Page 1 of My Favorite Bad Decision
1
KIT
KILIMANJARO INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT
When I reach the gates of hell, there will be one familiar face.
Miller West.
He’ll still be indecently handsome even then, no matter how old, no matter how uncomfortable he finds the temperature. He’ll have that same snide fucking smile on his face, the one I’d kill to throw a punch at.
“Little Princess Kit,” he’ll say, as if I’m still his girlfriend’s irksome kid sister and not a fully grown adult. “Fancy meeting you here.”
It’s also what he’s just said to me now, at Kilimanjaro International Airport—the last place I’d ever have expected to run into him.
Naturally, he’s in a perfectly cut suit and looks like a million bucks, while I look like someone who just flew for nineteen hours—which I did—and barely survived the experience.
At leastIfit in. He’s the only person within two hundred yards who isn’t dressed for a safari...or a nineteen-hour flight.
“What the hell are you doing here?” I demand with the grace and good humor he came to expect from me longbeforehe broke my sweet sister’s heart.
He looks at the sea of people around us with wide eyes, as if seeing them for the first time. “I’m sorry…do youownthis airport? Is it private? I was unaware.”
He’s the same smug asshole he was at twenty-two, when he first entered our house in his dumb Vineyard Vines pullover and khakis, too self-assured for his own good.
I was seventeen at the time, and I hated him on sight. I hated him more than I’d ever hated my worst high school enemies or Maren’s loser dad. I hated him as much as Jacob, my former stepfather, or most of my mother’s ex-boyfriends, which was a little unfair since I’d yet to witness Miller hit a female or call her a dumb whore at the dinner table.
I couldn’t entirely explain the extent of my hatred, even to myself. But it’s starting to make sense now. He’s as snide as ever, a decade after he left our place in the Hamptons and dumped my sister by text a few hours later. Maren cried for a year straight afterward. I don’t know why I’m even speaking to him.
“Forget I asked,” I say with an aggravated sigh, turning toward baggage claim. “I’m glad you’re here. Stay forever. The weather’s lovely, and the dollar goes far. You fit right in wearing that suit, too.”
“As opposed to you, Blondie?” he asks, reaching out to gently tug my ponytail. “You don’t actually think you’re fooling anyone with that faux-casual outfit? Those sneakers alone probably cost a grand.”
“Spend a lot of time shopping for women’s clothing?” I ask, picking up my pace. “I’m not surprised.”
It sounded like more of an insult in my head. I’d meant to imply he was a douche. Instead, I now sound like a transphobe. This is what Miller has always done: brought out my bad side, and somehow made it worse.
He’s still unruffled, strolling casually beside me, while I’m walking as fast as I can to get away from him and am incredibly winded. This does not bode well for climbing Kilimanjaro over the coming week. “I have two sisters, if you recall,” he says.
“Iwouldn’trecall because I make a point of hearing as little about you as I can.” I glance at my watch as if I’m in a hurry and veer toward the bathroom. “Well, it was as lovely as ever to see you, Miller, by which I mean itwasn’t, but I’ve got places to be.”
“Good luck, Kitten,” he says softly. There’s a note of regret in his voice—one that makes me want to glance back at him, though I refuse to do so.
Wisdom comes with time. Perhaps he’s finally realized that Maren was The One Who Got Away. Sure, since they broke up ages ago, he’s dated a variety of women just as glossy and perfect and leggy as my sister, but none of them could have been as wonderful.
So I hope he misses her. I hope he misses her every fucking day for the rest of his natural life, the same way I suspect she’s still missing him. And I really hope this is the last time I think about Miller West, because this trip sucks enough on its own.
I enter the bathroom and go straight to the sink, splashing water on my face and studying my weary reflection, newly irritated that my father is making me do this.
The hoops I’ve jumped through in the vague hope of one day leading Fischer-Harris Media never seem to end—I’ve worked in the mail room, I’ve worked as an admin, in ad sales, in marketing—but those made sense: they’re all departments I’ll one day supervise or pieces of the eventual job I’ll take on myself. Climbing a mountain, however, is part of very few job descriptions—certainly not my dad’s—and if he actuallyneededthis article, Kilimanjaro is a gig every writer atWanderlustwants.
There’s also the more than suspicious timing. “So, you’re sending me away when you know Blake’s about to propose,” I accused. “How convenient.”
He sneered, of course. He always sneers at the mention of Blake. “And you’re so deeply, overwhelmingly in love with him that you’d say yes?” he scoffed.
It annoyed me, the way he made it sound preposterous. I was even more annoyed that he was right. I wasnotdeeply, overwhelmingly in love with Blake but more…in loveenough, which is preferable.Deeply and overwhelminglyleaves you broken when it ends. Or willing to look the other way when he shoves you during an argument or drinks too much.
I like Blake, but he sure as fuck won’t throw a dish at my head and get away with it the way Jacob did with my mom.
