Chapter 11

Iwoke up well before sunrise. The soft ocean breeze blew in from the terrace, accompanied by the rhythmic sound of waves lapping in the distance. It should have been soothing. It should have lulled me back to sleep.

Hugh lay sprawled on top of the white sheet, his bare skin moon-pale in the shadowy light from outside. My eyes roamed over him like they were on a scientific mission to find and record even the most minute of details. He was perfection personified. Even his flaws fell in the pro column of any true assessment.

While he was peacefully asleep and looked like an angel, he scared the ever-loving shit out of me. So much so that I slunk backward off the bed without making a sound. Once I was standing, I stared at him a little longer. I'd like to say I was torn between staying and going, but the truth was, I wasn't torn.

There was no doubt in my mind I needed to get the hell out of there before doing something incredibly stupid.

As I pulled my clothes on as silently as possible, I wondered whether I could impose upon my pilot to fly out six hours earlier than we'd originally planned. First, I needed to pack my stuff, which meant sneaking past rows of closed doors where the wedding guests were most likely curled up with loved ones, enjoying the kind of peaceful sleep I wouldn't enjoy again anytime soon.

I was almost through the well-lit lobby when I heard an intentional throat-clearing by the coffee stand. I jerked to a stop and discovered James sitting at a small circular table with a coffee cup and an open laptop on it.

"Good morning?" he said, phrasing it more like a question. He eyed the rumpled clothing I'd thrown on from last night. "Am I witnessing a typical walk of shame or some kind of darker situation like… like a slink of doom?"

My nerves felt raw and overstretched, as if the slightest pressure on them would cause my carefully controlled plan to spiral into a million colorful shards like Chuckie's indoor fireworks experiment.

"Neither. I just need to hit the road."

James's eyes narrowed. "Make yourself some coffee and join me for a minute."

"No, I?—"

"Fucking sit down, Oscar." His voice was gentle but firm.

I let out a breath and helped myself to a coffee, taking extra time to stir the wooden stick around the cup before finally taking a seat at his table. James and I had been good friends for a long time, and I knew he of all people would understand my situation.

"You working?" I asked, trying unsuccessfully to avoid the elephant in the room.

He nodded. "Sawyer got up early to help set up a grab-and-go breakfast station for Roman and Scotty's guests. I decided to catch up on some accounting. Now that we've covered that riveting topic, tell me about Hugh."

I opened my mouth to make a flippant comment about how good he was in bed, but the words died on my tongue when I caught James's eyes. "I can't have him."

James nodded, which honestly took the wind out of my sails. Why did he have to agree so quickly?

"Clearly. It would be a mistake, right? After all, everyone knows a few bad relationships means you should give up any attempt at relationships from here on out."

I blinked at him. The words were delivered so calmly, so rationally, it took me a minute to recognize the sarcasm.

"So you agree?" I shot back. "Good. Can I go now?"

I started to stand up, but he reached a leg out to hook his toes around the base of my chair and yank it closer to the table. I stumbled back into my seat and glared at him. Still, his calm demeanor never wavered.

"You may not go now. I have a few questions first." He took a moment to study me. "How's Boone?"

The change of topic threw me. "Boone?"

"Yeah, big guy? Rancher in Wyoming? Lover of cattle and my sassy ex-boyfriend?"

"You're not upset with him for hooking up with Richard, are?—"

His bark of laughter almost made me jump. "Good god, no. I'm happy for them both. And in case you forgot, I'm engaged to be married to the absolute love of my life."

"Good for you," I mumbled before taking a sip of coffee too soon. I sputtered and gasped as it burned my tongue.

The edges of his lips curved down. "If only I'd given up after my breakup with Richard." He affected a giant, melodramatic sigh. "Things would be so much better for me."

"You're about as transparent as Scotty's horse," I muttered.

"No, no. I mean it. I wouldn't be at risk for heartache. What if Sawyer leaves me? What if he finds someone better? What if the next person he dates is really his soul mate? What then?"

"Can we be done now?"

He eyed me over his own coffee. "That depends. Do you hear how ridiculous you are?"

"Your opinion is like herpes. You really shouldn't give it to someone else without asking first."

He cracked a smile. "Duly noted." James reached out and took my hand, his expression turning serious.

