• • •
We dance for a long time, letting ourselves get caught up in the music. Most of the songs are fast, which is good. It keeps us from having that awkward moment where we have to decide if we’re going to dance a slow dance, or if we’re just going to go back to our seats.
But when the inevitable moment comes, and a slow song starts and the lights dim even more, it’s not awkward. There’s not even a hesitation on her part. She slips right into my arms, and it feels right. Perfect.
“Hi,” I murmur into her hair, knowing it’s a corny thing to say. But I can’t help it. For some reason, whenever I’m around this girl, she turns me into some kind of lovesick fool.
“Hey,” she says back. We dance the whole song, and when it’s over, she pulls away from me slowly, almost like it’s too much for her body to be away from mine. I know how she feels, because I feel the same way.
When another fast song starts, we decide to take a break and head back to the table.
I ignore the knowing looks that Courtney is giving me, and I ignore it when she leans over and whispers something to Jordan and he grins. They’re probably making jokes about how Peyton and I are going to have sex or something tonight. I want that. Not to have sex with Peyton—although, actually, that’s not really true, because of course I would love to have sex with Peyton—but to be like Jordan and Courtney. A couple who’s giving each other knowing looks and sharing private jokes about other couples.
I know that at some point, Peyton and I are going to have to talk about what happened between us, about how I stopped talking to her, about why she never told me her parents were getting divorced if we were supposedly so close. But I don’t want to think about that right now. All I want to think about is how I’m never, ever going to let her go again.
When the waiters start to pour coffee, and everyone stands up so they can watch Courtney’s dad and his new bride cut the cake, Peyton grabs my arm and pulls me toward the back of the room.
We stand there together, watching.
“If they smash it into each other’s faces, it means they don’t really love each other,” Peyton reports.
“What?” I look at her, shocked.
“It’s true.” She shrugs. “Would you smash cake into the face of someone you really liked?”
I think about it. “No. Probably not.”
We watch as the bride cuts the cake, and then the bride and groom each hold a piece, feeding each other daintily.
“Well,” I say, “I guess they’re really in love.”
Peyton shakes her head. “Give it a minute.”
So I do. And just when I think I’m in the clear, Jordan’s mom takes her piece of cake and shoves it into Courtney’s dad’s face. Then he shoves his piece into hers. The crowd whoops and claps.
Peyton turns to me, grinning. “See?”
“So they don’t really love each other.”
“Nope.” She shakes her head, and then the grin slips from her face, and she’s looking down at the ground. I wonder if she’s thinking about what happened between us, and the fear that she might decide she wants to get away from me slides up my spine.
“Hey,” I say, clearing my throat. I put my hand on her arm. “Do you want to go back to my room?” She looks at me in surprise, like she can’t imagine I would suggest such a thing, and I put my hands up in surrender. “No, no,” I say. “I just mean so that we can talk. About, um . . . you know, what happened.”
She takes in a deep breath, and then she nods. “Okay,” she says finally. “Let’s go.”
We slip quietly out the back of the ballroom, the crowd still hooting and hollering.
Friday, June 25, 9:45 p.m.
Siesta Key, Florida
This is so not a good idea.
Going back to Jace’s room, I mean.
I know he’s a jerk. I know he just stopped talking to me after making me feel like maybe he was falling in love with me, after making me feel like maybe all those emails and text messages and late-night phone calls and the way he kissed me on the beach at Christmas really meant something.
And after Jace stopped talking to me, I made a promise to myself that no matter how much I was hurting, no matter how much I cried, that I wouldn’t ever let him suck me back in.
I broke that promise, obviously, when I texted him. And now I’m really breaking it, by dancing with him, by talking to him, by letting him take me back to his room.
But I can’t stop myself—it’s like a wave of emotion that’s bigger than I am. It’s wrong and perfect and delicious and warm and cold at the same time.
Is this what love feels like?
When we get back to his room, he unlocks the door and turns the light on.
