Page 56 of A Quick Stop in Paradise

“Shut up,” she said, rolling her eyes with a dry smile as she sipped her drink. “I’m just saying, I feel like you got burned so badly you’re not going to date for a while once we’re all back home…”

I pursed my lips. I didn’t like to think about the end of this trip, when I’d pack up and say goodbye to Brooklyn. But that was a fling, right? It was beautiful, it was uncomplicated, and the only hard part was that one little bit where you had to pull off the bandaid and say goodbye. “Yeah, probably,” I said quietly.

“So? You see my point, right?”

I shrugged, keeping my gaze on the distance. She gave me a look.

“So?”

“You’re not normally this insistent,” I said quietly. “What’s up?”

“Huh?”

“It’s not lost on me that you’re normally a million miles from me and now you’re having drinks on the beach with me talking about boys. So, what’s up?”

She frowned. “It’s that you’ve always been too good for me. And you always had Shane around.”

“Did you not like him?”

“Not really. He’s full of himself and annoying.”

“You—” I shot her an incredulous look. “You were telling me to marry him. That it was a bummer he wasn’t going to propose to me here.”

“I mean, that’s what you do, right? Try to get married and live a good life.”

“With someone full of himself and annoying?”

“Isn’t everyone a little annoying?”

I shifted entirely, turning on the towel to face her. “Okay, Stella, be honest with me. Have you actually dated anybody you like?”

She snorted. “C’mon. You can like people and still find them annoying sometimes. Don’t come for me, I have, like, a tenth the issues my friends do.”

“So you haven’t dated anybody you don’t find annoying.”

“Am I getting a lecture now? From the one who just dumped a cheating boyfriend?”

“Uh, yeah. Consider me now an expert in telling off an annoying partner you don’t really like. What’s the point in…” In what? Dating somebody you didn’t enjoy your time around? I wasn’t sure I’d ever reallyenjoyedmy time around Shane. He was just kind of… nice. Agreeable. Good to look at. Fit in nicely with the rest of my life. Seemed to like me.

Damn, everything really did feel different with Brooklyn. It was scarier than it had any right being.

“Thepoint,” Stella said, “is that being lonely sucks. I don’t want to be single forever and just end up collecting weird things alone in my house until I’m like an episode ofHoarders, dying alone and getting eaten by my cats.”

My first instinct was to tell her off, that dating someone you didn’t like just because you couldn’t stand your own company was about the saddest thing I could think of, but I stopped myself when I realized I’d been doing the exact same thing. I stared for a while before I turned back to the horizon, and I laughed, once, quietly.

“What?” she said, scowling.

“You and me both,” I said. “Gotta watch out, though, or you just end up dating a Shane, and I’d rather at least feed a cat than that.”

“Okay, true,” she said, raising her cup to mine. “Here’s to that.”

“You sure you don’t mind flipping off the entire family just to come listen to me complain about my ex-boyfriend and listen to Allison complain about talking to girls?”

“Nah. I feel like I’m getting to know you.” She shrugged, crossing her legs. “We should do some more of this. Where are you staying tonight?”

“Oh, I, uh, I booked a different hotel.” And I’d used it for about an hour total. I wasn’t planning on using it tonight, either. But my responsewasa true statement.

“Oh, yeah. The one Allison couldn’t force you out of.” She scowled. “I can’t believeShaneis there squatting in your room and you’ve ended up kicked out to a different hotel. Fuck that guy. But not literally.”

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