Page 11 of A Quick Stop in Paradise

“I’ve got a big heart,” I said, dry irony hanging off the edges of my words. “Can’t help caring too much about everyone around me… I’m sure you can find it in your heart to forgive me for that.”

“Hm.”

“I just hope she’ll be all right,” I said, settling into a sincere tone again, dropping my gaze to where I drew little patterns on the table with my fingertip, the wood coarse against my finger. “Hard to look someone in the eye going through that kind of thing and not worry… she had a fully internalized meltdown while staying perfectly polite on the outside.”

“I’m pretty sure it’s just because you blame yourself.”

I put my hands up. “I’ve dealt with enough people to know who to be mad at. Shane’s the one who’s been cheating on her.”

She scrunched up her face, studying me for a long time, before she looked away. “If you say so.”

I smiled drily, leaning in towards her. “So… something you want to share with the class?”

She looked sharply back at me, frowning. “What are you talking about?”

“Someone cheated on you over the last year, or what’s the baggage about?”

“Oh my god, BB, I don’t have baggage.” She folded her arms, face scrunched up in the way that said she had baggage. I stood up.

“Well, if that’s true, then I guess we’re all good here. Let me guess, you want food?”

She pouted a little. “I’m famished.”

“Pizza?”

“You’re the best friend in the world.”

I laughed, heading into the galley-style kitchen and rooting in the fridge for the pizza dough I’d left to prep. “If you wanna say thank you, you could tell me what’s your baggage, so I know where to watch and not step on your toes while talking about Ryan…”

“You with the baggage again! I’d think you just collect people with baggage.” She paused. “Actually, I think that’s true. Who’s the last person you had around who didn’t have issues?”

“Welcome to adulthood, kid, we’ve all got issues.”

“And yours?”

I tossed the pizza dough on the counter, leaning over it to give her a dry look. “A heart too big. A zest for life that’s just too infectious for my own good. Abandonment issues. The standard. What do you want on your pizza?”

She still avoided the subject until we were outside, in the little patio I’d set up behind the house, tucked in under the shade of palm trees with smooth stones in a loose cobblestone floor and low brick walls with a brick oven built in, and it was dark minus the light of bug-repellant lanterns flickering around the edges of the patio and the glow of the fire, a couple of small pizzas cooking, and me and Allison sitting on the patio furniture with Moscow mule mugs filled up with ice-cold ginger beer, that she admitted, “I kind of did the same thing.”

I looked at her from the corner of my eye, at where she was cast in long shadows, stark contrast with the glow of the fire warm orange over one side of her face. “Cheated on someone?”

She scowled at me. “What do you take me for? No. I, uh.” She scratched the back of her head. “Someone cheated with me. I didn’t know she had a girlfriend.”

I set the drink down on the glass-top coffee table, resting my elbows on my knees. “It’s hard as hell to stop blaming yourself for it. Promise it’s not your fault, though. How long ago was it?”

“It’s been a minute… that was back in March.”

Three months wasn’t that long, but sure. “So, how’d it go? Girlfriend blew up at you?”

She cringed harder. “I wish I were as good as you are at this. Nope. She never found out. Far as I know, they’re still together.”

“Ouch.”

“I’m a terrible sack of shit.”

“We’re all terrible sacks of shit at one point or another. You only really do well for yourself in life if you recognize it and start to do something about it. It should be her responsibility to come clean, though,” I said, pushing up to my feet and lifting the pizza peel off the wall and sliding out the pizzas, a pair of them done perfectly. With pineapple on mine, because I was a monster. Allison had given me relentless shit over it until I’d gotten her to try it, and she didn’t start asking for it on hers, but she got real quiet on the subject after that.

“I know that,” Allison said, hunching her shoulders watching me as I laid out the pizzas on the table in front of us. “But she’s notgoingto. She clearly doesn’t feel guilty. She and her girlfriend are out there posting cute stories of the two of them on Insta and everything, always like,out for drinks with the love of my life,and whenever they make a post or anything, the comments are full of all their friends like,oh my god, you two are so cute, couple goals,bullshit like that.”

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