“How’d you enjoy the yoga class?” he asks.
“It was fine. How do you know the instructor?” I keep my body half turned away from him, arms crossed, and only glance over when I’m speaking. Maybe he’ll get the hint and go away.
“Destiny? Oh, she’s my gym buddy. We work out together a couple days a week.”
A couple days a week? How long has this guy been here?
“Are you just on an extended vacation?” I can’t figure out why he’s at the resort if he’s got a client nearby.
“I live here,” he says.
Now I turn, facing him, brow furrowed. “You…live here?”
“I told you, I have a client here. I’m a contractor, and I’m building a home for an old hockey buddy. He just put me up here while I’m working. I’ve been here for a couple months.”
Which means he’ll definitely be here for the entirety of my trip.Great.
“And your girlfriend doesn’t mind that you’re just…living in Cabo for a few months?”
As soon as the question leaves my mouth, I want to take it back. It sounds like I’m asking if he’s single, like I’m interested and digging for information. I won’t pretend like I’m not curious; in fact, my curiosity about him has been gnawing at me like hunger since I saw him at the pool two days ago, but I meant to ask about how he just picked up his life and moved here, not make it seem like I want to know his relationship status.
“No girlfriend,” he says with a smirk. His stupidly handsome face is so punchable sometimes. “Why? Are you int?—”
“Please.” I hold up my hand to stop him from saying more.
“I’m just saying, Abby, if you wanted to know if I was single, you could have just asked.”
“I don’t care if you’re single.”
But if that’s true, why did my stomach unclench as he said “no girlfriend”? Surely Miles has dated other women since we broke up, especially as an NHL player. He probably had options for days. I was engaged, for god’s sake; it’s not a big deal. It’s not even a deal. It’s just information.
The first two people in line are called in for their massages, but that still leaves two people in front of me. I’m stuck with Miles for a little longer.
My phone buzzes with another text from Hazel.
H: How’s it going? What are you up to today?
A: In line to get a chair massage. Definitely going to call you later, you’ll never guess who else is at this resort.
H: omg tea, spill
A: Miles
I shift to face Miles so he can’t just look over my shoulder and read my texts. I don’t need him to see that I’m talking about him. Knowing him, he would like it.
My phone buzzes in succession three, four, five times, and as I’m trying to read Hazel’s texts, Miles clears his throat.
“Hey, listen, Abby. I want to apologize about last night.”
My fingers hover over the keyboard, tears pressing against the backs of my eyes. I spent last night rewriting the story I’d been telling myself for years.
After our breakup, a part of me hoped he would call and say he wanted to get back together. That he could figure out how to balance an athletic career and a girlfriend, and would I give him a second chance? I held onto this hope for longer than I’d like to admit. I know I would have said yes. That hopeful part of me got smaller every year, but I would be lying if I said it was dead.
One night shortly after I’d gotten engaged, I confessed something to Hazel while watchingThe Runaway Bride. In the movie, Julie Roberts’s character is engaged for a fourth time and getting ready to be married when a reporter shows up to cover a story about her. She ends up falling for him and marrying him instead of her fiancé. Haze and I had drunk too many homemade margaritas, and I admitted that if Miles showed up before my wedding, I wasn’t sure I could walk down the aisle confidently to Todd.
When she asked me about it after we’d sobered up, I pretended like I didn’t remember what I’d said and that it was the alcohol talking, but the truth is that if Miles had reappeared in my life at any point, wedding day included, it would have made things a lot more complicated for me.
I held on to a tiny seed of hope for way too long that he was out there feeling terrible for leaving me, agonizing over his mistake, stuck on the injustice of our breakup and the hope thatone day I wouldn’t just get the apology that I deserved, but that he would be able to admit how wrong he had been for breaking up with me. I wasn’t daydreaming that we’d get back together or anything, but I didn’t want to be the only one clinging to the love we once held.
