Page 54 of Dirty Like Seth
Her eyes twitched a little and her face hardened, but I couldn’t read the emotion there. “Yeah. Ash and I arefriends.”
“And what aboutJesse?”
“Yes,” she said, “we’re friends.” Her eyebrows pinched together a little and she added, “Of course we’refriends.”
“Yeah? What happened there? I thought you two were gonna go thedistance.”
I did think that. Maybe because the media seemed to want the world to think it, and plastered the two of them all over every magazine cover in existence for about a year. Maybe because they just seemed so damned perfect together, like some royal couple of rock. Seemed like what they both deserved—to blaze off into the sunsettogether.
“Nothing happened.” Elle dropped my gaze, looking out at the water again. “I mean… I had this idea about us. He didn’t have the same idea. End ofstory.”
But it didn’t sound like that was theend.
“And what’s it like, playing in the band with himnow?”
“It’s hard,” she admitted. “It feels like…” She sighed. “I think the worst part is that I lost the friendship we used to have. Getting over a broken heart takes time, but it’s doable, you know? One day, pretty recently, I think, I just found myself on the other side of it. I’m healing, gradually. And I know I’ll be okay again. But we’re not the friends we once were, before we got into a relationship. And that’s the hardest thing… knowing that Jesse and I can never be friends like that again. Because I just can’t trust him the same way I once could. I can’t rely onhim.”
“How do you knowthat?”
“Because. It’s just different now. He has Katie.” She looked down, and seemed to be somewhere else for a moment as she watched the water lapping over the sand at our feet. She wiggled her toes, digging them into the sand. “When he’s around me, he’s not reallyhere, you know? It’s like he’s always on his way to somewhere else. He does everything with her. They’re always together. And that changes things. Jesse and I are friends and we’ll always be, but…” She shrugged. “He just doesn’t have the same room for me anymore. Not like he used to. And maybe that’s okay. Maybe that’s just how it has to be. I guess… it’s all Katie’snow.”
“And you’re okay withthat?”
“It doesn’t matter,” she said, meeting my eyes again. “It’s not up to me to be okay with it. I mean… if he was mine… I’d expect her to be okay with it. And if she wasn’t…” She sighed again. “I probably wouldn’t care about that as much as I’d like topretend.”
“He probably wouldn’t expect youto.”
She held my gaze a moment as that sankin.
“No,” she said softly. “He wouldn’t. Which is why I can’t blame him for putting her first. Because that’s what I’d expect from him, if he was withme.”
“Elle,” I told her, “you’re really strong, you knowthat?”
She smiled a little, softly, at me. And my chesttightened.
I did not want to lose thatsmile.
And what about me?I wanted to ask her.Where do I fit in?The words were right there, on my tongue, but I didn’task.
It was a stupid question toask.
Instead I just watched her as she stood. As the morning sun blazed through her blondehair.
“Come up to the house?” she asked me, as if she wasn’t even sure if I’d come. “Joanie’s makingbreakfast.”
“Lead theway.”
I got to my feet and followed her up the beach, watching her all the way. Her smooth, golden skin. The low back of her dress revealing the dip in her spine. The way her hips swayed as she navigated the softsand.
And all the way, I reminded myself that just because she brought me to Hawaii, and she let me look at her in a skimpy bikini, and she stayed up half the night playing music with me… it didn’t meananything.
Or at least, it didn’t meanmuch.
It definitely didn’t mean I should go spinning fantasies of putting my hands on her or ending up in herbed.
Reality was, Iwasgonna have those fantasies now. I knew it as my gaze slid over her heart-shaped ass… I was already having those fantasies. But fantasies were justfantasies.
They didn’t have to have any basis whatsoever inreality.
