Page 37 of All the Promises We Break

“Are you ready for tomorrow? The weekend? I thought I was, now I’m having doubts.”

“We can cancel. I’ll take the heat for it.”

“No. Eli and Dylan deserve it. Eli needs it. I just want to have fun.”

“Hayles, we can still have fun. We’re still us, just with some extracurricular activity on the side. I can still have your feet in my lap while we watch television. I can still kick your ass at pool. I can still have all the dirty thoughts I want while I watch you get in and out of the hot tub. We’ll be fine. Everything is fine.”

“Uh huh. That’s why you keep rubbing the back of your neck and your voice jumped an octave.” She’s right. I’m not fine. “You act like it’s no big deal, when clearly it is. We can’t all be Eli and marry two of the three women he’s ever been with.”

“He’s a unicorn. That’s for sure. I just don’t want to get speared.”

“I think you may want to rephrase that.” After I think for a second, I laugh as hard as I’ve laughed in days. This is what she does. It’s a gift. It always has been. “You look so tired.”

“I am tired. I feel beat-up.”

“What can I do?”

“You’re doing it. Do you have class in the morning?”

Hayley crawls across the cushion between us into my lap. “No. Professor Kitts called it off and said enjoy the weekend early. I think he has a seminar conflict or something.”

“Would you stay?”

“I can. I have to be home midmorning to pack. The groceries are being delivered today. We just have to do a liquor run, and I’ve taken care of the other things we talked about.”

I finger the collar of her T-Shirt. “Let’s take this conversation to a prone place.”

“Take your wine. I have something to do quick.”

“Don’t take too long or I might be snoring.”

She winks. “Don’t worry. I have a great elbow to the ribs.”

Hayley

After starting the dishwasher, I turn off all the lights in the living room. As I’m walking, my foot grazes Wes’s messenger bag. Everything spills out into a jumbled mess. Couldn’t he just go all electronic, I wonder. As I’m organizing his chaos, his planner falls open to last week. On Friday, it reads Seattle, Gabrielle, 8 p.m. I remember him saying he had a late meeting that day. He was on his way out as I was going to sleep.

I feel gross about being a little jealous. We never talked about being exclusive. Hell, I don’t even know that we’re actuallydating. We said no promises, but maybe I need just one. Wes is lying shirtless in the gray joggers, I’ve come to love so much, facedown on the bed. I sneak by to change in the bathroom. There, on the counter, is a stuffed giraffe with its hooves crossed across a new toothbrush.

This startles, scares, and delights me all in one gesture. I quickly slip into my tank and shorts to join him in bed. His back looks so inviting. Don’t lose your nerve. Pin him down and ask. I rest my knee on one side then straddle over top of him. He smiles with his eyes closed. “What are you up to?”

“A little of this.” My hands begin kneading up and down his spine. The groan he releases reminds me of a Saturday about two weeks ago in this very apartment but stemming from two very different sets of circumstances.

“This feels good. You were right about my neck.”

Silently, my hands work on the knots. Except for the occasional noise, the room is silent of everything but the street below. That is until the burning question singeing my mind rolls out like a hot ember. “Who’s Gabrielle?”

Wes’s head lifts off the pillow a little bit to look back at me. “She’s the sister of that hockey player I told you about before I left. Why?”

“I accidentally kicked your bag over next to the chair and everything spilled out. Your planner was open. I read it. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. No harm, no foul.”

“But who is she to you?”

“She knew I’d be on the coast so she invited me to dinner.” Wes reaches back and stops my hands from moving. “What are you really asking me?”

“Did you…? I mean, is she…?”

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