Page 60 of Wilder Love
“So, tell me everything. Do you have a girlfriend?”
“Nobody special.”
I translated that as: I hook up and kick their asses out the door because God forbid, anyone gets too close. He and Sienna were an on-again, off-again couple, and I’d lost track of how many times they’d tried to get it right over the years.
“Do you talk to any of these nobody specials? Or just your usual caveman grunts?”
“Talking isn’t top of the list. They’re too busy moaning and screaming my name to talk.”
I rolled my eyes. “Too much information.”
“You don’t wanna know, you shouldn’t ask, Rem-Rem,” he teased. He was loosening up, the tension lifting. Over the years, whenever we’d see each other, it took a while until we got comfortable with each other again.
“Are you happy, Dylan?”
“Why would you ask that?”
“Because I care. Because you have this whole life I know nothing about.”
“I can say the same for you.”
“I know but…” I looked around at the pool. This used to be the stuff of our dreams and now he was living it, but I wouldn’t say he looked gleeful. “Why did you buy a house and that fancy new car?”
I knew the answer, but I was looking for confirmation.
He was silent for a few moments. “Because I can. I don’t have to wear shoes with holes in them anymore. I don’t have to sleep on a shitty couch in a shitty apartment with no food in the cupboards.”
“Do you like your job?”
“Fucking love it.”
Then why didn’t he look happy?
“I’m good, Rem. This is the life I want. The life I always wanted.”
It was true. All he’d ever wanted was to make a lot of money and now it appeared that he was doing just that. “Do you ever get lonely?”
He exhaled smoke and leaned back in his seat. “I’m not like you.”
“What does that mean?”
“You wanted to be loved. You wanted to belong to someone.”
Not just someone. Shane. I had wanted to belong to him, be loved by him. To never have to say goodbye. My therapist, Fran Metzger, had helped me understand myself so much better. The way I’d craved affection. My abandonment issues. And the reasons why I’d never believed I was good enough. Dylan was my twin, we’d been raised by the same mother, had experienced so many of the same things, and I truly believed he had all the same needs and wants as I did but was filling the hole inside, patching up the cracks with money and material goods.
“Everyone wants to be loved, Dyl. Even you.”
He shrugged. “Maybe.”
“By the way, Bastian sends his love.”
Dylan scrubbed his hand over his face and groaned. “That was fucked up.”
“He’s still pining over you.” I sighed loudly, and dramatically. “You’re the one who got away.”
“Shut the fuck up,” Dylan said, a laugh bursting out of him. He tossed a cushion at my head and I caught it, tossing it back at him.
Then I asked the question that had been on my mind ever since I decided to return to Costa del Rey. “Do you know where Shane is? Do you know what he’s doing?”
