Page 52 of Twist of Fate
“It’s all over your Instagram feed.”Oh, duh.“And we still have location sharing enabled for each other,” he says matter-of-factly.
Location sharing? Has he been tracking me for months? Have I been able to track him? Does this mean I could have tracked him the entire time he was?—
I let that thought go as quickly as it came because, honestly, no good can come from it anyway.
“Why are you there?”
“I’m with my mom,” I explain, looking out toward the bay. “I needed to get away for a bit.”
“So, you’re not there with someone else? You’re not seeing anyone?”
My jaw drops, taken aback by his bluntness. The sharpness in his voice does nothing to mask the jealousy in his tone as well. “No,” I reply. “But even if I were?—”
“I don’t know how to do this, Ash.” He lets out a deep sigh.
“What do you mean? You don’t know how to do what?” But I know. I’ve known. It’s the same thing he’s been telling me since I gave him back the ring. Since I walked out of our apartment. Since the moving trucks arrived.
“I don’t know how to be me without you. I miss you. I miss us.”
His words would be sweet if they were genuine. He doesn’t need me like he needs air or like his heart needs to beat. He needs me because I give him significance. What he’s really saying is that he misses the validation I gave him. The support. The hype.
In Theo Vasquez’s world, everyone has a role: his coach, his agent, even his fiancée. I was just another part of the team.
Team Vasquez.
And for a long time, I thought I was the luckiest girl in the world—to be by his side.
God, I was dumb.
“There is no us, Theo,” I tell him. I’ve told him this before. He doesn’t want to hear it. He never does.
“There will always be an us, Ash. Always.” His voice has become harsher now. “You don’t just throw away a six-year relationship over a?—”
“A what?” I wait to see if he can even say it, to see if he can own up to it. But he never does because that would mean admitting he was at fault for all of it.
“So your mom’s back in Ireland, huh?” he asks, changing the subject. “What is this, her fortieth visit? Is she still doing those bus tours?” he asks, his opinion on the matter clear in his tone. He would never step foot on a bus unless it was taking him to a game.
“Yep,” I answer. “She loves them.”
“Are there just tons of old people on your tour?”
“A decent number, yeah.” And one very hot Irishman.
“I guess it probably works out nice for you. Not a lot of walking. Slow and?—”
“Listen, I’ve got to get going, Theo. We’re in the middle of dinner.”
“When do you get back?” he asks, ignoring me altogether.
“Next week.”
“Can I see you? We can talk face-to-face. I’ll check with my coach, and maybe I can miss a game or?—”
“Stop,” I say because there is no point. His schedule won’t allow him to get away. It’s why we started having issues in the first place, and as much as I still hate him for screwing that up, I can’t let him ruin his career. He’s worked too damn hard for it. “We have nothing to talk about. Certainly, nothing that requires you to fly half around the world.”
“Ash—”
“No.” I push back. “We’re over, Theo. We’ve been over for six months. You need to move on. It shouldn’t be too difficult for a soccer star like you. Women literally throw themselves at you. Remember?”
