Page 10 of A Quick Stop in Paradise

“Well, how about that. I guess they aren’t halfway decent.” I took a long sip of whiskey. My hands were shaking… huh. I hadn’t even noticed until I saw them holding up the glass and the ice ball in the center was rattling against the sides. “Oscar will be there for me. He’s too awkward to say anything directly, but he’ll be there for me. Make awkward jokes to show his support. Stella will come around eventually, I bet… once she’s done telling me I should have done more to lock him down.”

“There’s nothing you can do to make a cheater not cheat.”

“I could be prettier, more interesting.”

“The only thing interesting about cheating, to a cheater, is that it’s not the partner. It’s not about you.”

I knocked back the rest of the whiskey in one shot and set it down, putting a hand to my forehead, sighing, hard, sinking against the bar. “Jesus Christ. What do I do now? Is there a crash course you can enroll me in?How to confront your boyfriend when he tried to fuck the hot bartender?” I shook my head, scowling at myself. “Christ, I’m sorry, listen to me just… I’m being gross about you. You’re being really good about this. Tracked me down to break the news. You’re good at it, too. Not your first time getting cheated with, huh?”

That was also a bitter and gross thing to say. But Brooklyn just smiled sadly. “It’s not, no.”

“Sure. I can see it.”

She didn’t respond to the… was it a provocation or hitting on her? I didn’t want to believe I was saying something likeyeah I can see why someone would want to fuck you, and it probably came out more like a provocation, but I guess I was saying that. If I clarifiedI’m not insulting you I’m saying you’re like sex on legsthen it would make things worse. Words were muddy and didn’t make sense right now.

“You can take your time to figure out how to confront him over this,” she said. “But it’s important to address it and have the confrontation, or you never will. I want to help however I can… it’s really the least I can do.”

“What do I even say?Hey, so, apparently you tried to sleep with the woman at the bar, and I don’t appreciate that?I mean… I’m supposed to break up with him now, right?”

She winced. “There’s nosupposed toanything—only you can say what’s the right thing to do right now—but I will say that trying to fix a cheater is a trap no one ever gets out of.”

“You’ve been cheating on me and I want out.Just that? Do I just say that?”

“That’s probably what I would say in your situation. With more expletives, but I think that’s just my style.”

“I wish I had your style. I want to be angry right now. I just feel… blurry.” I put my head in my hands. “Christ, where am I going to sleep tonight? My family’s going to side with him if I try to make a thing out of this, but I’m not sleeping next to him tonight.”

I saw something twitch on her expression, frustration at… I think at the mention of my family. Maybe she just loved a happy supportive family. I don’t know. “Theyshouldtake your side. But if you need to, you could spend the night at either my place or Allison’s, she’d probably be more than happy to offer.”

I squeezed my glass tight in my hands, a hazy feeling in my head that I tried to push through by just focusing in hard enough. “I’m not about to… make you put me up like a refugee. I’m a big girl, you know.”

She shook her head. “If it comes to that, it’s not on you, it’s on him for pushing you out. I mean it. I’ll give you my number and Allison’s too and you can text either one of us if you need to.”

This girl could have just fucked him anyway and strolled on to live her life with nobody any the wiser. Instead, here she was offering me a place to stay if things went badly with him.

Guess I didn’t have an excuse.

“Thanks, Brooklyn,” I said, my voice raspy. “I’ll… I’ll go have a talk. And I guess we’ll see how it goes.”

She gave me a soft, sympathetic look. Why it wasthatthat made me want to cry, I didn’t know, but whatever. Nothing was supposed to make sense right now. “Stay safe, okay? Allison or I could go with you, if you don’t feel safe.”

“No, I… I’m going to do this properly. There’s some things I need to get off my chest, anyway… things I have to say to him.” I didn’t even know where the words were coming from, just felt them falling out of me, and—I knew they were true, but that didn’t mean I was remotely ready for this. Could you ever be ready for this?

I guess we’d find out.

Chapter 4

Brooklyn

“Sure you’re okay?” Allison said, and I snorted, dropping into the seat by the window with my phone in hand, looking at it without seeing anything on the screen.

“I’m not the one who might not be okay right now,” I said. Allison rolled her eyes—getting the teenager act in while she still could, her twentieth birthday right around the corner—and she dropped onto the wicker seat across from me, a floating wood table fixed to the wall just under a thick cabana-style window looking out into the lush backyard vegetation behind the house.

“You obviously feel like this whole thing is your responsibility and you’re worried about her.”

I set my phone down with a sigh, turning the overhead lights off so it was just the moody glow of the lamp by the window, the last hazes of twilight outside casting the sky in deep purples. The house was a small one, made up for with a rooftop terrace that had an amazing view, with traditional wood construction, and for the most part, it was utilitarian—if I wasn’t at work, I was out doing something else, and I came here to eat and sleep.

Downside was that Allison was staying in the bungalow just down the street from here, which meant the girl always dropped in when I was home and she was bored. And then she always wanted me to make her food.

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