“Oh my god, sweet little Abby doing dirty things in hot tubs and pools. Cabo has changed you! I love this. Winnie is going to love it.”
I want to pull my blankets over my head and hide until her teasing stops. “It’s not bad that it’s Miles?”
“Girl, who cares? You’re having a good time, that’s what matters.”
“It doesn’t matter that he’s my ex?”
“I mean, you’re not falling in love with him again, are you?”
“No.”
I said it too quickly, and the silence that lingers in the aftermath of my answer makes me sound guilty as hell.
“I’m so serious, Haze. I’m not falling for him again. I like his company, and the kissing is fun, but I don’t have feelings for him.”
“Yet. The rest of that sentence isyet.”
She isn’t scolding me, but she is saying the quiet part out loud. She knows I know. After fifteen years of friendship, we speak each other’s language.
“And let me be super clear that I’m not telling you to stay away from him. You’re a grown-ass woman who has been in therapy and you know yourself and your limits, and so I’m not going to tell you to stop anything. And I suspect that even if you said you wanted to stop, you don’t actually want to.”
I open my mouth to speak, but realize I need an extra second to think, so I release my held breath.
Hazel named the thing I’ve been trying to identify.
I don’t want to stop seeing him. I don’t want to stop kissing him. I don’t want to stop whatever is in motion, because I’m enjoying all of it. I like the way he makes me feel. Since we left the pool today, I’ve felt taller, more…powerful. I feel sexy and desired, and I haven’t felt like this in a really long time. Not since college. Even before my shower, when I was looking at myself in the mirror, I swear I looked different.
Ifeeldifferent—good, even.
Between what happened today and the burnout fading away, I’m starting to feel more like myself than I have in a long time.
I would be lying if I said Miles didn’t have anything to do with that.
“Is it bad that I want to spend time with him?”
“It’s not bad,” she reassures me.
“I just don’t understand it. I know he’s probably as emotionally unavailable as he was in college. There’s no real future for us. What are we going to leave here and try to date? The man can’t stay in one place for more than six to nine months. I left my hometown for college and then moved back. We’re incompatible…so why?—”
“You’re so in your head, Abby,” Hazel says. “I’m just going to throw this out there, but like…what if you just let yourself want him? And lived in the present and enjoyed this for what it is and let it be a little vacation romance.”
I chew on the inside of my lip.
I already have a big decision to make while I’m here. The added pressure of another decision does sound like too much. It doesn’t sound nearly as fun as simply enjoying his company while I’m here.
Maybe he just wants a little vacation fling, too. He’s said he doesn’t have a great track record of commitment, so maybe he doesn’t want anything to happen after this either.
“You know, you have this history with him and that makes it complicated. You two used to love each other and maybe you still do, or maybe what exists between you two is just…chemistry. You have, what…three days left?”
“Two and a half. Day ten is just a half-day.”
“Given the timeline, this is like…way too short a time to make any kind of a decision if you’re feeling this way.”
It’s a really good point.
I’ve been keeping Miles at arm’s length because I was certain that if we fell back into bed with each other, we’d fall in love again. But it hasn’t happened yet and it’s notgoingto happen in the next three days.
“So I can just…spend time with him and?—”
