Page 2 of The Playboy

I lifted my phone, scrolling through Instagram, done with this conversation.

Until I heard, “Is this about Marley?”

My hands shook from the sound of her name.

My stomach ached.

My heart beat a rhythm that was far too fast.

I glanced up at my brother. I didn’t like the expression on his face.

Shit, I wanted to wipe it away and never see it again.

“So, that’s what this is about,” he said. “Yeah, now, it all makes sense.” He lifted his chair and moved it closer until he was about a foot away from my bed, resting his feet on the end of my mattress. “You guys break up?”

There it was.

The statement that had been pounding through my chest since I’d left Marley’s house two nights ago.

There was no reason to hide the truth.

It wasn’t a secret.

It just hurt—to think about, to say out loud.

To come to terms with.

I took another drink. “Two fucking years of my life … gone.”

He clasped my shoulder, shaking it. “What happened?”

“Nothing happened. That’s what is so fucked up about this. She just couldn’t deal with everything—the long distance, the unknown at the end of the night whenever I went out with my buddies even though I assured her every single fucking time that I wasn’t hitting on anyone and there wasn’t a chick in my bed.” My head dropped, hanging low toward my chest. “The idea that somethingcouldhappen became too much. I wouldn’t cheat on her, Coop. You know I wouldn’t. I loved that girl …” My voice faded, my hand gripping the bottle so hard that I was waiting for it to smash. “But her jealousy took over and created scenarios that didn’t exist.”

I tapped the screen of my phone, the background a picture of us when she’d visited last semester and I took her skiing. I tossed it. I couldn’t stand the sight of it.

Marley and I had begun dating my senior year of high school. Not the best timing, considering I was heading off to Colorado for college and she was going to Florida, but we made it work. We visited each other as often as we could. We talked all the time. Texted nonstop. We spent every summer together.

Until now.

She was going to London tomorrow to start her semester abroad, and for the last week, she’d been telling me we needed to talk.

All we did when we were away from each other was talk.

We were finally together again; a conversation was the last thing I wanted.

I was talked the fuck out.

But Marley forced a discussion, and her emotions spiraled as she explained how she’d been feeling the past two semesters and told me she couldn’t do it anymore.

She was giving up.

Two years in … and she’d quit.

Us.

Cooper tapped his foot against my shin. “You know, if Brady were here, he’d say,I told you so.”

I rolled my eyes. “That asshole told me from day one not to get tied down before I went off to school. I should have listened to him.” I adjusted the pillow behind my back and sat up straighter. “In fact, now, I’m going to do exactly what he’s done all these years.” I pulled at my shirt, getting a strong whiff of beer and day-old clothes. “Fuck feelings. Fuck being tied down. Fuck any kind of relationship. I want no commitments. No emotions. I want—”

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