The room’s a mess. Not dirty or anything, just messy. His suitcase is open on the bed, and a bunch of clothes are strewn around the room, on the floor, on the bed, even on the chair that’s sitting in the corner.
“Wow,” I say. “Someone needs housekeeping. Why’d you throw your clothes all around the room?” I realize I don’t really know Jace that well. Maybe he had some kind of anger-fueled fit or something. “Did you . . . did you have a fit?” I whisper.
“No,” he says, rolling his eyes. “I didn’t have a fit. I had a Hector.”
“A what?”
The sound of jangling comes from the bathroom, and then the cutest dog I’ve ever seen comes running out, a red T-shirt in his mouth. His little tail is wagging, his ears are perked up, and when he sees me, he drops the shirt and rushes up to me like we’re long-lost friends.
He jumps, putting his front paws on my super-expensive dress, but I don’t even care.
“Hi, buddy,” I say, falling to my knees on the floor. “Oh, you’re so cute!”
“Yeah,” Jace says, sitting down next to me and giving Hector a pat on his head. “If by cute you mean a total menace.”
“Awww, how bad can he be?” I ask, burying my face in Hector’s fur. “He’s adorable!”
“Adorable can mean trouble,” Jace reports.
I snort. “Don’t I know it.” I look up at him, hoping he can hear the accusing tone in my voice, hoping he knows that I’m talking about him.
“Peyton,” he says quietly. And I can tell he knows exactly what I’m talking about, exactly what I mean when I said that if you’re cute you can be trouble. “We need to talk.”
I nod. Suddenly there’s a twisting in my chest. I’m scared. Scared that whatever he says isn’t going to be enough, that whatever explanation he gives isn’t going to make up for the fact that he broke my heart, smashed it to pieces, and didn’t even stick around to make sure I’d be able to be put back together.
He takes my hand and pulls me up onto the bed, and once we’re sitting there, he doesn’t let me go. Hector lies on the floor, chewing on one of Jace’s socks.
Jace takes a deep breath. “I’m sorry I just stopped talking to you like that,” he says. “It wasn’t right.”
I nod, waiting for the explanation. I’m looking down at the floor, but there’s just silence. He doesn’t say anything, and it’s almost like maybe he’s waiting for me to say something.
But I’m not going to. I’m not going to let him off the hook like that, I’m not just going to tell him that everything’s okay because that would be a lie. Everything isn’t okay—it’s one thing to dance with him, to feel his arms around me, to go back to his room with him. But let’s face it, this is just me losing my self-control for a little bit.
At some point, he’s going to have to give me an explanation about what happened, about why he just disappeared, about why he just stopped responding to me. And it’s going to have to be a good reason. Otherwise I’m going to have to walk out of this room, I’m going to have to leave him here, I’m going to have to move on with my life, even if it’s hard.
I look up at him, praying he has some amazing explanation. Okay, fine, right now I would take any kind of explanation, anything that would allow me to understand why or ho
w he could do something like that, why or how it was that I had him all wrong.
But instead of saying anything, he leans down and brushes his lips against mine. Sparks and warmth flood through my body.
“Peyton.” He whispers my name, and his eyes are asking me if this is okay. And when I don’t stop him, he kisses me again. This time the kiss is deeper, more delicious, more searching.
His tongue moves against mine, and his hands are on the back of my neck, his fingers sending shivers up my spine. I kiss him back, my mind a complete mess, my body on fire. I’m not thinking about anything but this kiss.
We stay like that for a while, just kissing, until finally, we fall back onto the bed. I’m breathless, my thoughts spinning and turning and jumbling, taken over by the feelings that are rushing through me. The moment swallows me whole, and it’s only me and Jace, here, on the bed, together. It’s endless and perfect and beautiful and I never want it to end.
“Wait,” Jace says. He sits up and shakes his head.
“What?” I ask, trying to catch my breath.
