Page 103 of Double Apex

“Do go on,” Brooklyn says in a comically fake British accent. “You just can’twhat?”

I eat a layer of baklava, considering how much to share. “Bottom line,” I tell her, sucking sugary walnut goop off my teeth, “he’s better off without me.”

She laughs. “Literally no one means it when they say that. Is the sex terrible? It’d be a pity if those good looks are wasted on a guy who’s lousy in bed.”

“Oh hell no—he’s a rocket. But, uh…” I angle a reticent glance at her. “You didn’t sign on to be my therapist, buthere’s the skinny: I fucked up. You know Cos and I got into a thing, and the team found out and it was like ‘Nope! Shut it down.’ Which we did. Aside from a bit of an ‘oopsie’ in Texas, when—”

“The rainstorm in the car,” she says with a serious nod.

My eyes go wide. I’m not mad Cosmin told her, because I’m certain he was doing his angsty Romanian thing and not gossiping. Still, it’s uncomfortable.

“Oh. Um.”

“Shit, maybe I shouldn’t have mentioned that.” She takes another sip of her drink. “But he said it was the most passionate sex of his life, and he hoped it was good for you too, but he was so in-his-head in love with you during it that he more remembers the emotional intensity.”

Her words splinter me like a cannonball of sorrow. My fucking God.

What might things be like if I’d stayed in Austin? If the next morning we’d met up in one of our suites, made love again (that term… whoamI?) and committed to going forward as a couple, damn the consequences, Bonnie and Clyde without the grisly parts.

“All right, but here’s the deal,” I insist. “I gave up.The thing that made me change my mind was a letter from my dead dad saying it’s okay to fall for Cos.” I cover my face, frustrated. “It doesn’t make me a good candidate for managing the kind of commitment and struggle a life with Cosmin Ardelean would entail. I’m not equipped for this!”

On one hand it feels odd to be trauma dumping with anear stranger. But my lack of history with Brooklyn is actually making it easier to confess things. Nat and I are still rebuilding the bridges we torched during our fight, and I haven’t been willing to discuss much of this with her yet. Since Mo’s passing, we’ve had lots of convos about family and grief, but have conspicuously avoided anything more than superficial relationship chat.

Brooklyn scrunches one side of her mouth. “You’re being absurd.”

“Are you hearing me?” My voice is panicky. “I needed my dad to give me permission, Brooklyn—a dead guy! I’m not a competent leader, I suck at love, and dammit, I don’t know what I’m doing, but I have a hundred-million-dollar team to run!”

Crying in public is the worst. With my luck, there’s a tabloid fuckface across the street getting it on film, and I’m off and running into humiliating-meme territory again.

Brooklyn’s arms go around me, and rather than wanting to flap like a chicken to free myself, I sag into the comfort.

“You can tell me to mind my own business,” she says, patting my back, “but I’m gonna put it out there anyway—being a nosy, bossy bitch gives me a blank check on saying things people may not wanna hear.”

“Okay,” I sniffle against her.

She pulls away. “This’ll sound like a cheesy movie, but… do you love him?”

“I just said I did!” I squawk, my voice creaky.

“And has being an engineer taught you to analyze failure and make changes without getting pissy about it?”

“Obviously.”

Oh, shit.

I see where she’s headed with this, and I want to stop her, because dammit, she’s going to make me take a gamble on love. And it’s way less scary to tell myself it’s already ruined. Loss has been the theme of my year, and I’ve gotten skilled at it, but sticking my neck out with Cos and having him shoot me down might destroy me.

She gathers my hands in hers and goes all earnest, and the cynic in me is hating this so much, while the in-love dork is hanging on her words.

“When people say ‘The only thing that matters is love,’ it sounds overly simplistic,” she tells me evenly. “The practical asshole in all of us replies ‘That’s bliss-ninny nonsense. Difficult real-life shit is going to happen. The world doesn’t run on love.’ And that Practical Asshole is right, sure. But you know what?”

Her face is fierce, and she stabs her finger at an invisible foe.

“The difficult real-life shit is going to happen anyway. The thing that makes it bearable is love. We don’tforgolove because bad stuff is going to happen, or because love might fail. We take the risk because when itdoeswork, it makes the struggle worth it. It’s why we wake up and keep swinging every day.”

She gives me an almost grandmotherly smile I wouldn’t expect on a manic polyamorous Hollywood kid with hair the color of Froot Loops.

“Now let’s go buy you a cute outfit and get to Yas before the race starts, so you can tell Cozzy you’re all in.”

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