"Don't do this," I pleaded with a wavery sound to my voice.

"I just want you to think about something, okay? Think about what your mom's life would be like right now if she hadn't opened herself up to Birch. From what you've told me, she loved your father. Very much. But when Birch came around, she allowed herself to love him too. And love him more. They're so obviously meant to be together, Oscar. And the only reason she was able to find her happy ever after is because she kept her heart open to it."

I made a neutral noise of acknowledgment in my throat.

He sighed. "Okay, you can go now. The torture is over."

"For now," I muttered, shoving my chair back before he could hook it with his foot again.

"I love you. You know that, right?"

I nodded and shoved my emotions down before they spilled out all over the room like more of Chuckie's fireworks. "Yeah, same."

He laughed and pulled me in for a tight hug. "Don't be a stranger. Come back out here and spend more time with us this summer. Promise me."

Instead of answering him, I pulled back and shot him a smile. "I always knew you couldn't get enough of me. Now, any idea when the love of your life might hook a man up with some breakfast?"

After hooking me up with some food, James gave me another hug and sent me on my way.

The flight back to the city was a blur, and then I spent the rest of the day keeping as busy as possible. I'd hoped working would be a distraction, but thoughts of Hugh still crept in. While I knew that rationally, James was correct, I also knew that I wasn't in a place where my heart could handle that kind of risk again. Maybe someday, things would be different, but not now.

Because I'd been the one to cross the line with Hugh. I was the one who needed to get us safely back over it and into the friend zone again.

And that meant resisting the urge to send him ten thousand texts explaining what he already knew and asking if he was okay when I was fairly sure he wasn't.

I studiously ignored my phone.

I ignored the constant urge to reach out.

I ignored the unrelenting silence that meant no one was reaching out to me.

This was about as effective as ignoring a throbbing toothache, or a migraine, or a heart attack. The harder I tried to ignore it, the more I noticed it, and the more painful it became.

Finally, after a lunch meeting on Monday, my phone pinged with the text I'd been waiting for.

Hugh

Smooth move, the leaving without saying goodbye thing.

My hands shook with nerves as I stared at the screen.

Oscar

I had to get back.

Hugh

Right. Believe me, I read the message you didn't bother to leave me loud and clear.

Ooof. Hearing it from his perspective made it sound even worse than I'd known it to be… but what had been the alternative? A heartfelt hug? A "thanks for the mind-blowing sex"? A gasping, terrified plea to come home with me and never leave? Watching the light go out of Hugh's eyes when I told him that none of the "metaphors" he'd come up with yesterday had the effect he'd seemed to hope for, and I refused to put him through the pain of attempting a relationship?

I panicked and tried to diffuse the situation the only way I knew how.

Oscar

I had to get back to Frank. He's a demanding mistress. See attached.

I sent over a photo of Frank curled in my palm that I'd taken earlier and waited for Hugh's usual OMG! or I'm so glad he's feeling better response.

And I continued waiting.

By eleven that night, I caved and texted Hugh a video one of the wedding guests had posted in which my tumble off the boat was played in slow motion to the tune "Smooth Operator."

There was no response.

The following day, I sent him an article debating the use of AI in wedding photo editing. It was a lame attempt to communicate, and we both knew it, but I didn't want to lose the connection we'd spent an entire year creating.

He finally responded a few hours later while I was running on the treadmill in the executive gym at the office. As I stood there on the skids, the belt whirring between my feet without me, I opened his text.

It was an uncaptioned photo of Roman gazing at Scotty. I could tell from the background the photo had been taken at the beach on Saturday. Scotty was laughing at something someone else was saying, and Roman stood several feet away with his head turned in Scotty's direction.

It was clear why Hugh had sent this specific shot. The look of utter adoration on Roman's face was impossible to miss. This was the reason Hugh did what he did. So that Roman and Scotty could look back at this picture and remember that moment. That gut-clenching feeling. The connection that made all the risks and vagaries of life worthwhile.

I typed back.

Oscar

You're an incredible artist.

Hugh

I only captured what was already there. Everyone deserves to be looked at like that.

He was right. And no one deserved it more than he did. I swallowed the anxiety crawling up my throat.

Oscar

You'll find your person, Hugh.