“We should . . . I mean . . . ” He runs his fingers through his hair, brushing it back from his face. I love the fact that I have this effect on him, that I might be driving him as crazy as he’s driving me. “We should talk first.”
“Okay.” I sit up and lean back against the heavy cherry headboard of the bed, trying to hide my disappointment. All I want to do is keep kissing him. But I know he’s right—it’s better if we talk first, if we get to the bottom of things. And the fact that he’s the one that’s bringing it up just makes me want him more. It’s like a double-edged sword.
From his spot on the floor, Hector begins to whine.
“So,” Jace says, taking a deep breath and standing up. “I’m going to take Hector out, and then you and I can talk.”
I nod. “Sounds good.”
He cocks his head. “Are you hungry?”
“Hungry? We just ate at the wedding.”
“Yeah, but that food doesn’t count.” He wrinkles his nose. “Too fancy. You want to order pizza?”
I didn’t think I was that hungry, but now that he’s said it, pizza sounds amazing. “That sounds really good,” I admit.
“Okay.” He nods. “Walk first, then I’ll come back and order us some food. And then we’ll talk.”
“Perfect.”
He walks out the door and I let out a happy sigh, running my hands up and down over the sheets. As I do, my hand accidentally brushes something off the bed and onto the floor. At first I think it’s the TV remote, and I reach down to pick it up. But it’s not. It’s Jace’s cell phone. It must have fallen out of his pocket.
I go to set it on the nightstand next to me, but when I do, my eyes fall onto a text message on the screen.
From someone named Kari. Miss you, it says.
Miss you.
Miss. You.
The two words reverberate through my head, through the room, getting bigger, taking over everything.
Miss you miss you miss you miss you ruining everything miss you.
Before I can even think about what I’m doing and whether or not it’s right, I open the text history between the two of them.
Kari: Hey cutie, when will you be back?
Jace: Tomorrow morning.
Kari: Am I still going to graduation with you and your family?
Jace: Yup. Can’t wait!
Kari: Miss you.
My heart squeezes, and I set the phone down on the bed and then sit there for a long moment, staring at it.
Maybe it’s a relative, I tell myself. A cousin, or an older aunt or something. Miss you could mean miss you and your family and cutie could be like if you were talking to a kid or something.
My fingers are on autopilot, and they scroll through Jace’s phone until they land on the name.
Kari.
I hit call.
It only rings once before she picks up.
“Hey, sexy,” a voice says.
A girl’s voice.
A girl who’s my age.
I hang up the phone.
Tears prick at my eyes, but I blink fast, and then, just like that, the sadness is gone. I shut it off, the way I’ve shut off all kinds of things these past few months—my parents getting divorced, my mom using my credit card, everything.
And then I walk out the door of Jace’s room, and force myself not to look back.
Friday, June 25, 10:29 p.m.
Siesta Key, Florida
I walk Hector down behind the restaurant of the yacht club, hoping that he doesn’t poop on the grass. I have a bag, but the last thing I really want to be doing is picking up dog poop. And this is definitely the kind of place where if you don’t, someone will notice and say something, like, “Hey, shitbag, clean up after your dog.”
I let Hector sniff around for a while until finally he lifts his leg and pees.
“Come on, boy,” I say, running him back up the hill to my room. I want to get back to Peyton. I want to kiss her more, and I want to talk to her about why she didn’t tell me her parents were getting divorced, about how much that hurt me, about how even if she did hurt me that not talking to her was a stupid thing to do, about how much I regret letting my idiotic pride get in the way.
But when I get back to my room, she’s not there.
“Peyton?” I call out. But there’s no answer. I knock on the door to the bathroom, but she’s not in there either. “Where is she, boy?” I ask Hector, before realizing that’s a really stupid thing to do, since (a) Hector wasn’t here when she left and (b) he’s a dog, and therefore can’t talk.
My phone’s sitting on the nightstand, and I pick it up so that I can call her. Maybe she had to go tell her parents she was leaving the wedding, or maybe she decided to order the pizza and go pick it up herself.
