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It’s the least I can do to make his job a tiny bit easier, after everything he does for me. The pre-tour party. It’s tradition, and it’s usually fun. I can handle it.
Skye pulls me in for a fierce hug which lasts for a split second—it’s still more physical affection than either of us has ever shown to each other—and pats me on the head as if I’m two years old, leaving me dripping on the wooden lower deck.
Jude and Eden are gone.
I try to catch my breath, coughing out some more water that’s lodged in my throat. The pain in my head is subsiding a bit and it dawns on me that I’m still alive. Worse, I’m still on the boat. And I am still burning.
And it’s not from seeing Eden in a bikini–well, not just that. In the beginning, it was. But Eden in Jude’s arms… How he took care of her, how he wouldn’t let her out of his sight until he knew she was ok. Something inside me has ignited and it won’t go out.
I always thought that it being jealous made you a loser.
And it does, oh, my God, it does.
I am such a loser.
A loser who is about to murder my best friend.
I take a freezing cold shower, but every time I squeeze my eyes shut, I see her pale lips whisper ‘I’m tired’ and Jude grabbing her out of the water and placing her head on his shoulder. His wiry, bony, tattooed shoulder, that reaches half an inch below me when we stand side by side. But still, it was enough to save her from drowning.
I should have done that.
No one should have saved her but me.
No one should have freaking touched her but me.
Except she’s not mine to save. Or protect. Or get jealous over. She’s not mine anything.
…
By the time I finally come out of the shower, the yacht is moving.
Everyone is having a relaxed lunch together on deck, under the sun, and I join them, trying not to look in Eden’s direction. I fail. She’s glowing. She’s gotten a light tan, and every time she looks at Jude, her eyes go all shiny and happy. She’s wearing a different swimming top and he’s in nothing but his trunks. I nearly get up and leave the table, but I restrain myself.
Just barely.
After we eat, Eden starts to say something and just stops.
I’ve never seen anything like it. She opens her mouth, a sound comes out, and then she just clams it shut and looks down at the empty plate, her cheeks turning red. Eden was a lot of things when I met her six years ago, but shy wasn’t one of them.
She was scared and sad, and she was very closed off, almost hostile.
But she wasn’t shy. She was feral.
She is far more reserved now than she used to be, but I’ve never seen anything like this. Stopping herself from talking. Shoulders hunching down, trying to make herself disappear. It turns my stomach. It shocks me so much that my own mouth hangs open, a half-eaten bite of pasta on my fork.
“What were you—?” I start to ask her what she was going to say, but Jude beats me to it.
Freaking Jude. Again.
He nearly jumps out of his seat in his eagerness to turn around to face her.
“What were you going to say?” he asks her over me.
Eden looks up at him. Not at me. It’s like I don’t even exist.
“Nothing,” she says, “it’s silly. About what we made… before…”
“Oh, yeah yeah yeah,” Jude exclaims excitedly. Happily, I would say. “Shoot, I can’t believe I forgot to ask the servers to bring them up. Wait, I’ll do it. Hold on a second, guys, and prepare to be amazed.”
