Page 101 of Worth Every Moment
“No.”
“Okay. So… it’s serious, then? It’s been…” He looks at his watch as if my relationship with Erica is measured in minutes and hours. “A few months.”
My stomach tightens. The deadline for ending our fake relationship is coming up, and we haven’t discussed how it ends. I don’t want it to, but I need it to end soon, so Erica doesn’t get the back-splash from this engagement announcement next month. I want her to be free and clear.
Fuck it, I’d rather not end it at all. Especially not after everything that has happened over the past few days. It feels like this relationship is just beginning, not coming to an end.
“It’s serious,” I say, loathing the idea that Matt still doesn’t think it is, even after several months, which, for me, might as well be a thousand years. What would it take for him to take a relationship of mine seriously? What would it take for him to stop seeing me as a joke?
“I think it’s great,” Nico says, resting one hand behind his head. “You and Erica. Finally.”
“It is great,” I confirm, but my clipped tone is a wall I’ve just thrown up, which Matt leans back from, a puzzled expression settling over his face.
Nico glances out to sea, where Jack Lansen is roving about the waves on a jet ski like the speed demon he is, three of Nico’s friends trailing in his wake.
“Do you love her?” Matt asks me.
“Of course he does,” Nico replies for me. “It’s Seb. He’s like a fucking puppy around that woman.”
Matt frowns. “Does she love you?”
Nico looks between us, but, to my disappointment, he says nothing this time.
“You’d have to ask her. I have no idea,” I admit.
Matt clears a strangled laugh from his throat. “I’m not gonna do that, am I?”
When I don’t laugh in response, he sits forward and clasps my knee with one hand, squeezing it lightly. “I’m sure she does. It’s great. I’m happy for you.”
Why does it feel so shit to hear him finally say that?
Because it’s all bollocks. It’s fake, and it has to end. Doomed. And even though it’s terrible, I want to hear Erica say those three tiny words before this whole thing implodes.I love you. I’ve never heard them from anyone other than my mother, and she was either doped up on tranquilizers or soaked in vodka. When she was sober, she never said it. Loving us was a dirty sin she could only allow when she wasn’t entirely in control of her senses. It cheapened the whole thing, and even as a child, I knew her professions of love were hollow and shameful, as if she didn’t want to love us at all.
To hear those words from someone who meant them, someone who wasn’t drunk or drugged… I can’t even imagine it. The thought of it makes me ache with a longing I daren’t touch. I want this to be as real for Erica as it is for me, even if it destroys us both.
I know I’ll break Erica’s heart. It’s an inevitability. So to wish that upon her… it’s cruel, and I am a fucking arsehole for even wanting to hear it. I should step away now. End the whole thing.
But I’m not that good a man.
35
ERICA
While the boys are away, Kate and her friends are having a pre-wedding hen do. This is the last chance for a bit of relaxation before all the guests arrive and things kick off for real. Supposedly, Kate took all her friends off on a weekend in Barcelona for her real hen do. So, although this isn’t the real thing, it feels like it, and I definitely wouldn’t have been invited. I’ve met Kate with Nico a few times, but we’re not friends. I’m the random girl who’s tagging along because she’s dating the groom’s brother, and now that Seb’s off with the guys, no one knows what to do with me, so here I am in an air-conditioned therapy hut down by the beach. We’re all getting treatments and drinking cocktails—mocktails for me, seeing as I’m sober, and Aries, who’s refused every alcoholic drink.
The island is equipped like a high end resort with multiple cabins and properties. This particular one has wide glass doors that have been flung open so it feels like we’re getting massaged on the beach without actually having to get sandy. Each of us is wrapped in a fluffy white robe, either having our feet soaked, scraped and rubbed, or some kind of facial or massage therapy.
A few cocktails in, and we’re playing truth or dare as the treatments take place. Marie, one of Kate’s closest friends from university, a doctor of some description, takes a sip on her margarita glass as she stares at me over the rim. Her dark hair is scraped back in a high ponytail like she’s about to scrub up for work, and the fact that she looks so uptight, and is simultaneously tipsy, is confusing me. Then again, I don’t know her. Maybe she’s like this all the time, sober or not.
“Is Seb’s dick pierced?” she asks me. “I read that he had it done to please some woman he met in Texas. And now he has loads of sex because he loves pleasuring women.”
Maybe I should have chosen dare.
“You can’t ask that,” Kate says, but her voice is tight and constricted because she’s wearing a face mask that will crack if she moves her mouth. She’s got beautiful bone structure, even caked in green goo.
“She chose truth,” Marie quips before turning back to me, an eager expression on her face. “So, does he? Does it feel good? Is it big? Oh, my god, I bet it’s huge. He looks like he has a huge dick.”
“That’s way too many questions,” says Aries, sending me a sympathetic glance, her red hair bright against the white robe around her shoulders. “You can’t ask that many.”