When I pick up the phone, though, I see there’s a new text from Kari.
Miss you.
My heart jumps into my throat. But there’s no way Peyton could have seen it. She wouldn’t have looked in my phone. She wouldn’t have done something like that.
But then where is she?
I try calling her, but she doesn’t answer. In fact, it goes right to voicemail. I don’t know what room she’s in, so I call the front desk.
“Hi,” I say. “I’d like Peyton Miller’s room, please.”
The operator connects me, and I listen as the phone rings on the other end, over and over and over, until finally a recording picks up and says that the person I’m trying to reach isn’t there.
Okay, so she’s not in her room. Which is actually a good thing. She must have gone and picked up the pizza.
I look at my phone, thinking about Kari. Shit. I’m going to have to break up with her. And I should probably do it before Peyton comes back. I’m going to have to tell Peyton about it, too, which is going to suck.
I shake my head. Whatever. Peyton and I will make it through this. Yes, it’s going to be messy and mixed-up and we’re going to have a lot of talking to do, but I don’t care. If we’re ever going to work out, we’re going to have to start being honest with each other.
I sigh and then pick up the phone and call Kari.
“Hey,” she says when she answers. “Why are you pranking me?”
“What are you talking about?” I ask.
“You just called me a few minutes ago, and then you hung up.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Yes, you did.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Jace!” She laughs. “You did.”
“My phone must have called you by accident,” I say.
“I don’t think so,” she says. “It rang, and I picked up the phone and said ‘Hey, sexy’ and then you hung up on me. It wasn’t very nice.”
Bile rises up in my throat. I pull the phone away from my ear and scroll through the call log. And there it is. An outgoing call to Kari, made ten minutes ago. An outgoing call that must have been made by Peyton. Shit, shit, shit
.
“Hello?” Kari’s saying. “Jace, are you there?”
“Yeah,” I say. “I’m here.” I’m already on my way out the door, grabbing my keys and shutting the door behind me, shrugging on a sweater and walking down by the fountain and the garden path, scanning the area for Peyton.
“Is everything okay?” she asks. “You don’t sound like yourself.”
I take a deep breath. “No,” I say. “Everything’s not okay.”
Friday, June 25, 10:31 p.m.
Siesta Key, Florida
When I leave Jace’s hotel room, I don’t really know what to do, so I go to my parents’ room (my mom gave me a key just in case I needed it), and grab the keys to the rental car that got us here from the airport.
I slide my phone into my purse, shutting it off just in case she decides to call and yell at me for taking the car. Although even if she does, who cares? I mean, what’s she going to do? Call the police? Big deal, I’ll call the police on her for stealing my identity. I get behind the wheel of the car and drive. I don’t really know where I’m going, just that I need to get away from Jace, need something to keep my mind occupied until tomorrow, until Brooklyn comes, until I can escape to North Carolina and forget about Jace Renault for good.
Saturday, June 26, 10:41 p.m.
Siesta Key, Florida
She took it well. Kari, I mean. Of course, she didn’t understand what the hell I was talking about at first, mostly because I was babbling, but also because I ran into Courtney’s grandma while I was walking, and she stopped me and wanted to have this big discussion about iPads.
Seriously. I’m enmeshed in the biggest emotional drama of my life, and the lady started asking me about iPads and if I thought she should get one. Like I’m fucking Steve Jobs or something. I was perfectly polite to her, but she seemed a little miffed that I couldn’t give her more info on the specs. I really don’t understand why old people always think everyone from the younger generation is some kind of tech genius.
Anyway, Kari couldn’t understand why I hadn’t mentioned Peyton before, and at first I’m pretty sure she thought I was making the whole thing up just to have a reason to break up with her. But by the end, it seemed like she believed me, and she was cool about it. “Jace,” she said. “I hope we can still be friends. Because honestly, we were better that way.” On some level, she definitely must have felt the weirdness between us too.