After a moment with no response, I typed again.

Oscar

Don't compromise.

Hugh

I won't. I think I understand things better now. It was good to see you, Oscar. Take care of yourself, okay?

I stared at the goodbye message, and my stomach churned. I wanted to ask him what he understood… but I was pretty sure I knew.

I'd expected the price for my crossing the line this weekend to be high, but I hadn't known it would be this high. That it would be… everything.

And yet, maybe it was for the best. Now that I knew what it was like to hold Hugh all night, now that I knew what wedding champagne tasted like on his lips, it would be harder to keep my distance. Harder to convince myself not to give love a try, just one more time, because surely this time would be different.

I snorted. Like I hadn't told myself that a hundred times before.

I gritted my teeth and responded.

Oscar

You too.

And then I put the phone down and jumped back on the treadmill.

* * *

I spentthe following two months aggressively pursuing any new business that would take me halfway around the world—the further away from my current location, the more time zones I crossed, and the more I lost touch with what was happening in New York, the better. I spent so many nights on my plane that Frank became best friends with my cabin steward. Any few moments of free time I found, I filled with new charity initiatives Lesya set up for me through our foundation.

Still, I made a point of deleting the TikTok app I'd downloaded months ago and blocked the site on my laptop; there was no point in me searching for Real Life HEAs, so it was best to avoid temptation.

Lesya seemed to recognize I was dealing with something emotionally heavy because she volunteered to travel with me, even though this meant taking a break from her social racquetball league and leaving her cranky old mutt with a neighbor.

"Chuckie keeps texting you new project ideas," she said one evening in a taxi through London on our way to a dinner event. I'd long since given her custody of my phone after 5:00 p.m. most days since I couldn't be trusted not to text Hugh once the sun was down. "He wants to know if you have any contacts with ‘big-ass lawns' who might be interested in testing out his RoboMower prototype."

I grunted acknowledgment. "Put him in touch with the groundskeepers at my Greenwich house. Tell Chan I said to let Chuckie try out the prototype anywhere he wants."

"Okay. He also asked if you can help him figure out where to apply to college. His counselor at school sounds like they're phoning it in, and he's worried about applying for the right scholarships."

"Yeah, of course. Set something up."

I flipped through another page of a legal contract on my tablet. Raindrops sparkled on the window glass beside me, throwing speckled light across my dark suit pants. The muted blur of London commuters in dark jackets and umbrellas crowded the sidewalks on either side of the road.

"Do you want to take him for pizza or plan a sit-down at the office?"

"Sure, fine." I waved a hand.

I felt her stare at me. Lesya was exceptionally skilled at her silent reproach. I let out a sigh and gave her a terse "What?"

Too late, I realized what she'd asked. "Sorry," I muttered. "I was distracted. Ask him if he wants his mom to join us and if he wants me to come to him or host him somewhere. Whatever works best for them is fine with me."

She nodded. "Good call. While I'm at it, I'll book an appointment with Leandro. Have you seen your hair lately?" When I raised an eyebrow, she stared back defiantly. "It's giving… scarecrow."

I waved a hand dismissively. "Don't care. Not like I'm trying to get a date."

She said something under her breath that sounded a lot like, "That's for damned sure."

"Pardon?" I turned to stare at her. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"It's none of my business…" she said primly.

"Like that's ever stopped you," I muttered. "If you have something to say, say it."

"Unless you've been particularly sneaky, you haven't gotten laid since Cape Cod."

"What do you know about Cape Cod?" I asked. It came out sounding squeakier than I'd intended.

"I know that the motel called me in a panic to apologize when they realized they'd forgotten to move the new mattressinto your room. They refunded the cost of your stay and asked why you hadn't said something about not having a mattress."

There was a mischievous glint in her eye as she tucked her upper lip between her teeth. Pink light from a nearby theater sign turned her hair a vibrant color for a split second before we passed it.

"Mpfh," I said, wondering how in the world I could have missed the fact my room hadn't had a mattress. I had used the room to shower and dress for the wedding, after all.

"While you are very flexible, Oscar, and not likely to complain about minor inconveniences, I would have expected you to alert someone if you'd noticed your motel room didn't have a usable bed."

"Well, apparently, you were wrong. I'm more accommodating than you thought," I said with a sniff.

