Page 74 of Awestruck at Dusk
Cecile sighed. “I like Tobias too. Too much that it worries me—I don’t know, it makes me want to run away. But when I see him, I just … melt. And it’s so hard to look at him because it reminds me of what happened with Paul. That something’s wrong with me and with what I did.
“And I wonder if I did it once, will I do it again? And I don’t want to—be that person. The cheater who goes around hurting people. And I’m so scared of hurting Tobias. I feel like it’s not the way you want to start something with someone new, cheatingwiththem.
“That’s why I told him it would be nothing but sex because that way I thought I’d be protecting him. Hoping he would somehow think it didn’t mean anything and make him stay away. But he keeps coming back, and I keepwantinghim to come back.” Cecile closed her eyes and ran her fingers up and down her temples. “I’m so fucking hungover.”
“Wait here.” I ran to the kitchen and poured a cup of coffee for her. Sophie was still asleep on the couch. There was some of the coffee I brewed in the morning left, and it’d been keeping itself warm on the heated base. On my way back to my bedroom, I grabbed the ibuprofen bottle from the foyer closet and brought it with me.
“Breakfast,” I said to her, placing the cup of coffee and the pills on the nightstand next to her.
“Ah!Merci beaucoup!” She took the cup to her lips and moaned at the first sip she took. “So good,” she said, lifting the cup slightly in a sort ofthanksgesture. “Just what I needed.”
The lightest shiver went up and down my spine. The last thing I needed was to hear anymoansright now. I was still feeling disgusted about Zara’s reactions to whatever William did to provoke them.
“You okay?” Cecile asked, taking another sip of her coffee, her brow lifting, analyzing.
“No.” I was tired of sayingyes,I’m fine, all the time. I wasn’t okay, and I wanted to be able to say it. “But we’re not done with you yet. We’ll talk about me later. What about Jordan, then? If you like Tobias so much, why are you not allowing yourself to explore something with him?”
Cecile snorted and shook her head as if she couldn’t come up with an answer for that either. “I thought it would be fun to tease Tobias a little bit. He’d been cold with me the last few days before the party. We saw each other in Paris a few weeks ago, and we barely left my apartment. He—” Cecile smiled, and I swear I saw her cheeks getting a little rosy.
“He was so great to me, Billie, and I—well, I was a cold-hearted bitch, as expected. And I didn’t tell him I was coming to New York, so he was pissed at me for that, and he ignored me yesterday at the party when I arrived. So when you introduced me to Jordan, I thought I could use him to make Tobias jealous. To reel him back.”
“Well, it worked, didn’t it?”
“It didn’t. I mean, itdidbecause, yes, Tobias came looking for me right away, but I wasn’t expecting to like Jordan. And I did. A lot.” Cecile blew out a breath through her mouth and took another sip of her coffee.
She carefully placed her cup on the nightstand and took two ibuprofen to her mouth, grabbed the cup again, and swallowed them with a long sip of her coffee.
“I obviously said to him the same things I said to Tobias. That it was just sex, that I wasn’t looking for anything formal right now, that I was just looking to have fun. He quickly agreed, so I brought him here. I told him about Tobias and asked him if he’d be okay with it, and he didn’t mind.”
Cecile pursed her lips and looked away.Is she embarrassed? I didn’t want her to be. “I’m sorry, Billie. I know I shouldn’t have, but—”
“I don’t mind. I was just surprised when I opened the door earlier this morning looking for you and found Jordan there sleeping beside you.” I covered my face feeling flustered, and Cecile’s laughter roared through the bedroom.
“He’s gorgeous, isn’t he?” she said, biting her lip.
“He—um, well, he has a great body.” I couldn’t deny that. Even if the tattooed, bad boy look wasn’t really my thing. “But he’s so different from Tobias.”
“Yes, he is. But they’re both so great, and after today I don’t know if either of them will want me anymore.” Cecile seemed not sad but disappointed in herself. And I hated that look on her face. Like she could think for a second that she wasn’t good enough or something. She was the best, and I needed her to be able to see that.
“Don’t be ridiculous. They’re both angry because they like you. And they both want you all for themselves. You’re the one who has to figure out what you want.” I felt like a hypocrite suggesting that to her as if I were an expert on choosing and figuring shit out.
“But what if I don’t want to figure it out just yet?”
Wow. In that, Cecile and I were so different. She was so … free. Why would she have to rush to make a decision? If any, at all? On the other hand, I was constantly worried and battling myself. Rushing to make choices that I wasn’t even sure if they were the right choice to make.
And I wanted to keep telling myself that I had done the right thing in choosing Nathan, but it still felt hurried. The truth is I wasn’t ready to let go of William, but I did anyway out of fear of losing Nathan, and now after what happened with Zara, there was no turning back. I was too hurt to admitI’dbeen hurt after listening to them having sex. Wait, hurt? Try: completely devastated.
“What’s your secret?” I asked her. She stared at me with a quizzical look on her face. “You know, how do you handle them so well?” I laughed after asking the second question, remembering how she didn’t allow an ounce of worry or stress to leak out of her face when Tobias showed up wanting to kill Jordan.
She chuckled cutely, shaking her head. You’d never imagine the fierceness below that sweet smile of hers. “You can speak your mind and get away with anything if you only watch your tone,” Cecile replied.
She looked away, drained her cup of coffee, and dropped it on the nightstand. “Well, at least that’s worked for me in the past. But right now, I kinda feel—lost. I’ll probably have to re-evaluate myself because I’m not sure I’ll be able to handle Jordan and Tobias. Not after today.”
“Well, I think you should keep being honest,” I suggested. “With them, of course, and yourself. Not everyone knows how to feel comfortable doing that, and if you are, you should keep it going.”
“Sometimes I fear it’s too raw—the honesty. I feel like I’m hurting Tobias every time we have one of these talks, like the one we just had. But after what happened with Paul, I don’t want to risk it. I don’t want there to be anything I didn’t say.”
“So what did you guys talk about?” I was so curious to know. “You know, aside from the fact that Tobias will hate me forever. I’m sure he mentioned it at some point.”
