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“Couldn’t agree more,” I say.
“There aren’t a lot of people I can have these kinds of talks with.” Her eyes hold mine in the dark. “Okay, that’s not completely true. My friends and I can get pretty deep sometimes, but guys . . . men . . . at least the ones I’ve been around . . . they only want to talk about surface-level things. Anything beyond that and they start squirming and changing the subject.”
“You’ve clearly been around the wrong kinds of men.”
“You’re telling me.” She brushes her shoulder against mine, and a tingling sensation ripples throughout my entire body.
“For the love of God, you have to stay off those dating apps. The guys who’ll wax poetic about reality don’t waste their time on those.”
“So where can I find them?” she asks, her dark lashes softly fluttering as she drinks me in. I’m still buzzing from those mango-vodka shots earlier, and judging by the slower cadence of her voice, she’s buzzing too. “If I wanted to find a guy like you in New York, where would I look?”
“A guy like me? Why would you want a knockoff when the real thing is right in front of you?” I wink and offer half a smile.
“You don’t seem like you’re looking for anything right now.” She runs her teeth along her bottom lip before directing her attention to the placid ocean waves. There’s a hint of bittersweetness in her tone that wasn’t there a moment ago.
She’s not wrong.
I live on the road with the band.
I’d make a horrible boyfriend, and she deserves better than that.
“I wish I was,” I tell her. “I’m not really in a place—”
She shushes me, her finger pressed against my lips. “You don’t have to explain. I don’t need a speech. It’s okay.”
Still, I want to tell her that if things were different, if I was spending more time in Manhattan than on the road with the band, then I’d love nothing more than to take her on a proper date and get to know her better.
“Tell me about the girl you sort of loved,” she says. “Paint me a picture. What was she like? Why didn’t you love her? Why was it only love-ish?”
“I was a shitty boyfriend.” It’s the first time I’ve said those words out loud. Drawing in a long breath, I add, “The band was starting to take off, and I was spending ninety-nine percent of my time dealing with that. She got scraps of me. I think I could have loved her, but she didn’t want to wait around for that to happen. She told me I was married to my work and she was tired of feeling like the other woman.”
“Fair.”
“Yeah, she wasn’t wrong. And it would’ve been fine—the breakup and all—but she started seeing someone close to me,” I say. “Almost immediately.”
“That’s shitty,” she says. “On both of their parts.”
“Yeah.”
“How long were you together?” she asks.
“A few years, give or take.”
Her mouth forms a circle. “You were with her that long, and you didn’t love her? What were you waiting for?”
“Couldn’t tell you.”
“Do you still think about her?”
“I try not to.”
“But you do?” she asks.
“Well, yeah. Not because I want to. Sometimes, a song will come on that reminds me of something she said or some random moment we shared. Other times, I might come across an old picture or one of her T-shirts shoved in a drawer somewhere.”
“Does it make you sad?”
“It’s a first world problem,” I say. “I try not to get down about shit like that. It’s not like we were soulmates or something. What about your ex? The one who cheated? You still think about him?”
Briar rolls her eyes. “Every day. And I hate it. Not hate-ish it. But I hate hate it. If I could scrub him from my memory, I’d do it in a heartbeat.”
“It’s tough. Just takes some time. Pretty soon a day will go by, and you’ll realize you didn’t think about him once. Then that day will turn into two days, then three, then a week, and a month, and before long, he’s just someone you used to know a lifetime ago.”
“Yeah, you’re right.”
“Does it bother you seeing everyone so happy here?” I ask. I couldn’t help but notice half the people on this trip are coupled up.
“Not at all,” she says. “I love it actually. I’m happy for them.”
In another world . . .
Under different circumstances . . .
She could be mine.
And she should be.
I’ve known her all of five hours, but I don’t need to spend another minute with her to know she’s perfect for me. Everything she believes, everything she stands for . . . it’s everything I never knew I could want in a person, and now it’s sitting right in front of me, literally within arm’s reach.