"Sure."

Silence descended between us for a few minutes. Just when I thought it was safe to return to my contract review, she opened her mouth again. "Who was it? And before you play that silly game with me where you ask, ‘Who was who?' remember that time you made me fly Frank to Vancouver just so you could introduce him to another hedgehog and said you'd ‘owe me one'?"

"I was showing him off to a breeder, as you well know, and—never mind. Fine," I gritted out. "In the interest of paying my debt to you, his name was—is—Hugh Linzee."

Her eyes widened. "My sister's wedding photographer?"

The mention of her sister reminded me of how my text conversation with Hugh began in the first place. Which reminded me of how close Hugh and I had grown… and how not close we currently were.

Lesya shifted next to me. "You're rubbing your chest, and you look all…" She grimaced in demonstration. "Are you having some kind of heart… situation? Is it indigestion? Maybe the prawns at lunch?—?"

"The prawns were fine." I gave her a fulminating look and made sure my hand was nowhere near my now-aching chest. "I'm fine."

"Ohhhh," she said with dawning understanding. "Not a heart attack, a Hugh Linzee attack." Her voice was unbearably sympathetic, and she clutched her phone to her chest. "Oh, god. Oh, god, how did I miss this? You're in the melancholy,aren't you?You've been in it for months! I used to be so good at spotting your relationship stages, but I'm out of practice. I totally missed them with this guy?—"

"Don't be ridiculous. Hugh and I weren't in a relationship. You know I've stopped… all that nonsense. He and I met at Conor and Wells's wedding and are—were—friends. We texted daily. And, yes, we happened to spend the night together on Cape Cod, but only because?—"

"Two nights," Lesya interrupted.

I sucked in a breath. "Pardon?"

"Two nights," she repeated. "Two entire nights. With the same man. In the same bed. A man you liked, clearly, since you were friends for almost a freaking year."

I opened my mouth and closed it again, like a very large fish. "So?"

"So… I must have ignored the signs. It's usually impossible to miss the rush phase because you're constantly having me send the guy flowers and arrange weekends in Paris, and you're so consumed with everything he likes that you're all, ‘Johan is a practicing Buddhist. Could you find me a fast-track course on meditation and the Eight-Fold Path?' Or ‘Jack's always wanted to live in a yurt in Mongolia. How complicated would a move to Ulaanbaatar be, just hypothetically?' And it all seems so reasonable to you, because surely this excitement must be love."

My face flamed. "I have never?—"

"Oh, you definitely have," Lesya countered. "Because I know a shit-ton about Mongolian tax law, and it's all your fault. And then comes the honeymoon phase, where you settle down for a couple weeks or maybe a couple months. You're still having fun together, but you're also getting to know each other deeper than surface level. You drop your Oscar Overton persona for a minute here and there. You learn more about him—not just the one or two really cool facts that got you interested in him, or his favorite sex positions, or the stuff you assumed he thought or felt, but the stuff that actually makes him tick. That's where the trouble begins?—"

"We don't need to rehash this," I said a bit desperately, "since it's in no way applicable here."

"—because eventually, you come to the rocks," she continued, shaking her head sadly. "You start to realize he's not who you thought he was, or he wants something you don't want, or he expects you to be someone else. You're clinging to hope, going through the motions, but you're afraid now. You're annoyed, he's annoyed. You stop smiling as much and start sending out company-wide memoranda explaining that use of the Oxford comma in professional communications should be a requirement?—"

"Well, shouldn't it?" I insisted. "Lesya, if you care about me in any way, stop this?—"

"Then comes the melancholy, where one of you finally rips off the Band-Aid and decides you're not compatible." Lesya set her phone in her lap, stared into the middle distance, and sighed. "You're heartbroken, even if the guy was a total asshole, because you'd gotten your hopes up, and you can't help being disappointed. You contemplate all your past relationships and start to wonder why they didn't work out. You throw yourself into work to distract yourself from your fear that you'll never actually fall in love. I imagine your brain plays ‘Arms of the Angels'as background music all day long. This is usually when you ask me to make Rassolnik. Which my sister now calls Melancholy Soup."

I rolled my eyes to the darkened ceiling of the car and blew out a breath. "Are we almost done?"

