Page 113 of Chasing You

“For one,” he starts up again. “I think you’d be an amazing teacher, and two,” he takes a breath, “it means you can have the best of both worlds. The girl and the sky. It sounds perfect for you, even if I’ll have to put up with Rodney and his lame ass until I become captain.”

“I have no doubt you’ll make it there, man.” I let out a deep breath. Of course he’s happy for me. If anyone knows how I’ve been feeling in the job lately, it’s Wes.

“What about you?” I ask, changing the subject as I throw a soft sour peach into my mouth. “What have you been up to? Except bugging Rodney.”

“Not a lot, to be honest. It’s been quiet without you around—I mean, not that you ever came out with me.”

I frown. “Hey, there was that one time.”

“Oh, you mean the time you spent the entire night pretending to be listening to me talk about basketball while you were sitting there thinking about Marina the whole night? You mean that time?”

“Yeah, alright. I get your point," I grumble. But I wouldn't change that overthinking for the world, because it led me here. “But you really haven’t been going out?”

“Nah,” he says, drawing the word out, and I can almost envision him running his hand across the scruffy stubble that lines his jaw. “I don’t know, all of the drinking started to get boring.”

I blink rapidly and reassure myself that I heard that right. Because that is a sentence that I never thought would leave Wes’s mouth.

“Are you going to tell her?” he asks, trying to change the subject on the sly.

“What?”

“Are you going to tell Marina about the job?”

“I don’t know,” I mutter. My instincts make me want to shout it from the rooftops, to tell her and everyone else around me that Imight have just found my pot of gold. The one thing that can give me everything that I've realized I want in my life and more.

But a bigger part of me doesn’t want to get anyone’s hopes up—including my own. Telling Wes makes it feel real enough, but if I told Marina or even Isla and Caio, that would feel like a big step, especially since I don't have the job yet. I haven't even had time to apply.

I don’t want to talk like it’s going to happen for me and then disappoint everyone if I don’t get it. I’d rather wait and be disappointed by myself if things don’t go my way. That way, I'm not messing with everyone else.

“I think I might wait until it’s a done deal,” I say.

Wes just hums on the other side of the line. “Well, I don't see a reason why you wouldn't get it. And if you need a reference to blow smoke up your ass, give them my number." I just let out a laugh, and it releases some of the tension in my shoulders. “Hey, I'm proud of you, Miles.”

My chest constricts at the words coming through the phone, and at the idea that we might be permanent long-distance besties. “Thank you, Wes.”

“I hope that one day I find someone who makes me question everything like Marina does for you.” It's the first time I've ever heard Wes speak like this about finding a partner.

“You will, but when she shows up, do not get drunk and go to Elvis’s chapel, I swear to god.”

He just cackles at the other end of the line. “No promises.”

I just close my eyes and shake my head. God, he’s an idiot, but I love him to death.

He groans. “I’m going to have to come over for Christmas or something, aren’t I?”

I chuff a laugh, letting his quick change of topic slide. We can circle back to his love life another time. “I know the perfect place where you can stay.”

chapter forty-seven

MARINA

PRESENT

“Someone should nameyou the margarita queen of Italy or something, because I swear,” Isla takes another sip, “I’ve never had a passionfruit margarita that didn’t make me want to puke.”

“Yeah, yeah,” May says, waving her hand in dismissal. “Keep bragging, we know, you can drink alcohol.”

A grin pulls at my mouth. I made May a mocktail that, in my humble opinion, tastes almost exactly the same as the actual cocktails, but she’s still mad about it.

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