Chapter 27 Cass

He was late.

I sat at the corner seat at the Shelf Atlas bar, staring at my phone and wondering if I should hold my breath for a text message with his ETA. History told me it would be a waste of brain cells.

That was typical for Trevor. In the three years we were together, I never once saw him show up anywhere on time. We used to get in arguments about it, which typically ended with us feverishly having sex wherever we happened to be at the time. The resolutions were inconsistent. More often than not, we tabled the discussion for the next occasion when he would finally decide to get ready to leave at the moment when we should have been arriving. I used to think this disconnect was a symptom of my memory, which included an uncanny ability to keep track of time. It took me a few years to realize that it wasn't my memory—Trevor was just a grade A dickwad.

It was twenty minutes past our meeting time when he strolled into Shelf Atlas, and immediately my breath hitched. He was a dickwad, but I could put that aside so easily. Dark eyes met mine. A nod. A carefree shove of his hand over his short hair.

He never once broke eye contact as he walked in my direction, the corner of his lip slowly creeping upwards. It was a dangerous weapon of seduction, all sharp edges, masked as a smile. It was the same look he gave me the first time we laid eyes on each other seven years ago. Back then, he watched me over the tray of hors d'oeuvres he was distributing at my roommate's birthday party. That same night, we had sex in the backseat of his Nissan Altima.

When he neared the bar where I sat, I saw three new tattoos at first glance. I assumed there had to be so many more. Somewhere on his body, there were two tattoos for me: one with my name and another hideous design I once drew on his arm with a Sharpie when we were high.

"Babe, you look great," he commented as he pulled me in for a hug.

His touch was familiar. Almost comforting in a way that a man who smelled of pot and cigarettes should never be. When we parted from the embrace, he kept his hands on my waist. The gesture was proprietary, like he still retained the right to hold me after all these years.

"You look tired," he remarked, tilting his head as he looked at me.

My stomach lurched at the comment. Clearly, I had forgotten what it felt like to be on the receiving end of his candor. "Do I? I thought I looked great."

"You been sleeping?" he asked as he took a seat. "Still having trouble with that?"

"Sometimes."

Trevor shrugged his shoulders. "Yeah, that's tough. Well, you're probably smoking the wrong shit. What are you smoking these days?"

"I'm not really smoking anymore."

"Oh. That's lame. Well, just focus on trying to sleep more. It's good for you."

I took a drink of my beer, resisting an urge to tell him Thanks, I'm cured .

He rapped his tattooed knuckles on the hardwood surface of the bar and craned his neck, looking past a row of patrons waiting for service. He let out one of his trademark sighs and cocked an eyebrow. He nodded his head to the side at the bartenders. "Who are these clowns?"

"Staff has changed a little over the last few years."

"Whatever," he murmured. He sighed again and turned back to face me. "So what's new? What are you up to these days?"

My eyes traveled over his face, hopping from feature to feature. Dark eyes. High cheekbones. Sallow but modelesque at the same time. He was still so attractive, but I couldn't quite put my finger on why . He never smiled, never quite brightened really. He was all gravel and shadows, all the time.

"Working," I replied. "I'm doing due diligence for acquisitions at Davenport-Ridgeway."

He tightened his brow. "No, don't tell me that," he droned. "You're shitting me, right?"

Confused, I shook my head. "Why would I make that up? It wouldn't even be an interesting lie…"

Trevor nodded, but in that condescending way I knew meant more than an affirmative. That nod held volumes, as if to say, Trust me, I can tell you just how uninteresting your job is, Cass .

"I just thought you went to business school to get a better job. You told me that, right? The whole argument was that you wanted to make more money."

"I did," I explained, actively working to keep a frown from setting in on my face. "And I do make more money. It just happens to be at the same company where I was working when we were together."

His lips curled together into an O. "Sick," he responded, nodding. "So, the pay has to be good, right?"

I nodded. "It's good."

The bartender came by, offering a welcome reprieve from this conversation. While Trevor started asking him questions, I took out my phone. Briefly, disappointment passed over me. I sort of expected (maybe hoped) to see a message from Marcus asking how my night was going. And in part self-interest, I wondered what he was doing without me.

"Fucking amateurs," Trevor muttered as he took a sip of the drink the bartender had just handed him. Rum and coke, as usual. "Can you believe how much ice he put in here? I'm not paying for it, that's for sure."

I drank from my beer to keep from responding—to keep from reminding him that he already paid for the damn thing.

"Listen, I'm making a killing out in Denver," he said, inhaling sharply through his teeth after another sip from his rum and coke. Apparently, there wasn't too much ice in it.

"When did you move to Colorado?"

"Three years ago."

He delivered this nonchalantly, but I could put two and two together—I could put any two numbers together, honestly. And it was clear to me: He moved there straightaway from abandoning me in our apartment the weekend I went to Harvard for the business school acceptance weekend in Cambridge.

"Yeah, I'm kind of in the weed scene there, you know," he went on. "And also just doing some music stuff and chilling with some guys from high school. It's so rad, Cass. I'm definitely in such a good place."

"That's great," I said, nodding. "For you."

"One thing missing though," he commented. He shifted in his stool to face me, putting me in the line of fire of his full body charm. I knew this body well. I knew this body like I knew my own. The only other body I knew as well was Marcus's.

Marcus. I wondered if he was home tonight, spending the evening with Frank and Sammy. Frank probably missed me. Sammy definitely did too. When I was at Marcus's apartment, both of them circled my ankles like little sharks in the water, not predatory—more territorial. Like they wanted to stay in my orbit and keep out anyone who didn't pass muster.

"Did you hear me?" he asked, lowering his chin so he could gaze up at me.

