Page 8 of Shy Girl
Grady’s wedding put me in an impossible situation, one that I had only a marginal, small hope of sailing through. Not only did I need to be there to support Grady, but I had to act like nothing existed, past or present, for me and Victoria.
In a word—it was going to suck.
“Even with Victoria there,” I muttered.
He laughed darkly. “I hear she's bringing someone new.”
“Everyone is new with Victoria.” I picked at a string on my leg. “She rotates through men like a swinging door.”
“Sorry, Jayce. She wasn't good for you.”
My eyes clenched shut. Logically, I knew that. Knew that Vic was bad news almost the moment I approached her. Could feel it all the way in my veins. But that didn't stop me from being affected. Victoria had closed the door on something happening between us four months ago, yet my pride still stung.
Maybethatwas why I hadn’t noticed Dagny.
I shook my head. No. I didn’t need to let my thoughts wander back there constantly. Dagny was . . . something different. She didn’t belong in a conversation with Victoria. Dagny had class and grace Victoria would never achieve.
Except, Victoria’s presence meant I wouldn’tarrive single to that wedding. Not if my life depended on it. Worst-case scenario, I'd take one of my cousins and pay her to hold my hand like we were together, or something. But even that was a path fraught with peril and, as I thought about it, kind of weird.
“You aren’t going to bring Maria, are you?” I asked, just to get the topic off of me.
He laughed. “No way. You know she’s gone forever.”
Vik’s ex-girlfriend Maria sent a shudder through me. Her drama-mama attitude had her lashing out like a hissing cat when Bastian met her at a BBQ. He’d responded in kind, and the result had been ugly. The memory replayed through my mind with a cold chill. It hadn’t gone well. We’d set Vikram down for a firm talking-to after we'd met Maria and her money-grubbing ways. Thankfully, he let her go immediately. Vik wasn’t the “settling” type anyway.
Same thing happened with me and Victoria. Bastian, like a hound, sniffed out our insincere types and sent them running. Like he had a special pulse on people, or something. An unlikely talent for a wildland firefighter who hid away on his beloved computer doing who-knew-what whenever there wasn't a fire crackling around.
Except I couldn’t, apparently, avoid Victoria forever. Which had been my original plan when she turned me down. We had no reason to see each other again. Now, Grady's marriage threw a wrench in even that idea.
“Who are you taking?” Vikram asked and broke apart my thoughts. My initial response ofno one, of course,almost failed. Last time we’d all gotten together, they’d tortured me with their teasing about my single state. It hadn’t been worth enduring again, which is why I didn’t want to go through that again either.
“Oh, you know . . .” I finally managed, “a girl.”
The words nearly choked me. If anyone could sense the lie, it’d be Vik.
“You got one?” he asked, his voice lifting at the end. “Hadn’t heard you mention anything.”
“It’s new. You’ll like her.”
“About damn time, Hernandez. I’m excited to meet her.”
I snorted, but decided to steer the subject to safer grounds. “You promoting to Yardmaster soon?” I asked.
“Nah. I like driving the trains too much. Listen, I found a new cliff diving spot while out on the boat the other day. Caught like ten fish, too. You interested? Wanted to try it out but it’s never as fun alone.”
Flashes of a young teenager that had gone cliff jumping and broken his neck last week surfaced to my mind. I’d been called to the scene to help pull the body out of the lake while his mother, a single woman, sobbed on the shore.
How I didn’t die as a teenager, I’d never know.
“Busy weekend,” I lied. “Let’s try again later?”
“Sure.”
His unenthusiastic reply made me wonder if evenhedidn’t really care about it, but wanted to save face. In light of his lecture about Grady livingsmall and safe, I wasn’t sure what to say here.
Were the thrills of our youth dying due to common sense now?
The radio on my dash crackled. My shift was going to start in ten minutes, but I needed a chance to scrabble my brain back together. “Listen, I gotta go, but I’ll send you the details of our flight later, all right?”
