”
“How do you mean?”
He turns toward me, scowling. “I mean, I don’t give a damn about this album, and neither should you. Let’s go back.”
He can’t stay.
But I certainly can. And should. This is my job. In a moment of pure, sharp clarity, I realize that nothing’s changed. Mal still wants me to make gigantic sacrifices in the name of our unstable relationship. And I still humor him because…why? His pretty purple eyes? His bulging biceps? His panty-melting songs?
Move to Ireland at eighteen.
Give up on college.
Leave my job.
It’s a good thing he still hasn’t asked me to lick his shoes clean.
I pick up my purse, throw the strap over my shoulder, and advance to the door.
“Where are you going?” He grabs my wrist.
I shake him off, laughing bitterly. “Not sure, but wherever it is, you won’t be there, acting like a jerk who thinks I owe the world to him. I broke up with my boyfriend because of you. You pursued me relentlessly, and for what? To act like I need to up and leave my work just because you said so?”
Mal’s face twists in agony. He understands how badly he is screwing up. He shakes his head, sighs, and drops to his knees, pressing his forehead to my stomach. It is not an act of begging or kneeling, but a simple, sweet gesture.
“I’m sorry. I am being an arsehole, but I don’t mean to. And trust me when I say the last thing I do is take you for granted. Let’s do something fun today. I’ll make some calls and see what I can do about postponing going back to Ireland. What do you want to do?”
You, I think with exasperation. That’s what got me into this pickle in the first place.
He reads my face and starts laughing, rubbing his cheek.
He’s blushing. I am melting despite my best efforts. This is how it’s always going to be.
“Other than the obvious, mutual answer.” He presses his hot lips to my midriff through my pajamas.
“Surprise me,” I whisper.
“Surprise you?”
He grins, the same grin the wolf flashes before he opens his mouth and swallows Little Red Riding Hood whole.
“Your wish is my command, Princess.”
I wore a yellow summer dress and a slightly unhinged smile on my wedding day. The groom wore a red bandana on his forehead, Blundstone boots, cargo shorts, and a black V-neck tee that smelled of warm beer.
We looked too young and too drunk and too careless, but we both somehow knew it wasn’t a mistake.
We just needed liquid courage to be able to do this despite the secrets.
Mal and I got married in Cyprus eight hours later in honor of our napkin contract.
We took a ferry first thing in the morning, right after our mini-argument, and spent our time on it eating clams and drinking white wine. By the time we got to Cyprus, Mal’s nose was sunburned, and I was tipsy and giddy—but not enough to think this was a good idea just because the alcohol in my bloodstream told me so.
The truth is, I wanted to marry Mal.
I’ve always wanted to marry him, from the first time I met him. What seemed impossibly juvenile and destined for failure at age eighteen, seemed…well, just as unlikely right now, at nearly twenty-seven, but the contract was a great excuse, and a big chunk of me just wanted to promise him forever and take it one day at a time.
After the mayor of Larnaka performed the ceremony (no kidding), during which we were surrounded by three other couples who’d come to get married, Mal bought me a drink at a nearby English pub.
Now we are sitting here, basking in the surreal, and it feels a little like a parallel universe I never want to step out of—one without Mom or Ryner or Callum.
I’m telling myself this could work. That it will work.
So what if we live an ocean apart? I can visit him for long periods of time. He can do the same. He works from home, for crying out loud. I might make him fall in love with New York and move in with me.
How hard is it to fall in love with New York? All the best artists did.
“Don’t you think it’s weird how we just ran into each other at Ryner’s event a few weeks ago, and now we’re married? I never actually thought I’d see you again.”
I pop my martini’s olive into my mouth. I’m sun-kissed, have a good buzz going, and I’m sexually satisfied.
“Positively mental,” he agrees, kissing my nose.
His entire face is hot and smells of sea breeze, sand, and ice-cold beer.
“It’s like fate intervened.”
Summer is going to kill me when she finds out I tied the knot with my Irish fling from a decade ago, my mom will finally have that heart attack she’s been threatening me with, and Callum…I don’t want to think about his reaction. I’m hoping he’ll never find out. It’s not like there’s anything tying us together. We hang out in different social circles and work in different jobs. He hasn’t left anything at my apartment. He’s always been weird about coming over. Come to think of it, I’m not sure he liked Summer very much.