Of course I did. And I knew where this was going. "What?" I asked, playing along.

"I miss you," he continued as he put his hand on top of mine. His hand was cold and damp from his drink. "I've been thinking about you a lot."

"What about me?"

Momentarily, Trevor tightened his gaze. "You know. We were good together."

"Okay."

As soon as I said that, he furrowed his brow even tighter. Satisfaction immediately swept over me, dousing me like the tallest, cleanest wave of Hawaii blue water. Marcus did that to me once. Okay . It pissed me off at the time, but it was so grating I knew I needed to try it out next time I wanted to really annoy someone.

"Don't play with me," he said. "You remember it. You remember everything."

"I remember you ghosting me, Trevor. But ghosting kind of feels like an inadequate way of putting it, now that I think about it….you ghost people you don't care about. When you do it to your girlfriend of three years, it's something else. Especially when she torpedoed her relationship with her parents to be with you." After I finished speaking, I took a long drink from my beer, downing about half of it. After that, I let out a satisfied breath. I stopped short of giving him a smug grin; I wanted to save that for later.

"Well, fuck your parents," he said. "Right?"

I paused. I slid my hand out from under his and brought it to join my other hand and hold my beer.

"What?" he questioned, noting my movements. "You hate your parents. Or has that changed?"

"We still don't talk."

He raised his shoulders. "That's a good thing. They were horrible to you, babe."

"They were. But I think they did what they did out of love. You did what you did because…well to be honest, I don't know why you left me the way that you did."

Trevor let out a lengthy exhale before he leaned closer to me, just close enough that I could see his freckles in the low bar lights. "Okay, you want the real explanation?"

"Well, I don't want you to lie to me," I answered. Snarky, sure. But I didn't care.

"Look, I just…we went through all this drama with your mom and dad about you wanting to do what you wanted and not wanting them to keep, like, controlling you and your life. And after all that, you decided you wanted to go to business school? And get a fricking MBA?" He shook his head and leaned back. "I was hoping you would have…you know, done something creative."

"Like what?" I asked. "What should I have done? Moved to Denver and opened a dispensary?"

"I mean, anything that wasn't so damn boring, Cass. Working in an ivory tower and making a shit ton of money is cool, but it doesn't do any good for anyone else. The problem with this country is that these rich sons of bitches are constantly trying to make themselves richer—"

"And what the hell have you ever done about it?" I demanded, raising my voice. "Other than being born outside of the one-percent, what credibility do you have to criticize anyone wealthy?"

"Do you hear yourself?" he asked, gesturing at me with his eyes wide. "Who are you?"

"I am—" I paused. "I am just a woman who happened to have been smart and privileged enough to go to good schools. And now I can make a lot of money because of what I learned at those schools. So while you're sitting around and criticizing my job and my parents, you don't have the potential to do anything from the garage where you and your stupid band are trying to make it big in Denver . But on Monday morning, I'm going to help close a deal that's going to scale up a company that helps millions of people pay off their student loans. After that, who knows what I'll do. But I do know whatever it is, no matter how boring it is to you— and to me, honestly —it's far more impactful than anything you're doing."

With a flourish, I chugged the rest of my beer, crumpled the plastic cup into itself, and dropped it onto the bar—the party girl's version of a mic drop. I rose to my feet and pulled my jacket off the hook under the bar.

"Where are you going?" he asked, standing as well.

"I'm getting the hell out of here," I retorted. "What does it look like I'm doing?"

"Look, we got derailed—"

"Stop," I snapped, holding up a hand. "I know you don't care about me. I know you don't even understand me, for that matter. That's become glaringly obvious tonight. Funny thing is, I didn't need either of those things from you to sleep with you."

He moved his mouth like he was about to speak, but I quickly held up my hand higher.

"Not done," I warned him. "And if you had just kept your mouth shut and had shown up on time, I probably would have done it. But I'm so, so, so glad you didn't. Did I mention how glad I am, Trevor?"

"Cass—"

"I'm so glad you rolled in here like the sexy yet still awful piece of shit you are. If you hadn't, I might have let you ruin yet another relationship between me and somebody who cares about me. So now, I can move on from you without any risk of regret, and you can finally understand one thing about me."

Trevor was quiet, arms folded across his chest. His jaw clenched and flexed as I glared at him, daring him to try to speak.

I tossed my hair back behind my shoulders and smiled at him. "If this isn't already clear to you, I'm going to spell it out: You never loved me. You liked the idea of me. You liked to think you were so damn special I would throw away everything for you. And for you to show up here tonight and realize you were never enough for me —that's going to really kill you." I shrugged. "God, I would hate to be you right now. But luckily, I'm not—and I never have to see your ass again."

In a split-second decision, I reached over and picked up his drink. I downed that in a few seconds and slammed the cup back on the bar. "I'm going to go fuck a millionaire now. And when we're done we're probably going to sit around and talk about horror movies and where to get brunch tomorrow morning—because shockingly, not all rich people are evil."

"You're such a bitch," he spat out. "This is why—"

"This is why you're glad we're not together anymore?" I interrupted. I stuck out my lower lip in a fake sad face and then rolled my eyes. "Oh yeah, you really dodged a bullet here. I'm a genius with big tits and an untamable libido, who makes a lot of money and has a moderately impressive sense of humor. Wow, it was so hard for you all those years, wasn't it?"

Before he could say anything else, I waved my hand over my shoulder and began to walk away. But even as I was a few steps closer to the door, I couldn't resist whirling around and saying to his idiotic, dumfounded face, "And I'm not the one who looks tired. You look tired. Asshole."

The bouncer high-fiving me on the way out was the cherry on top of my closure sundae.