“Where’s Winnie?”
“Working late, so you’ll either have to tell this story twice or give me written permission to give her the story because you know she’ll ask if I have your permission.”
“Consent is hot, Hazel.”
“I’m not arguing with you, but she’s made me wait to spill tea to her before until I had permission, and you know how bad I am at keeping gossip to myself.”
“It’s why you could never be president.”
“The only reason,” she agrees, deadpan. “Now I swear to god, if you don’t tell me what is happening with Miles, I will fly down to Mexico and find out for myself.”
I drag a hand down my face, half covering it, feeling my cheeks and my neck warm.
“Oh my god. Oh my god, you fucked your ex.”
“No! No. We didn’t have sex.”
“YET. The rest of that sentence isyet!” Hazel is practically screaming. “Oh my god, Abby. Spill!”
I groan, covering as much of my face as I can with my hand. And then I pick up where we left off before the pasta class, how he took me out of the class during the wine tasting because he remembered it was a trigger.
I tell her how he apologized and it was a really tender conversation and I was sort of open to talking to him until hesaid that he thought our breakup was for the best and it made it sound like he was successful because we broke up and it really hurt me.
I recount the way he followed me around at all the resort activities and ended up apologizing in a way that truly dissolved a lot of the hurt that I’d been holding onto for years. I told her that I really thought that was a closure conversation and that I wouldn’t see him again, but I saw him at the beach party and didn’t want to just ignore him so we talked and danced and then I started to remember how fun it was to be around him so when I ran into him at the hot tub, I didn’t go back to my room.
“Not a hot tub, Abby.”
“I know. I know.”
She gets the details out of me about the hook-up after the hot tub and I move on, letting her know we got dinner and saw a magic show. When I tell her I woke up the next day with a migraine, she interrupts me.
“Why didn’t you say anything?” she pleads with me.
“What could you have done, Haze?”
“I don’t know! I’m sure they have McDonald’s in Cabo and I could have sent you fries and a Coke.”
“Well, I ended up missing my sunset sail, and because I had invited Miles with me?—”
“Abby, that is so freaking romantic. What the hell…”
“I know! I know. I just…I’m enjoying his company.”
“Continue,” she says.
“And he ended up taking care of me.”
“Taking care of you? How?”
I tell her how he held my hair back when I puked, how he carried me to bed and got my meds, water, and held me because I couldn’t lie down.
“Todd could never,” she says, and I acknowledge her with an eye roll. The way Todd was so nonchalant about my migrainesalways rubbed Hazel the wrong way. She told me constantly that I deserved better and I told her constantly that I was used to taking care of myself and she told me constantly that I shouldn’t have to.
“And then today he took me to the house he’s working on for a client and we…um…hooked up in the pool.”
“At his client’s house?!”
I hide my face in my hand again.
