Page 31 of Seven Rules for Breaking Hearts

The wet plastic thumped as we hauled it onto the rocky beach. Jagged rocks gnawed at my bare feet. Now that we were out of the water, we were both shivering, our breathing uneven. The sun was out, but there was a light breeze, and there wasn’t a dry towel or change of clothes in sight. We’d landed on a small private beach beneath Hamilton Cove. I was pretty sure we weren’t allowed to be here. Giving up on catching the others, we hoisted the kayak under our arms and started up the endless set of stairs that led through the private villas and back toward town.

I mulled over what to say, but I was at a loss. This whole adventure summed up our dynamic quite well. Despite our weird on-again, off-again chemistry, this served as a reminder that our personalities did not mesh. But maybe they didn’t need to; I was looking for someone to break a few rules with, not someone to commit to.

“Don’t say it,” Declan said. He hadn’t even looked at me since we got out of the water; he was carrying the front end of the kayak, which meant my only view was the back I’d been slathering sunscreen all over not half an hour ago.

For some reason, I was offended. “I wasn’t going to say anything.”

“You were going to say something. You always have something to say.”

I gawked at the back of his head. It was hard to believe this was the same guy I’d almost let feel me up in the middle of a public beach. “And you don’t?” I shot back. My already aching arms were screaming at the weight of the kayak, and my calves were sore from climbing up the infinite stairs, and I was sopping wet and shivering in the shade of the cliffs. I was not in the mood for this.

“No, I don’t, but you’re so insistent on arguing about everything—”

“Oh, so it’s my fault we don’t get along now?” I demanded.

He fell silent. All I could see was the backside of him, so I couldn’t get a read on his expression. Not that I ever really got a read on him, even under normal circumstances. The inner machinations of Declan Walsh’s mind were a mystery, and not one I was eager to sort out at the moment.

Finally, he said, “Maybe it’s better if we don’t talk right now.”

That, at least, I could agree with.

CHAPTER12

By the time we made it back to the hotel, I was drier, but still annoyed and also deeply uncomfortable, eager to change back into my cozy pj’s and order room service and then sulk for the rest of the evening. Declan and I trudged to our neighboring rooms, not bothering to exchange a parting word.

As soon as the door was locked behind me, I stripped off my damp swimsuit and drew myself a hot bath. I plugged my phone into the charger by the nightstand—thankfully, it was saved from being submerged because I had left it at the rental shack with my clothes. I checked my notifications, but there were no messages. Everyone else was still out kayaking, which wasn’t a cell phone–friendly activity, so I didn’t know who I was expecting to hear from. But I flicked through Twitter, debated Tweeting something, decided against it. I had nothing to announce and nothing particularly relevant to say. Forcing it felt sort of like getting up in front of the lecture hall to give a presentation, faltering when you saw all the judgmental faces staring back at you, forgetting what you wanted to say, and just saying um, uh, so. Do something. Anything. Picture them naked. Except there was no one to picture. Just a number. 96.2k Followers. And I was the one standing naked in the middle of my hotel room.

Giving up, I set my phone down. The bathtub was full, steam fogging the mirrors, so I turned off the faucet and lowered myself into the scalding water for a nice long soak. It was one of those big, roomy hotel tubs, and I cranked the jets on high and let the water pressure massage my back, working my aching muscles until I turned to jelly.

Growing up, our house didn’t have a bathtub, only a shower. And then my mom moved into a similar situation in the apartment, and a few years later I was living out of a dorm, showering in a communal bathroom. It wasn’t uncommon to find empty bottles of booze clattering around the tiled shower floors or used condoms stuck in the drains. One time I found a cactus in the toilet. Not a tiny potted succulent, mind you. Like an actual full-sized cactus. It was longer than my arm, and someone had tried to flush it down a regular old toilet in what I can only assume was some kind of drug-fueled paranoia.

Anyway, after the podcast proved a success, I moved into the apartment with Jo, where we did indeed have a tub, but it was small and cramped and neither of us ever used it. A Jacuzzi tub—with jets!—was something I’d only ever dreamt about.

Which was why I was deeply displeased when, about half an hour into my relaxation, someone knocked at the door. I had soaked until the water had turned lukewarm, and the mirrors had mostly cleared up, lingering condensation clinging to the corners. I debated just staying in the tub. It couldn’t be anyone who mattered. The rest of the wedding party were still out kayaking, and probably wouldn’t be back for at least another half hour, by my estimate. But curiosity got the better of me, so I dragged myself out of the water with a groan.

I grabbed the hotel robe off the hanger and bundled up to go answer the door. The plush fabric was soft and warm against my skin. I kind of understood why Declan was wearing nothing but a robe and his boxers the other morning.

I opened the door to an empty hall. I’d halfway shut it again by the time I noticed a six-pack of bottled sangria sitting on the worn hall carpet, a hotel room notepad propped up by the cardboard packaging. Sorry for losing my cool today, the hasty handwriting read, and beneath that, text me if you want to talk about tomorrow. In lieu of a signature, a phone number was scrawled at the bottom, complete with the 909 area code we’d grown up with. I’d changed mine to a 747 number not long after Jo and I had moved to NoHo, eager to put the past behind me. But now, for reasons I couldn’t quite decipher, seeing my old area code sent a flicker of warm familiarity through me.

I stowed the sangria in the fridge, my eyes scanning the notepad a couple more times as I collapsed on the bed still dressed in the robe. Since when had I cared about things that reminded me of my hometown? I’d worked hard to get away from it. With a huff, I tossed the notepad aside and grabbed one of the bottles, popping the top on the corner of the mini fridge. It would take more than a few bottles of sangria for me to cave and text Declan first, but I grabbed my phone off the charger and programmed his number into my contacts anyway.

Curious, I opened Twitter again. A quick search for Declan Walsh brought up the same array of profiles it had brought up before, but this time I scrolled until I saw one that looked familiar. I would never have recognized it as him before, but apparently, that was less because he had changed and more because I really didn’t remember what he had looked like back in high school. The profile didn’t appear to have been accessed since senior year, when he’d so helpfully Tweeted a single Tweet: what’s even up with twitter, I don’t get the hype. Thank you for your input, seventeen-year-old Declan. I checked the top of the profile, but of course, there was no helpful follows you tag beside his username. He probably hadn’t been online in ages, and even if he had, I doubted he would have had any reason to think about me prior to this vacation, let alone follow me.

Another knock at the door. “You didn’t even give me a chance to text you,” I called out.

But it wasn’t Declan on the other side. “What? It’s Jo. Let me in.”

I rolled off the bed and unlocked the door.

“What happened?” she asked, as soon as she was inside. “One minute you guys were right behind us, and the next you were gone.”

At least she had noticed. “We flipped the kayak and couldn’t get it to turn over. By the time we got to the shore, it just felt like it was better to call it a day.” I stooped to grab one of the bottles out of the mini fridge. “Sangria?”

She waved away the offer. “No, thanks.”

“How was the rest of the kayaking trip?” I settled back on the bed. Jo hovered, which usually meant she didn’t plan to stay long. If she planned to stay, she would have sat down and had a drink.

“Fine. Great,” she said, unconvincingly. She picked up the notepad from where it was lying on top of the mini fridge, narrowed her eyes at Declan’s note. “So,” she said, setting it back down again.