Page 28 of Sundown Somewhere

I ponder for a second, wondering what we could possibly do while on a golf course. If we were at home, there would be a number of things I’d make him do. But here? I’d like to not get kicked off the island within hours of arriving.

A cacophony of giggles sounds from around the corner, and I spin around to see eight little princesses making their way down the path, their moms straggling behind them. And inspiration strikes.

I rush over, asking the princesses if they have a favorite song, because my gentleman friend wants to serenade them. It takes them a minute to decide, but they finally settle on “Cruel Summer.”

“Are you sure you don’t want ‘Shake It Off’?” Hux asks, looking at them pleadingly after I explain to him that they mean Taylor Swift and not Bananarama. “I know the lyrics to that one.”

“No!” they echo out in a chorus.

Hux sighs, pulls out his phone, and searches for the video on YouTube that will show him the lyrics so he can sing along. I stand off to the side, recording him as he belts out the pop hit, getting every few words wrong and wildly off-key, but putting on a good show, nonetheless. The little girls are enthralled—and the moms in stitches behind them—as he continues, finishing it with all the enthusiasm of the queen herself.

I swoon a little, loving that he didn’t question my dare and jumped into this wholeheartedly.

“You’re gonna pay for that,” Hux mutters to me as we return to our game.

“I have no doubt,” I reply, taking my next putt. “But I do believe you also owe me some truths in the meantime. So…’fess up, sir.”

I pepper him with questions. Would he ever perform a strip tease for his partner? Yes, if he felt like they could both get into it. His worst sexual experience? Ashley Silverstein in college who hadn’t shared with him it was her first time and then cried through the whole thing—“I felt like such a jackass.” But before I can get to my third and final question, he confesses something else.

“And yes, I’ve fucked someone else and then had you in my bed.”

Oh…

“That wasn’t what I was going to ask.”

Because I didn’t want to know…

Hux shrugs. “You were honest with me; felt I should be honest with you. ’Cause I’m not proud of it either.”

“We can be not proud of it together then.”

I reach out, grabbing his hand, and squeeze it. The contact is easy…right. Like it’s the most natural thing in the world to be standing here holding his hand. Even after admitting such a thing.

“So, what were you going to ask?”

Sucking in a breath, I dig deep, summoning up the courage. “Do you ever think about what if things had gone differently?”

“What things?”

He lets go, turning back to the game, and I instantly miss the connection. The loss of him feels deep. Deeper than it should.

“I dunno. Things. Anything.”

He looks up at me quickly, then back down to take his shot. My insides clench, knowing exactly what moment I mean, but not wanting to admit it. Because I know it doesn’t matter. He doesn’t look at me that way.

Never has.

Just because I always told myself that if we weren’t married by thirty that we’d marry each other doesn’t mean it was a real pact. Only in my head. And just because one drunken night at twenty-eight, I told myself that maybe we didn’t need to wait until we were thirty and maybe I should float the idea sooner rather than later, doesn’t mean he would have said yes.

The universe answered that question for me anyway. Because that was the night I met Jeff. Had it been meant to be that I propositioned my bestie, then Jeff Holcomb never would have walked into my life holding a beer and asking if I wanted to dance.

“Sometimes,” he answers, still focused on the game. “But whatcha gonna do about it?”

But whatcha gonna do about it?

Such a Hux answer. I mean, he’s not wrong. There’s no fixing the past. I can, however, change my future. And if this post wedding that wasn’t season is teaching me anything, I think it’s that I need a change. A big one.

If only I knew what that one was.