Page 98 of Vacation Friends

FORTY-FOUR

Maddie blinked, certain she hadn’t heard Brody correctly. “I’m so confused. What do you mean you and Adrienne broke up a year ago? You mean, you broke up but got back together before this retreat?”

Brody shook his head, a wrinkle of confusion between his eyes. “No, we’re not together. I thought Adrienne told you.”

Maddie searched her thoughts, replaying her past conversations with Adrienne. But she didn’t recall her friend saying anything of that sort.

“Maybe she was too embarrassed,” Brody finally said, uncertainty in his voice. “I’m not really sure.”

“If you’re not together then why are you here at the retreat with her?” Maddie tried to put together the pieces until they made sense. But his words had been the last thing she expected.

Brody let out a breath and stared out over the water. “Adrienne’s ex has been stalking her. She’s been terrified—terrified enough that she thought he might follow her here to Kauai.”

“She did tell me she thought she’d seen him a few times.”

“She told me that too,” Brody said. “And I don’t doubt what she’s telling us, though I haven’t seen Danny myself. She’s terrified of the man, afraid he might retaliate.”

Maddie blinked, her head still spinning. “So let me get this straight. You came here with Adrienne so her ex would think that you were together and leave her alone?”

“No, I came here because Adrienne asked me to be her bodyguard. But she didn’t want it to be obvious because that might make her seem weak. For that reason, we weren’t going around telling people any details.”

“Aren’t you staying in the same room?”

“In two separate beds, of course.” He shrugged as if it weren’t a big deal.

Maddie tried to reconcile what he was telling her with the assumptions she’d made. They weren’t a couple? This whole time she’d thought they were. But that would explain why they weren’t particularly affectionate with each other, she supposed.

“I can’t believe you guys aren’t together.”

“It’s like I said, I thought you knew,” Brody said. “I wasn’t going to go around advertising our status. It isn’t ideal coming on a trip like this with your ex. But she needed me. Besides, I owed her one.”

“You owed her one?” Maddie knew she probably shouldn’t ask the question, but she was curious. There was so much more to this story than she’d ever guessed.

He stared out over the water again, appearing as if his mind drifted back in time. “She was there for me after a really hard time in my life. I figured coming here to help her out was the least I could do—plus, I love Hawaii. She promised there were no strings attached.”

For some reason, that update brought Maddie a small measure of delight.

It shouldn’t.

Because Adrienne clearly still had feelings for Brody, and Adrienne was Maddie’s friend.

That meant that even though Brody was single, he was off-limits. Besides, Maddie wasn’t looking to jump into another relationship.

This conversation still didn’t explain why Adrienne had said Brody and Danny were a lot alike. Maybe it was because Adrienne and Brody had some tough talks about not dating or being together maybe. Maddie couldn’t be sure.

But she certainly hadn’t been expecting that news . . . nor was she sure what to do with it.

Maddie felt like she could stay out here all night with Brody. She wanted nothing more than to watch the sunset or look for sea turtles resting on the shore.

But doing those things wasn’t appropriate.

Even if Adrienne and Brody weren’t dating . . . and if Maddie and Josh had broken up . . . the thought of admitting or acting on her feelings to Brody still had the ick factor.

Maddie paused as she and Brody approached a jetty going into the water. They’d reached the end of the beach and had gone as far as they could walk.

This was where they had to turn around and go back. But part of her didn’t want this to ever end. Talking to Brody had been a nice break from the headache of everything else that had happened. It had been refreshing.

But good things had to come to an end. She had to use her head right now instead of her heart.

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