I pull back and look at him. He nods, his rugged jaw tight. “Yeah.” His voice sounds strangled and raw. “This is us.”
I nod like this thirty-second conversation has fixed the disaster today has been. “Now, I don’t think you should start dating anyone in Superior.” I edge past him and go into the blessedly cooler room.
“No?”
“No.” I shake my head and take a seat at the table. So much food sits before me, all of it making me smile and my stomach do pirouettes. “Because you’re going to move to Pittsburgh, and you’ll have to break-up with her anyway.”
He chuckles as he pulls out the chair across from me. I can’t tell him the real reason he can’t start dating. I can’t even make sense of it inside my own head. All I keep coming back to is if he starts dating someone, then we won’t be able to go out.
“I’m going to move to Pittsburgh, huh?” He picks up a homemade tortilla chip and swipes it through the guacamole, also homemade.
I select a fish taco, the orange sauce on it smelling a tad spicy. “You’re the one who said it, not me.” I take a bite, and yep, there’s some heat in that sauce. It’s fantastic and tangy against the milder fish and cabbage slaw.
Our banter goes back to normal, which only tells me all the snaps, crackles, and pops of electricity from earlier were in fact, one-sided.
Re-resigning myself to the fact that I will not be re-entering the dating ring, I finish my fish taco and look at him. “You know who you should go out with?”
He gives me a blue-blazed look. “Who?” he asks in a deadpan. “And don’t say—”
“Lucy,” we say together. I glare at him and sit back. “Why won’t you go out with Lucy?”
“I’ve never met her,” he says coolly. “And I already know too much about her. You’re the one who said whoever she ended up with would need at least a million dollars in the bank just to deal with her hypochondriac tendencies.”
“I meant that in the nicest way possible.” My assistant has taken a lot of sick days, and she always has a very doctorly-sounding reason. Sometimes even a note with a signature I can’t read.
“Well, I’m not a millionaire.” He flashes me a smile, and we say, “Yet,” together too. I reach for a fork and slice off a chunk of the brioche French toast. He’s ordered all the things I like best, which only reminds me of how well he knows me. How good of friends we are.
“What about you?” Murph asks just as I stick the sugared and candied bite of breakfast in my mouth. “Are you ever going to dip your toes back into the dating pool?”
I suck in a breath, taking with it an unhealthy dose of powdered sugar—and immediately start coughing. And coughing. And coughing.
Chapter Five
Sloane
“Am I ever going to start dating?” I scoff into the perfectly gentle water as it rains down on me from above. After my near-death experience, Murph and I managed to finish eating, wherein I didn’t answer his question.
How did he know I’d been thinking about gloving up again? I shake my head, sending droplets of suds against the tile and glass surrounding me. “He doesn’t.” We’re besties, and if he picked up on any of my…longing vibes, that’s why.
“Best friends,” I tell myself as I rinse my hair. “You’re not going to ruin that.” My chest goes concave just thinking about losing him. I can’t. I won’t. Not even for a chance at forever friendship—with benefits.
“What if it doesn’t work out?” I tip my head back and let the water pelt my face. Or I wish it would. It’s more like a rainforest water massage. “There’s no reason to think it’ll work out.”
I have so many examples of relationships going bust. My parents, for one. After I’d made the announcement that Leon wouldn’t be able to attend his own wedding, after I’d gone on my honeymoon with a stranger, I’d stayed with my mom and dad for two weeks.
Along with my two sisters, they’d been my rock. I’d had no idea my dad didn’t love my mom. They had whole conversations just by looking at each other. She can finish his sentences; he knows the exact shade of lipstick to buy for her. Their lives have been intertwined for over three decades, and if they can’t make it, no one can.
“There’s no use even trying,” I say as I rub conditioner into my hair. It’s thick and probably won’t dry until the flight home, but I had to do something to escape the honeymoon suite. I’m still in it, but the bathroom—the shower, specifically—has always been my safe space. I can talk to the water, it doesn’t talk back, and then it goes down the drain, taking my secrets with it.
“You’re just lonely.” I need some reason for all the sparks, all the bubbling, fizzing chemistry between me and Murph. I haven’t felt it until now, until I saw him standing in Atlanta, those broad shoulders and that curling blond hair…
My belly flips as if it’s gone into pancake mode, and I grit my teeth. “Stop it.” He’s a beautiful person. I’ve known that since the moment I met him, sniffling and red-eyed at the ticket counter at Coastal Airways.
“And not just on the outside,” I whisper. My mind goes into overdrive then. If he’s so great, why can’t I try a real, romantic relationship with him? I already know him. He…does something from home. He has a German shepherd mix named Titan that he runs with every day. He lives in Superior, Wisconsin and has a sister named Hattie, who lives with her husband somewhere in Connecticut.
His parents are still married—happily, I suppose—and he helps them with basic home repairs and yard work. He loves the ocean as much as me, so our tropical escapes in the winter are natural. They make sense.
Why can’t we make sense together too?
Exhausted, and not just from the full day of traveling, I finally flip off the water. I dry off and wrap the puffy, white towel around myself. I brought in my pajamas, but the humidity hangs in the air, so I open the door a crack.
“Not dressed,” I call. “I just need to air out the bathroom.”
Murph doesn’t answer, which only piques my curiosity. Perhaps he’s sitting outside or went to find something baked and delicious for breakfast. I pray for the last one, as he said he’d seen a grab-and-go option on the list of dining choices here at the resort.
I toe the door open wider and eye the door that leads to the hall. It’s about six feet from the bathroom door, and the metal latch that would prevent him—or anyone—from being able to get inside isn’t engaged.
Glancing toward the bedroom and sitting room only shows me emptiness, and I reason that I have a towel on. He’ll see me in less in my two-piece swimming suits tomorrow. “He’s already seen you in less,” I mutter, and I dash the six feet to throw the deadbolt and the physical metal bar that will prevent the door from opening more than two inches.
Satisfied, I turn back to the bathroom. I freeze when I come face-to-face with Murph. Logan. I blink and shake my head, trying to figure out why I want to call him Logan when he’s always been Murph. Is the nickname too intimate? Not intimate enough? Does it imply BFF status when I want girlfriend status?