Page 65 of Tourist Trap

“She told me I was too chicken. It was to prove I wasn’t into her.”

He lets out a laugh, and I can’t even be mad. It sounds idiotic even to me.

“And then…?”

“And then I stopped and told her we can’t do that because she’s someone who needs a relationship, and I can’t give her that.” Grant glares at me. Because I just need to get it all out, I add with one last breath, “And then I avoided her.”

“What the fuck, man? Why do you think you can’t give her that?” he says in a calm voice he must have adopted from his sister.

“I don’t know!” I say, throwing my hands into the air. “It’s too fucking messy, and I have too much going on.” I let my head hit the bar top and groan. “Because I’ve got too fucking much going on. Because she’s Paul’s ex. Because she’s going to leave at the end of the summer.”

Silence hangs between us before Grant speaks again.

“Come on, man. She was never Paul’s.”

I lift my head from the bar and look at him. “What?” I ask, my blood going cold.

“It was always you, Miles. She always had a thing for you, but you convinced yourself she was too young and that she needed to enjoy school or whatever the fuck bullshit excuse you use to separate yourself from things so you can’t have anything good in your life.”

I open my mouth to argue, to tell him I don’t do that, but he gives me a look, and I close it.

Do I do that? Create barriers and excuses for why I can’t have good things?

Instantly, I see the truth in his statement.

A dozen moments in time flash in my mind with his statement, a dozen examples of not letting myself have something I wanted. Letting Paul have things that he didn’t evenattemptto earn just because I was the older brother, and that’s what I was supposed to do. Not letting myself have a social life in order to build my business into something bigger, something I could be proud of, when everyone around me was already proud of me.

How many times have my friends and family told me they were worried about me and my nonstop need to work?

How many times has my mom told me she’s terrified I’m going to work myself into an early grave like my dad? My dad, who never let himself have a day off because he wassavingfor retirement or some big family vacation or a bigger house or a better life, when looking back, I would give up all of that just fortimewith him.

Fuck, Ijusttold Claire I was too busy to give her what she deserved, didn’t I?

But Grant’s statement cracks something inside of me inexplicably. If I’m too busy working for a better life to enjoy the great one I have, what’s the fuckingpointof it all? What’s the point of working myself to the bone if I have no one to share it with? My mind runs through at least a dozen other times over the years where I haven’t gone after something I wanted because I convinced myself I couldn’t have it, that I hadn’t earned that freedom of time off.

Hell, Claire had to make me abucket listbecause she is so aware of how little I do things for myself.

Six years of telling myself I didn’t deserve Claire, only for her to tell me she only wantedme.

And then I told her it wasn’t enough. The sad look that slid through her eyes in my kitchen this morning flashes through my mind, a knife to the heart.

“It’s the same shit you’re spewing now, years later,” he adds, his eyes filled with accusation. My mind is reeling as he continues to speak, and if I’m being honest, I don’t know if Iwantto hear what else he has to say. “That summer, she was done with school, and you told me you were going for it. But your brother was there, and Paul, being the fuckwad Paul is, had to have what you so clearly wanted. We all knew it was happening. Except for Claire, of course.”

I remember that night very well, of course.

We were at the Memorial Day party Surf was throwing on the beach, and despite hating the place, Grant had dragged me to it. I was sitting with Grant and Paul, who was telling us about his newest get-rich-quick scheme. I can’t even remember why he was home for the weekend, which was a rarity since he graduated from high school, though he was probably there asking for money.

That’s when I realized she was back, when I heard the magical laugh that I’d grown to both love and hate. My head turned in the direction it came from, and I saw her, dancing with June, a drink in her hand, head tipped back in laughter.

“Is this going to be the year?” Grant asked. He looked at me with that knowing smirk I always want to hit off him, but I couldn’t deny it. I smiled back, ready to finally give myself justonefucking thing I wanted.

Because I had always wanted Claire Donovan.

“Yeah,” I said simply.

I’d always thought she was the most gorgeous woman, but I refused to even think about starting something with her knowing she’d be going back to school in the fall. She deserved that, to enjoy college without having to worry about some older boyfriend back in his hometown, wallowing away as a mechanic and desperately trying to make ends meet.

“Who is she?” Paul asked, and looking back, I realize I shouldn’t have said a goddamn thing, not with knowing the way he is. But back then, I still had the blinders on, the desperate hope that one day, my brother would grow up and snap out of it. Unfortunately, I’ve learned narcissism isn’t something you justgrow out of.

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