Good at Being Alive(63)

Peter smiles awkwardly, glancing between us. “Anyway, I insist, Rebecca. Come have a drink and tell me what kind of husband Theo is. I suspect it’s not a great one.”

“He’s the worst,” I agree, my tone slightly too vicious.

I go to the lounge with them and sip on a glass of wine I really don’t want. Peter does his best to be charming—he laughs hard at every joke I make and toasts Theo for “marrying the most beautiful woman on two continents,” while Theo’s smiles grow more pinched, his replies more snippy, until I finally take my leave.

“You need to come to London,” Peter insists when I rise. “We’d all love to see you.”

Maybe it’s a British thing, this incredible civility at the expense of the truth…though I haven’t noticed Theo being overwhelmingly civil, especially not tonight.

“I kind of doubt that,” I reply, because I’m suddenly too exhausted and hurt to keep playing this game. “You were the only one of Theo’s friends who was especially pleasant the last time.”

Peter glances from me to Theo. “Well, you know…”

“No,” I reply, pushing my stool in. “I don’t know.”

“Wendy’s husband is dying,” Theo says, the words clipped and unwilling. “He’s got perhaps a year at most.”

I stare at him, and then Peter. Why the hell did he not mention this when we were in London? I’d still have found Wendy unlikable, but I would have faked it better. “I…had no idea.”

Peter’s brow furrows. “It’s been all over the news. He’s quite well-known.”

The number of things Theo should have told me that night just grows and grows, and I am suddenly desperate to be away from him and Peter both, desperate to be alone long enough to recover from the ways this evening has hurt.

I hug Peter goodbye and don’t even look at Theo as I turn toward the elevator. I’ve told him so many things, and he’s told me so little in return. I was excited to see him, but he wanted me gone the second another option presented itself.

I shouldn’t be surprised. It’s incredibly familiar.





Theo


My brother is climbing onto the balcony’s rail. Somewhere below him, a woman is screaming. Is it Penelope? My mother?

I scan the crowd, and it’s only then that I realize—

I’m in Paris, and the screaming is coming from the room beside mine.

I leap off the pull-out and push open Bex’s door. By the time I’m inside, the screaming has stopped and she’s sitting upright—her eyes wide and terrified.

I fall back against the wall, my heart hammering. “Jesus Christ, Bex. I thought someone was attacking you.”

She swallows hard. It takes her a long moment to reply. “That’s completely illogical,” she finally says. “Obviously they’d want to kill you more than me.”

And then she bursts into tears.

I stiffen. Yes, I’ve seen Bex cry before, but this is different. She sounds broken…the way she did that first day I met her. I don’t think she could stop if she tried.

Gingerly, I pick my way toward her. She appears to have shed her clothes en route to the bed. Her shoulders are bare and a bra has been tossed over a chair. So she’s wearing little, if anything, which is not something I should be thinking right now.

I perch on the edge of her bed and pull her against me, grateful she’s holding the sheet to her chest. “It’s okay, Bex. You just had a bad dream.”

She shakes her head to tell me I’m wrong but doesn’t explain. I continue to hold her, my hand pressed to her bare back…another thing I shouldn’t be thinking about.

After a minute or two, she pulls away and wipes her face on the sheet.

I rise from the mattress. “I should—”

“Will you stay?” she asks. Her voice is so quiet and so young, a voice I haven’t heard from her before. Bex loves to make demands, but I’ve never heard her ask. I’ve never heard her vulnerable.

Fuck. It’s a huge bed, but there’s no bed in the world large enough that I should be sharing with her.

“Can you, uh, put on some clothes?”

She glances around the room. “My shirt’s on the floor somewhere.”

I pull my T-shirt overhead and hand it to her. “Here, just wear this.”

Her laugh comes out rusty. “What did I tell you? Slippery slope. First we have to get married, and now you’re sleeping in my bed and taking off clothes. The suggestion that missionary is also necessary is coming in three, two—”

“Bex,” I growl. “Put on the fucking shirt and stop talking, please.”

Because now I’m thinking about Bex in my T-shirt, suggesting missionary, and—

JESUS FUCKING CHRIST THAT IS NOT A THOUGHT I NEED IN MY HEAD RIGHT NOW.

She pulls on the shirt and laughs again, more herself. “Sorry.”

She rolls over to the other side of the bed to make room for me. Gingerly, I slide beneath the sheets, sheets warm from her skin, sheets she was basically naked in. And she is still wearing far too few clothes, only inches away from me. I grip myself once, punishingly, as if my dick is an accident-prone kid about to run into the street.

Stay. Behave.

I shove a pillow between us just in case it doesn’t listen after I fall asleep.