Page 16 of Thaw My Heart
Darcy’s brows furrow together. I want to tell her that it’s not her fault, but itisher fault. Because she’s so beautiful and I can’t help but think that she might be the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen. But I can’t think that. I’m not allowed, for so many miserable reasons. So I need to leave.
“I’m gonna go check on Maya,” I sputter out and walk away before Darcy can say anything to stop me.
My heart pounds in my ears. My chest is heavy. My stomach rolls. The last woman to make me this utterly sick…
This isn’t happening again. It can’t. I won’t let it. These kinds of things never end well,especiallynot when it comes to my baby sister’s best friend. That’s all Darcy is to me. That’s all she’s ever been. All that she can be. She’s not a beautiful woman. She’s not inquisitive or smart or breathtaking. She’s just Darcy. Maya’s Darcy. Nothing more, nothing less. That’s how it has to be.
I find Maya lounging on the couch in the employee lounge with Louis rubbing her “hurt ankle”. She’s most certainly lying about the severity of the injury to get Louis to dote on her. That’s Maya’s M.O. and I can’t even blame her for it. If I could get someone to do anythingIwanted with the mere snap of my fingers, I absolutely would.
“Enjoying yourself?” I ask my sister, sitting down next to her and throwing my arm around her shoulders.
She barely hides a smirk and nudges my side with her elbow. “I’m just in so much pain. Louis was so sweet to offer to massage my leg for me.”
I hum. “Well, that’s Louis for you. Most considerate guy in the resort.”
Maya grins and looks around me, scanning the area. “You and Darcy have been gone awhile, and I can’t help but notice that she isn’t with you. You didn’t kill her, did you?”
“Oh, not yet. I’ve got her tied up in the janitor’s closet. She just wouldnotstop yapping about climate change, so I had to shut her up somehow.”
Maya giggles and exclaims in exasperation, “Cody!”
“I’m kidding, I’m kidding,” I assure her amusedly. “For the most part, anyway. She did talk about climate change for twenty-five minutes, but she’s safe and sound at the lounge bar. Think she wants you to join her. She got tired of my shitty company.”
“You are great company,” Maya tells me. “But you’re probably right. I promised her that I wouldn’t leave her alone on this trip. Especially not after our last trip—you remember? I took her to L.A. and?—”
“And you disappeared with Ash the Surfer Bro for three days?” I fill in, smiling at the memory. Maya said that Darcy didn’t talk to her for two weeks after that—rightfully so. But Maya certainly didn’t mean anything bad by it. She just gets distracted so easily. She takes after our mother in that respect. No matter how hard they try, they just like to wander.
“I know, it wassobad,” Maya groans. “And now I’m doing it again! But I can’t help it.” She frowns down at the boy on his literal knees for her. “He’s so cute. And so sweet. And I do really,reallythink we’re soulmates. Right, Lou?”
Louis looks up upon hearing his name and beams at Maya. “Right, gorgeous.”
If you were to tell me that Maya was secretly a witch or a siren, capturing men and putting them under her spell, I would not be surprised in the slightest.
“So,” I say, “should I go break the news to Darcy that she’s going to have to entertain herself for the foreseeable future?”
Maya smiles sheepishly. “Yes, please. But tell her it’s just for tonight! Starting tomorrow, it’s just me and her. The perfect girls trip, I promise.”
“Don’t promise me,” I tell my sister. “Promise Darcy. ‘Cause she’s gonna be pissed.”
Maya grimaces. “Don’t I know it.”
I push myself off the couch. “I’ll pass along the message for my poor broken soldier. Then I’m heading to my room. See you in the morning?”
Maya nods. “See you in the morning.”
The last thing I want to do is show my face around Darcy after I made such an utter fool of myself before, but she deserves an explanation for why she’s spending the night alone. Really, it should be my sister explaining, but I suppose I’ll have to do.
The plan is to find her, tell her where Maya is, and then get the hell out before I can be pulled into her gravitational force again.
But as my plans typically do, they get a little off track.
She’s right where I left her, of course. Nursing the same margarita at the bar. I sit down next to her and pretend like nothing happened before, smiling and greeting her as usual. Thankfully she doesn’t push about me leaving so strangely. I tell her that Maya won’t be very good company for the night and probably the rest of the trip, if I had to guess. She takes it well—she’s not surprised—but when I start to walk away, I see her stare down into her drink with the kind of agony that only true loneliness can bring. And I know I can’t leave. What kind of person would I be if I left her like that?
So I stay.
I sit next to her for the next three hours, and we talk about everything. We talk about home, our travels, our lives. The conversation doesn’t get deep enough to truly terrify me, but it’s enough to make me antsy. It’s like she’s my friend again. Like she never wasn’t. I’m not sure how to feel about it. Everything always felt so easy with her. I could tell Darcy any and everything our entire childhoods. And it still somehow feels the same, even though I left. Even though she doesn’t see me as someone to be trusted anymore. I never realized how much I really missed her until now. And it’s even harder because she’sbetternow. She’s exactly how she used to be, but stronger. Like a more concentrated version of herself.
And when the night is over, and I’m walking her up to her room, it dawns on me that I don’t want to part with her.
