Page 85 of Wilder Love
“I’m close enough.”
“Are you?” He smirked.
We needed music. Or something. It was so quiet you could hear the crickets chirping and the hum of the motor in the swimming pool. I slid my cell phone out of my pocket and scrolled through my music. Nothing felt right so I hit random play. Mazzy Star’s “Fade Into You” piped from the surround sound. Good enough. I tossed my cell phone on the table.
“Your music still hasn’t caught up to the twenty-first century,” Shane said, sliding further down on the sofa.
“I’m still stuck in the past.” He didn’t comment on the double meaning in those words.
“Firefly. Where’ve you been?” The corners of his mouth turned down and his eyes were so sad it made my heart ache. “How’s the world been treating you?”
It used to be me asking him where he had been and what he had been doing. Begging for details of the places he’d traveled, of the adventures he’d had while he was away. Shane used to tell me about the waves he surfed, about the beaches and the food and the scenery. He used to tell me stories about Tahiti and Bali and South Africa. About the Great White that had come too close to the shore, so the officials had canceled his heats for the day. About getting towed out when the waves were too big to paddle out. He had surfed the big waves and he had traveled the world. Swam with dolphins. Cliff dived in Hawaii. Bungee jumped off a bridge in Australia. Once upon a time, Shane had been fearless. Once upon a time, Shane had been an optimist.
I toyed with the stem of my wine glass, not sure what to tell him. I’d wanted to talk to him about everything but not like this. Not when he was drunk. I didn’t know how much he’d remember tomorrow.
“I live in New York City. In a loft in Tribeca. I used to try to picture you there, but I never could. Maybe that was why I liked it.”
“So you could forget me?”
“No. I never forgot you. It was just easier to be in a place with no memories. I think you would have hated living there. It’s too crowded for you. A concrete jungle. And not close enough to the ocean.”
“Do you live alone?”
“No.”
He nodded like he already knew that and fiddled with the dials on his watch. Shane wore a watch now—a diver’s watch—he never used to wear one. Funny how he’d chosen to keep track of time now that his dad was running out of it.
“You live with a rock star.” He swept his arm in the air and let it fall to his side. “Everyone wants to be a rock star. Sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Tell me about your rock star boyfriend, Remy.”
“I live with a friend who happens to be a rock star.” Bastian wasn’t a rock star when we met. He was still a struggling musician, playing seedy clubs and bars in LA.
“Are you sleeping with thisfriend?”
“Bastian and I… we’re not… it’s not like that.” We had almost slept together once in LA when we were both really drunk but thankfully, Bastian had passed out and it had never happened. Sex with Bastian would have ruined our friendship. Ruined me. For Bastian, sex was just physical. He was a hit and run kind of guy and saved his emotions for his music.
“What’s it like then?” he asked, his eyes on the pool that glowed under the lights.
“This is what you want to know? After seven years apart, you want to know if I’m sleeping with Bastian.”
“Yep,” he said, popping the P. “That’s what I want to know, Remy.”
It pissed me off that of all the things he could have asked about me, that was the only thing he really wanted to know. “How many girls have you slept with in the past year?”
“One.” He held up his index finger and waved it in the air like a flag.
One. One girl who wasn’t me. I wasn’t expecting it to hurt as much as it did, but I should have known better. I’d always hated the idea of him with other girls. I hadn’t even planned to ask but now I was going down this path too. “Did you… do you love her?”
“I’ve only loved one girl. She was the siren and I was the sailor. We all know how that story ended.” Loving me had been a curse, not a blessing. “Do you love the rock star?”
Honesty was my new thing, and I didn’t want to lie to Shane. I’d promised myself I wouldn’t, so I chose this opportunity to tell the truth. He probably wouldn’t remember this conversation anyway. “Yes. But not the way I loved you. I love him as a friend and I care about him. He was there for me when I was really messed up and we’ve been through a lot of tough years together,as friends. And no, we’re not sleeping together.”
I wasn’t sure what he wanted to hear. I wasn’t sure why this was the road we’d chosen to go down. Was he angry that I had gone on with my life without him? I took a sip of my wine, tempted to chug it. He moved on to his next line of questioning.
“Do you like modeling? Does it make you happy?”
“I quit. Right before I came here.”
“Why did you quit?”