"We're done," she agreed. She picked up her phone again and made a show of unlocking the screen. "After that, the cycle just repeats itself."

I shot her a suspicious look. I distinctly remembered there being five stages the last time she'd talked about this. Wisdom said that I should keep my mouth shut, but wisdom was not one of my top five attributes.

"Isn't there supposed to be another phase after that?" I blurted.

"Oh, the renaissance?" Lesya lifted one shoulder. "Yeah, but that's more of a theoretical thing. That'll only happen when you recognize that you can't control everything in your life, you decide to surrender to the full experience of being in love, and you attain a higher state of enlightenment," she said knowingly.

I blinked at her in shock. "A higher…?"

"You heard me." She glanced up, then challenged, "What? Someone had to take that freaking fast-track meditation course after you and Johan broke up. It was nonrefundable."

"And this is how you're applying what you learned? Lovely." I rolled my eyes again and sank lower in my seat. "In any case, none of that is pertinent here. I'm not in the melancholy, because Hugh and I were never in a relationship. We were friends. Text friends, as I said. And I told him flat out, from the very beginning, that I don't do happily ever afters. That I simply can't…" I said softly. "Even if I wanted to. So I may have left Cape Cod a bit… abruptly… rather than put either of us through a long, drawn-out goodbye. He stopped texting me after that." I forced myself to shrug. "Probably for the best. I already have plenty of friends."

Though none—none—like Hugh.

Lesya was quiet for a long moment before she finally spoke. "People can't be kept in boxes, Oscar." Her tone was mild and free of judgment, which only made her words harder to hear. "Simply labeling someone a lover doesn't mean you're truly in love with them, and labeling them a friend doesn't mean?—"

"Stop." I swallowed. "Don't finish that statement."

I lowered my eyes to my tablet again, though the words wouldn't come into focus. Heat from Lesya's stare spread across the side of my face, but I did my best to ignore it.

Lesya stayed quiet for the rest of the drive through the wet London night, and I let myself forget all about the conversation until after our late dinner meeting when I realized we were heading to the airport instead of back to the hotel.

"Where are we going? I thought we weren't flying to Zurich until tomorrow."

"I made a few phone calls while you were having appetizers. The Zurich meeting was moved to next week, and I told them it would need to be virtual." She patted Frank's small carrier, perched on the seat beside her. "We're heading back to New York."

"But—"

"You told me to find time in your calendar to meet with Chuckie, and I have. Tomorrow."

"Tomorrow," I repeated stupidly.

"No time like the present, as you always say. You'll be meeting him in your office at one."

"I'm sure he would have been fine with next week or?—"

She looked at me sharply. "He might have been fine with that, but I would not have. You being miserable makes my life miserable. Since you refuse to do anything about your love life, that leaves work to fill the gap. You're happiest at work when you're helping people reach their dreams. So that's what you're going to do, and you're not going to complain about it."

I briefly considered arguing with her, but then I imagined how nice it would be to sleep in my own bed. Plus, she was right. Something about Chuckie reminded me of myself at his age. He had so much drive and belief in the possibility of the future. He only saw life getting brighter and richer. If he had someone to help him get where he was going, the sky was the limit. Helping him reach his dreams was, as ever, more fun than running from my own.

"Okay. Let's go home," I said, settling back into the comfortable seat.

"Good. Besides," she added, glancing down at my phone. "Your mother is insisting you attend your sister's wedding shower. Did you forget to tell me about a Flower Family event for your calendar, Oscar?"

"No," I said, crossing my arms and staring out into the wet night before glaring back at her. "I told them I couldn't make it. We're going to be in Brazil for the Samba Capital thing."

She shot me a big smile. "Looks like London isn't the only trip I'm cutting short."

I stared back out at the blurry headlights catching in the raindrops sliding down the car window.

"Great," I muttered.

The last thing I needed was another damned wedding event. And the fact my mother was holding my feet to the fire made it even worse. She knew I'd rather throw myself into shark-infested waters than disappoint her.

I sighed. Attending Hyacinth's wedding shower, where all million of my stepsiblings would no doubt be their usual, ebullient selves, was more similar to shark-infested waters than I cared to admit.

At least with the sharks, you were allowed to run away as quickly as possible without anyone judging you for it.