Page 69 of Graves

“I know. It’s nothing personal, but… everyone has their price.”

“I get it.”

We stand in silence, waiting for the light to change. As more pedestrians gather beside us, Aran ducks his head and nervously chews on his lower lip.

“It must be lonely when you can’t trust anyone.”

I say it quietly, almost more to myself, but Aran turns his head and looks at me from the side. “Sounds like you know what you’re talking about.”

“Yeah,” I admit with a slight nod. “I do.”

I realize I’m opening up to him. Not that it’s necessarily wrong, but why not to Nahla? Why to Aran Graves of all people?

My brain floods with images from last night—him standing behind me naked and sweaty, fucking me with hard thrusts.

Ugh… Get those thoughts out!

“You into ice cream?” I ask, pointing at the stand by Pier 45.

Surprised by the abrupt change of subject, Aran follows my finger. The sound of his warm laugh is heartwarming and downright contagious.

We cross the street and I treat him to ice cream. He got one scoop of vanilla, and I chose chocolate, even though there were many other flavors.

“I don’t need anything fancy,” he says when I ask if he’d rather have cherry or pistachio.

Together with the dogs, we stroll along the pier. At some point, Aran pulls out his phone and takes a few photos—including some of me with all the dogs.

“Can I post this?”

I look at him in surprise. “You want to post that on Instagram?” I’m not sure I heard him right.

“On my private account,” he says while tapping on his phone. “I only post there for my closest friends… or… well, at least that’s how it was five years ago. The account is probably dead by now.”

“Can I see?”

He hands me the phone, and I scroll through his feed, full of photos. A connoisseur would probably call it street photography. Pictures of people, animals, architecture, and nature from all over the world.

“You took these?”

“Yeah, mostly during tours.”

“I like them. They’re really good.”

None of the photos have hashtags, just the location. Plus, the account @b_y_thom only has 156 followers and after five years of inactivity, it’s probably not coming back to life anyway.

“It’s kind of like a diary,” he explains reservedly, taking the phone back.

“Sure, go ahead and post it. I’m barely recognizable anyway.”

“Do you have an account?” he asks, immediately raising a hand. “Not that I want to tag you. Just wondering…”

“I had one, but… I haven’t been active for a few months.”

It annoys me how everything in my life keeps circling back to Luke—even a year after the breakup. Or rather, my escape.

Sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever be able to leave this nightmare behind. It’s so exhausting to constantly remind myself to focus on the present and the future. I just can’t fight Luke’s curse.

“Give me your username?” Aran asks out of nowhere.