Page 1 of Peak of Love
Dane Verghese knew no surer truth than that the woman in front of him was his best friend’s girl.
From freshman year onward, when Marcelina Espinoza walked down the halls of Shipping News High School with a cropped top and a raised chin, Asher Whittaker claimed her as his. She hadn’t known that of course. Not at the time. And it had taken a modicum of effort for Asher to get her attention.
Though what did kids know of effort? Asher charmed, Celina smiled, Dane shrugged.
The hot girl whose smile could alter the atmosphere was Asher’s girl. So what? There were plenty of hot girls around. Dane never had trouble with this particular way the universe configured his and his best friend’s lives.
Asher dated exclusively while Dane picked through the cheerleading squad. Asher and Celina married by twenty-two while Dane filled his proverbial black book with beautiful and generally well-meaning women who vied for the notoriety of snagging Seattle’s most eligible bachelor (a mantle thrown on him by some third-rate city paper).
He planned to stay that way, too; that is, perpetually and eligibly single. The closest he wanted to a family was the one his friends shared with him a couple of years later: twin boys he could spoil rotten with toys and mildly corrupt when they turned twenty-one. With the ease of a perfect couple, Asher and Celina delivered the happily ever after that Dane could admire from afar while he enjoyed his own debauchery up close.
But then Asher had the goddamn nerve to die, creating a void in the universe too large to fathom and too heavy to bear.
It had been three years since Asher’s motorcycle accident, and every day Dane still woke up with the phantom ring of his phone when it heralded the worst news of his life. He never shook the sense that somehow the world’s atoms got shuffled and it was Dane who should have careened off the wet road. And a boiling rage that barely cooled to a simmer lived in the pit of his stomach. Not one day in three years did he have a reprieve from the anger. Everything about Asher dying waswrongand Dane would never forgive…it.Whatever it was.
Still, if Asher’s family managed to get through the day without denouncing the bullshit of life-shattering tragedies, then he could at least find a shred of composure and a grasp at normalcy.
Which was what he was attempting at the moment with the woman in front of him. Composure. Normalcy.
“You have, um, on your,” he said, gesturing towards Celina’s chest where a large red smear of pasta sauce soiled the fabric and heavily caked the edges of two buttons. They’d finished dinner and were cleaning up while the boys put together Monopoly for game night.
When possible, Dane came over to hang out at home or to take the boys somewhere. He was only a call or text away from his “nephews” but juggling his business and personal life didn’t always give him the chance to spend time in the suburb where Celina raised the kids.
“Gah, I’m such a klutz,” she chortled, unbuttoning the shirt and revealing a tank top underneath. She removed the stained garment brusquely and scrubbed it in the kitchen sink.
Watching her back, Dane clung to his disinterested expression and utterly failed. He was far from unaffected. The soft hills of her shoulder blades were definitely interesting. And the pink tank top made her skin look like the inside of a flower petal.
And then, horror of horrors, her shoulders started to vibrate. What she… was she sobbing?
“Celina,” he swooped closer. Since the funeral, he’d never seen her break down. Dane held his breath, bracing himself for the onrush of emotions.
Except she wasn’t crying at all.
“What’s so funny?” he asked, irritated by his unwarranted stress.
“I just remembered the time a skunk sprayed our camping gear.”
“Oh, fuck,” he burst. It was during one of their many group camping trips during those college years. The very mention of the memory made him shudder.
“Asher was convinced we were supposed to get rid of the smell with tomato juice.”
“He did not actually—”
“What do you think he did when we got home, Dane?” she asked, voice brimming with amusement.
“He soaked the tent in tomato juice.” Dane groaned.
“He didn’t get so far as soaking it, but not for lack of trying,” she stated, her voice getting quieter before she steadied it.
A sigh cut through their casual reminiscing, and suddenly Dane saw something that made him flinch. Celina’s default expression—the one she gave the world whose pity she rejected outright—was fond composure at the brink of a smile.
At that moment, however, her smile was the saddest expression in the world. It gutted Dane to know that he was only feeling a fraction of her hurt. The realization left him equal parts furious and wretched.
Goddamn it, Asher. What are we gonna do about your girl now, man?
Without thinking, Dane said the only thing that formed past his dry throat. “Don’t smile if you don’t want to. Not with me.”
She could have told him to mind his own business or smacked him on the head. Or laughed. Or pretended he didn’t say anything.
