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“I would expect nothing less,” I chuckled.
“And…well, Keith was the only one there that night besides Jake.”
My mouth dropped. “You hooked up with Jake, the bartender!?” I squealed in a fit of laughter.
“God, no,” Claire scoffed.
My laughter faded slowly. Too slowly. Because it felt like I was being hit by a train, but that happens quickly. Not in slow motion. Nonetheless, everything slowed. My heart slowed to the point that I thought it had stopped.
“Wait. So if you didn’t hook up with Jake, then…”
She scrunched up her face. “Keith. But like I said, we didn’t go all the way, and it meant nothing.” She buried her face in her hands. “God, I’m so embarrassed. The only reason I’m telling you now is because I’m hoping with you two working on the marina together, you hate him a little less. Enough not to kill me for hooking up with the enemy.”
Claire was so…oblivious. She truly had no idea what was happening between me and Keith. She didn’t because I made a point not to tell her. It had never been the right time, and it obviously still wasn’t. I tried to force a smile, to coddle her blissful ignorance. I couldn’t stand to let her know she was crushing me, but I also didn’t know how to act normal. My eyes glossed over with tears, no matter how hard I tried to stop them.
“You hooked up with Keith?” I rasped, still smiling through my tears like a crazy person. I hoped she’d think they were from laughing so hard just moments ago, before the whole world got ripped out from under me.
“Don’t hate me,” she begged, still half joking. “You understand the many reasons why I couldn’t tell you, obviously.”
It was true. Claire had many reasons not to tell me. The biggest one was that it shouldn’t have mattered to me because, as far as she knew…Keith was just a high school crush who broke my heart, then I grew up and moved on. Now, we bickered a lot and worked together. The end.
She didn’t know he had convinced me to let my guard down and fall for him again. And I never thought to ask if anything happened between her and Keith because…why would I? What universe would that happen in?
Everything about our logic leading up to that fateful moment made sense. Except…one person could fill in the blanks of what the two of us did not know. One person knew it all the entire time…and he never said a word.
Keith knew. And he should have told me before he ever even thought about kissing me for the first time. But he didn’t because that was the kind of thing Keith did. I knew it all along. I tried to tell him I saw through his ‘good guy’ charade, and he convinced me I was wrong. He worked so hard to break me down…only for this to happen.
“You okay?” Claire asked, snapping me out of it.
“I…I don’t know,” I admitted. “I’m not feeling so great all of a sudden. Like Keith said…we drank so many beers last night…” I offered, going along with another one of his many lies.
I apologized and excused myself to my room to cry and catch my breath. As I stood there, I saw the movie reel play before my eyes like I was standing in it all over again. Only this time, it wasn’t distant pain from a long time ago. It really was happening all over again, because my heart felt the same as it did at that moment. Keith sneaking away from the dance with Tanya Cane. I was standing there alone, feeling my heart shatter. Optimistic dreams of what could be…slipping through my fingers, leaving me to feel like an idiot for ever believing I saw something good in Keith.
26
KEITH
Work at the marina that afternoon was unbearably hot, and not just because of the summer heat. Vivid flashes of the night before with Lana flooded my brain, turning me into a human sauna. The only thing that kept me going was my hopes for seeing her again that night.
Much to my surprise, I didn’t have to wait that long. Around lunchtime, Lana’s car pulled into the parking lot. The guys cleared out to eat in the shade on the patio. I waited for her to come in, then raced over to hold her in my arms. She seemed tense, and she didn’t greet me with a smile.
“Sorry. I’m covered in sweat,” I laughed, wiping my brow. “Everything okay?”
“No,” she replied in a daze.
“Lana, what is it?” A panic grew inside as I tried to imagine all the possibilities of what could have gone wrong since I left that morning.
“You knew Claire wouldn’t be surprised,” she said softly.
“What?”
“About Chris cheating on her. You knew she wouldn’t be surprised because it had happened before. And when it did…in typical Keith fashion, you were all too willing to swoop in and console her…with sex.”
I froze. That was not one of the possibilities I had foreseen, though as she spoke the words…I should have seen it coming, and I should have done something to try and stop it. I knew I had done it all over again. She was right. In true Keith fashion, I was an idiot who always managed to screw up the best things that happened to me.
“We didn’t sleep together,” I offered, even though I knew it didn’t help.
Her face twisted in disgust. “Like it matters,” she scoffed.
