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She drew her bottom lip between her teeth. “I admit I was curious about him at first. He’s handsome, successful, and a decent person, which is exceedingly rare for someone with his wealth and status. But I realized that while he may look perfect on paper, the chemistry simply isn’t there. Not like…like it should be.” A delicate blush colored her cheeks.
“Oh,” I said again. For a writer, my ability to find the right words was distressingly low. “Well, that makes sense, but you didn’t have to tell me all of that.”I’m so glad you did. “It doesn’t matter.”If I say it enough times, it’ll be true. “Kai and I aren’t…we’re not together anymore. Obviously.”Because I always fuck up the good things in my life.
I rummaged through my makeup bag, searching for nothing in particular. The adrenaline of running into Clarissa faded, and a crushing pressure returned to my chest.
She and Kai weren’t on a date, but that didn’t erase the reasons why we couldn’t be together. It just meant I had more time before he started dating someone else for real.
“If it didn’t matter, you wouldn’t have gotten so upset when I called him boring,” Clarissa said gently. She snapped her bag closed and faced me head-on. “You still care about him.”
“I never said I didn’t. That’s not why…” I trailed off, distracted by the flash of white around her wrist. It was a necklace wrapped up to be a bracelet, and it looked wildly out of place with her elegant outfit. It was also made of something suspiciously familiar.
Puka shells.
A memory from Christmasbirthdaynewyearpalooza slammed into me.
Where’s your necklace?
I, uh, lost it.
Clarissa was the director of artist relations at the Saxon Gallery—the same gallery that’d hosted Felix’s exhibition in December.
My eyes snapped up to hers. Her wide eyes and stricken expression was all the confirmation I needed.
Another thick silence between us.
A minute ago, I’d been worried about Kai and Clarissa. Now I found out she’s with mybrother?
What in the ever-loving hell is going on tonight?Maybe I wasn’t actually at the bar. Maybe I passed out at the coffee shop and was having the most vivid dream of my life.
This time, Clarissa was the one who broke the silence. “Please don’t tell anyone yet.” She twisted the bracelet again, her blush deepening. “My family still thinks I’m interested in Kai, and I don’t…”
“I won’t tell anyone.” I, of all people, knew what it was like to keep a relationship secret.
She gave me a grateful smile. We’d crossed paths a few times before tonight, but she seemed more relaxed compared to our previous encounters. It was probably Felix’s influence; he could make even a clam open up.
We didn’t talk again until we exited the bathroom. I nearly crashed into Clarissa when she came to an abrupt halt. Her eyes swiveled between me and Kai, who was talking to another customer at the bar.
“You know what? I don’t feel well,” she said. “Can you tell Kai I had to leave and give him my sincerest apologies?”
“What? No, wait! You can tell him yourself. He’s right…there,” I finished as she blew out the door like a gust of wind.
There one second, gone the next.
Dammit. I knew Clarissa left to force me to talk to Kai, and it was working. I couldn’t leave him sitting there, wondering what’d happened to her.
I walked toward him, my limbs slow and heavy like I was moving underwater. Nerves cramped my stomach, and the curious, concerned stares of my friends weighed heavy on my skin as I mentally rehearsed what I was going to say.
I ran into Clarissa in the bathroom. She doesn’t feel well. She left.
She doesn’t feel well, so she left and told me to tell you.
She said to tell you…
She said I still cared about you, and she’s right.
Kai must’ve felt the heat of my stare because he looked up right as I approached. Our eyes locked, and time decelerated into a long, endless beat of yearning.
Skin flushed. Pulse pounding. Heart in my mouth.
