Page 99 of Double Apex

We watch a yacht pass, each lost in our thoughts.

I lean over to nudge Klaus with my shoulder. “Well, as Mo would say, ‘I don’t know whether to shit or go blind.’ Do I give it a shot now with Cosmin because I got Mo’s posthumous thumbs-up and doctored the rules? Or should I let sleeping dogs lie?”

Klaus puts his arm around me, and I’m wondering if he’s going to be more affectionate all the time now because of Mo telling him in the email to take care of me.

“What does your heart say?” he asks.

“I don’t know if it matters what my stupid heart says. I was a dick to Cosmin in Texas. We sort of, um, ‘had a moment,’ and he was like, ‘We’re gonna fight for this!’ and then I ghosted him. Didn’t exactly do his pride a world of good.”

“Men who allow their pride to get the better of them are failures. Successful men are resilient. Those who adapt become kings, and those who entrench themselves in bitterness remain peasants.”

“Oh my God, you sound like such a rich bastard right now.Peasants! Did you hand Cos the same speech when he stank up the track in Austin and then sniveled about it?”

“I did.” Klaus’s lips twitch with a suppressed smile.

We’re comfortably quiet for another minute.

“All righty.” I stand up and stretch. “Maybe I’ll lay my cards on the table and see what happens.”

Klaus fixes me with a look. “I hope you end up as happy with Cosmin as I was with Sofia as a young man.”

I scrunch my mouth to the side, feeling a prickle of tears and going for casual to hide it. “And I hope someday you’re happy with Natalia, so I don’t have to use you as a fuckin’ speed bump. I admit you guys would make a great couple, if you can pull your head outta your ass.”

I’m galumphing toward the elevators, the tongues of my untied Converse flapping, when I spy a group of four gorgeously dressed twentysomethings heading to the dining room.

Cosmin’s best friend Owen Byrne—a talented but inconsistent driver from Team Easton—is in a jewel-blue suit, the color enlivening his ginger hair. His arm is draped around a tall, curly-haired goddess with colored streaks in her wild mane, who’s wearing white jeans that are all but painted on and a metallic wrap shirt plunging between gravity-defying tatas.

Cosmin’s wearing the green suit I teased him about in Melbourne, his beachy-gorgeous hair exquisitely styled aside from one perfect lock hanging like sexy punctuation on his forehead.

With two Pilates-toned arms threaded through the crook of his elbow is none other than the horny emoji from Austin—Peach.

He brought her to Abu Dhabi?

Her yellow dress is skintight with semicircular cutouts down one side, as if she’s been nibbled like an ear of fuckable corn. What is it with this bitch and produce?

They see me, and Cosmin adjusts their trajectory to meet mine.

He has a faint smile of courtesy, but his eyes are cold. I’m trying to figure out the appropriate thing to say—my plans have been derailed in the space of an instant—and simultaneously throwing my defensive shields up, anticipating a blast of shade from the emoji.

Did I mention my heart is also breaking?

Because yeah, Cosmin has moved on.

Fuck. It. Sideways.I’m going back to North Carolina andgetting a condo and a dog, and once a year I can find some big-dicked Tinder moron to service me, because love is for chumps, and I lost the title by parking just shy of the finish line.

Cosmin Ardelean was ready to take on the world and fight for our love, and I gave up like a coward days before my dead dad sent me “permission” to love Cosmin back.

I deserve to have failed. It occurs to me with brutal clarity that running to Cosmin now, sayingI’m ready to love you—ghost-Dad green-flagged itis the feeblest argument for love ever, and I’m an idiot who deserves to be alone.

The emoji and I are glaring at each other with such “bring it, bitch” energy that I can practically hear light sabers activating as we metaphorically crouch into battle position.

“Oh my God. Did you get mugged?” she asks with fake concern, eyes combing my outfit. “Did they take anything other than your dignity?”

I’m about to clap back, asking if she also lost half her brain in the shark attack that claimed half her tacky-ass dress, when Owen’s date makes a giddysqueeeeee!noise and launches herself at me for a hug as if we’re long-lost friends.

“I’ve wanted to meet you likeforr… evv… errrr. You’re a legend!” She jams her hand into mine, doing a sawing motion as if we’re working together to fell a tree. “I’m Brooklyn Katz—this guy’s old lady.” She jerks a thumb over her shoulder at Owen.

I force a smile. “Nice to meet you. Cosmin mentioned, uh—” I nod in his direction, and something feels unnerving about referring to him at all, so I rephrase. “I’ve heard about you.”

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