Page 91 of Awestruck at Dusk
I wondered if she was aware of William’s extracurricular activities in South Africa. The latest headline indicated he’d been seen on a couple of dates with an insanely gorgeous South African actress. I saw the photographs. They looked real fucking cozy on their dinner dates. But William had to come back from filming at some point, so I guess buying Zara an apartment was his way of keeping her warmed up for his return.
“Good evening, ladies,” Tobias said, walking over to the table—shirtless and sweaty. Joel was right behind him in the same attire as him. Shorts and sandy tennis shoes. “Glad you could make it, Billie.” Tobias smiled at me. “Where’s Nate?”
“He’s working,” Joel replied in my stead, “but he’ll be here tomorrow. He called me earlier to let me know. But don’t worry, Billie. He’s been warned. He’ll be here.”
Tobias kicked off his tennis shoes and socks and jumped in the pool.
“That’s disgusting!” Zara shouted at him. “You’re mixing your sweat in the pool.”
“It’s just sweat, Zara.” Joel laughed and removed his tennis shoes and socks too. He took a few steps back and winked at Lily, who was shaking her head at him. Joel turned around to join Tobias in the pool. He then shouted something to Zara in Swedish.
“Get your own beers!” Zara replied to them.
“Any volunteers?” Joel shouted back.
“I’ll get ’em,” I said with a laugh. I went inside and grabbed a couple of beers from the fridge. When I came out, Lily followed me to the pool, took one of the beers off my hand, and gave it to Joel. She sat on the edge in front of him. I leaned in and gave Tobias his beer.
“Tob, can we talk?”
“Sure,” he replied. We moved a little bit away from Joel and Lily. Zara walked over to the pool too. She sat next to Lily and chatted with them. “What’s up, Billie?”
I sat cross-legged, took a deep breath, and said, “I just—I don’t know if you’re still angry at me, but I wanted to apologize again. I miss you, Tob.”
Tobias sipped on his beer and dropped it on the edge of the pool next to me. “No, of course not. It wasn’t your fault. I’ve just been busy traveling back and forth from LA. I miss you too, Billie.” He ran a hand through his hair and looked at me from the corner of his eye. “You know you’re like the sister I never had.”
“I heard that!” Zara shouted from afar. “I’m getting jealous!”
Why am I not surprised?
Zara wanted to be the center of attention with the Sjöbergs all the time.
“We’re having a moment over here!” Tobias shouted back at her. “You’re like myothersister, too, okay?”
“Fair ’nuff!” She stuck her tongue out at him and went back to her conversation with Lily and Joel. But apparently, we weren’t far enough for her to eavesdrop on our conversation, so I planned to make it as swift as possible.
“So—we’re good?” I asked him.
“Of course we are,” he whispered back with a warm smile.
“Do you want to talk about Cecile, or …?”
He frowned and looked away. “There’s—nothing much to talk about right now anyway.”
“Okay. Well, I haven’t spoken to her about—anything. So I really don’t know what has happened since that day. But—”
“It’s okay.” Tobias seemed disturbed. Like something was eating at him. I kept quiet—my usual method of getting people to talk. “A friend told me that Jordan flew to Paris last week to see her,” Tobias whispered. “Ah! I fuckinghatehim. I can’t believe he’s doing this. We used to be so close, him and me.”
“I’m sure it sucks, but I know Cecile likes you, Tob.”
“And she likes Jordan too,believe me.”
Tobias was getting annoyed, and I didn’t want to ruin the good mood he was in just before. He just came from a run, he was still high on the endorphins, and here I was, ruining it for him by mentioning Cecile.
“So have you been training with Grant?” I changed the subject. Tobias snorted a weak laugh. He grabbed his beer again and drank deep.
“You don’t need to do that,” he said, raising a brow. I widened my eyes as in,dowhat? “Change the subject.”
“Well, you were smiling, and then I opened my mouth, and now you’re all serious and frowning. So yeah, I had to change the subject,” I explained. “I honestly just want to know if you’re okay. That’s all.”
