She sighed. “That I’m stupid. That I’m a failure. That I’m never going to be as successful as my sisters and I should just stop trying.”
Her candor surprised me, as did her doubts about herself. On the outside, Skylar Nixon appeared to have everything going for her. But I knew better than anyone that you can never tell what demons someone is fighting. “And you know that’s not true. But it’s hard to ignore, isn’t it? For me, it’s impossible. I have to learn to accept it as part of me without being its victim, without sacrificing my entire life to it.” Or worse, someone else’s, I thought, hearing the sound of Diana’s anguished sobs behind a locked bedroom door.
She tilted her head, her expression curious. “How do you do it? Medication?”
I refocused on the woman in front of me. “That’s part of it, but the meds don’t cure it. I think the bigger help, for me anyway, is the therapy.” I took a deep breath and exhaled. “I have good days and bad. Today is good.”
She smiled. “I think so too.”
• • •
It might have been a good day, but walking into a restaurant with Skylar still made me edgy. We were seated at a four-top table, and she sat adjacent to me, which put her closer than if she’d sat in the chair across from mine. People were staring at us, and they were probably wondering what a girl like her was doing with an eccentric like me. I wasn’t stupid—I knew rumors had gone around after I’d returned from New York, especially since one of my sisters-in-law has a big mouth, but I was used to not caring what people thought. Skylar, though, kept her head down, her hair hanging in her face. Was she ashamed to be seen with me? If so, then why had she suggested a drink? This was a mistake.
“Are you OK?” she asked, her eyes concerned. “I’m sorry people are staring at us,” she said. “It’s my fault, and it’s probably making you feel weird.”
“Your fault? I think it’s my fault.”
Her eyes went wide. “Your fault? Why would it be your fault? I’m the one who made an ass of myself on national TV. My God, I drunk-rode a mechanical bull for seven seconds.”
“Fuck,” I said with a straight face. “That’s a horrible number.”
She looked confused, and then it registered. “Oh, ha ha ha.” She slapped my arm. “I’m glad my humiliation is so amusing.”
Laughing a little at her red face, I assured her I had never heard of the show and couldn’t care less about it, nor did I care what other people in here might be whispering about her.
“Thank you. I wish more people cared less. I keep getting the evil eye from all corners of the room.” We sat back as our server set two plates in front of us and warned us they were hot.
“You know who you are,” I said once we were alone again. “Fuck them.”
She smiled ruefully. “I wish I could have that attitude. I know I shouldn’t care about what people think, but easier said than done.”
“Yeah. I know that feeling.”
She gave me a sympathetic half-smile and picked up her cheeseburger. “So you had a good day today. Tell me about it.”
While we ate, I told her about how I’d hung a hammock between two birches that morning and took a nap in it this afternoon.
“I love naps,” she enthused, munching a french fry. “Any day with a nap in it is automatically better.”
“Agreed.” For a moment, I indulged in a fantasy of the two of us in my hammock, Skylar lying on top of me, head on my chest, her bare feet tangled with mine, the leaves shading us from the afternoon sun. I’d play with her hair and she’d sigh softly, and I’d feel her body melt into mine. We could fall asleep to the sounds of the birds and and the wind, and the water, and—
Fuck. I wish things were different.
I picked up my beer and took a long pull. No sense in thinking like that. I was who I was. “So did you have a good day?”
“I guess so. I worked this morning, and then I went shopping for something to wear to the reunion.”
“What reunion?”
“Ours. Our ten-year high school. It’s this Saturday. I was going to ask you if you were going.” She picked up her wine glass.
“Uh, no. No fucking way.” I took another drink and shook my head as I set the bottle down. “There’s no one there I’d want to see.”
“Oh.” Her face fell, which she tried to hide by taking a long sip of wine. Several long sips.
“Let me rephrase that,” I said, sorry I’d hurt her feelings. “I’m looking at the only person I’d want to see.”
Her eyes lit up, her cheeks blooming pink. “Thank you.”
“But there’s no one there who’d care about seeing me.”
“That’s not true,” she said, setting down her empty glass. “I’d care.”
“Thanks, but I’d rather fucking shoot myself than go to that thing.”
She sighed. “That’s kind of how I feel about it now too. I know everyone there will just be talking shit about me, being pretend-nice to my face.”
“Then don’t go.”
“I have to.”
“Why?”
“Because if I don’t, everyone will talk shit about me.”
My forehead wrinkled. “Wait, you just said they’d talk shit about you if you did go.”
“Yeah, but it would be worse shit talk if I wasn’t there,” she said with some sort of baffling female logic. “So I have to go, and you should go too. In fact, we should go together.”
I almost choked. “What?”
“We should go together.” She braced her elbows on the table and leaned toward me, her eyes twinkling with mischief. “Then we could give them something new to talk about.”
I leaned in too. I couldn’t resist. “Yeah? Like what?”
“Like this.”
And without any warning whatsoever, she kissed me. Put those soft pink rose petal lips right over mine and left them there for a second, during which I was too stunned to move. My cock jumped, and I pulled away.
Then she sat back, her expression horrified. “Oh God. I’m so sorry.”
Holy shit. What did I just do?
I kissed him. I kissed him.
I kissed Sebastian Pryce.
I tried to read his expression, but I couldn’t. Best I could tell, it was somewhere between Jesus Christ, why the hell did she do that? and Goddamn, let’s flip this table out of the way and go at it.
An eternity passed. Several species of birds went extinct. Continents drifted.
“Say something¸” I begged. “I feel horrible right now. I shouldn’t have done that. Can I blame the wine?” Yes. That was it. Pin the kiss on the Pinot.
But had it been the wine? Maybe it was something else. I was no math expert, but this was an intoxicating equation: Hot Guy with Mysterious Past + Way With Pretty Words x Chivalry at Beach / His Aloofness at Coffee Shop (Immunity to My Face & Flirty Efforts) + Innuendo at Hardware Store x Honest Confession about OCD Struggles —> Curiosity + Arousal (Belly Flutters + Pulse Quickening)=ATTACKISS.
Right?
Or was I overthinking it? Maybe the plain, crazy truth was just that I was really attracted to Sebastian Pryce. But he was probably one of those quiet, tortured geniuses that didn’t go for girls like me. He went to law school, for heaven’s sake! He wrote poetry!
His lips tipped up slightly, those warm lips that had felt so good against mine. “Ah. Sure. It’s fine. Don’t feel horrible, really. You just surprised me.” He shifted in his chair.
“I can tell.” I reached for my wine glass but it was empty. Frantically, I looked around for our server. Waiter! This is an emergency!
“Hey.” He put his fingers over my wrist. “It’s OK.”
“Are you sure?”
His sea glass green eyes were clear and his voice gentle. “I’m sure. I don’t want you to feel bad.”
“OK.” Since he’d been pretty forthcoming about everything tonight, I was sort of hoping he’d elaborate on his feelings, but that’s all he said.