Page 28 of Rebooked For Us
“I got more made. It was what I had left of you.”
My hand slid up the back of his neck before I told it not to. The island air was warm giving us a sticky feel. The candles flickered around us. I let myself have this moment even if I didn’t know what it meant.
“I fucked up, Skye.” His voice was so low I wondered if I was even supposed to hear it; he might as well have been writing on my skin. “I can’t say it enough. If I had it my way, I wouldn't be on a comeback tour to begin with but–”
“No, don’t do that. They made sure...” I shook my head before he could pick it up. “Not tonight, Ducane.”
He pulled back just enough to look at me. “Give me another chance to show you that I’ve never stopped loving you, wanting you. I don’t know what that looks like. I can’t even front like I have it all figured out, but I need a do-over, baby. And I know I don’t deserve it. I ain’t earned that shit either…Stay with me tonight.”
“I can’t.”
“Can’t or don’t want to?”
I stepped back and picked up the wine bottle off the table before looking at him and his full lips and bushy eyebrows. Walking away was the last thing my body wanted and the only thing keeping me safe. He had no idea what he was really asking for. A do-over meant the whole truth, and I wasn’t drunk enough or brave enough to put that on the table tonight.
“Goodnight, Sugar Cane.”
day one, june 24th
I couldn’t sleep, so I ran.
From what I wasn’t sure.
Shit, yes, I was. Skye fine ass fuckin Campbell.
Infinity Island at four in the morning couldn’t touch her.
It was still dark out, but the warmth hadn’t let up. My feet found the ground, and my lungs found the air, and for the first time since that beach dinner, I stopped thinking and just moved.
I was breathing easy for the first time in weeks, and all it did was remind me how long I’d gone without her air.
My phone buzzed somewhere around mile two. It was Devon. I glanced at my watch to read the text without breaking my stride.
D: Call me when you’re up. It’s Bianca again.
I was over her shit. She had been talking since the engagement ended, which was her right, even if it was a bunch of bullshit. The arrangement had been understood by both of us from the start, something our families wanted, something neither of us had pushed back on. It worked fine until it didn’t. She started wanting a real husband out of it. I couldn’t give her that; that promise already belonged to someone else.
Or maybe she had always wanted more. If I thought back to it, she’d moved to Upland to take over her father’s firm the same season I took over mine, and I’d read it as two heirs taking their seats. Our fathers being best friends never made a difference to me. It never made me feel I owed her anything, least of all love. I hated that anyone thought it did. I’d only tolerated her, same as everyone else did.
But tolerating her got harder the more she wanted. More parties I had to show up to on her arm. More calls I had to take just to keep the peace. More of her popping up places she had no business being, all while I was already running myself into the ground at the firm. My body started keeping score even when I wasn’t.
When I took the Mudd case, everything shifted. Spending real time with him meant spending it with his people, and that’s where Bianca couldn’t hide what she was. We’d broken bread with the man and his family. She’d call his wife a friend at the mall, then call Mudd a thug behind his back. All smiles in a selfie with rappers, then sick over how it looked for me to be “defending trash.”
She was starting to sound too much like Ruben in a wig and lipstick.
Me: Devon, I don’t have shit to say. I just won the biggest case of my life. If she wanna spiral in front of mixed company, let her. Paperwork doesn’t lie.
D: I hope you know what you are doing. She’s calling me nonstop for your location. She said she has something important to tell you.
I hadn’t expected her reaction and didn’t fully understand it, because none of this was ever real. We’d never even slept together, hardly lived together. We vacationed, did dinner, showed up together to give people breadcrumbs, and it seemed those same crumbs went to her head.
She’d bring up Skye sometimes, out of nowhere, never by name, always some version of “the project still has your heart” or “encouraging me to let my puppy love go.” I never fed into that shit. There wasn’t a single thing she could say to move Skye out of the space she’d been sitting in since college.
After two more miles and more running through all the ways I couldn’t fuck this up, I received a call from my father. I was tempted to ignore it, but as I stepped into my villa, I answered.
“Yeah.”
“You see the articles. Bianca is not going away easily.”
