Page 73 of Infinite

“You might need these,” Trin says, happily. “In fact, you really do. Get dressed and get going before someone gets hurt, and when I say someone, I mean you.”

“Hale?” Pris says.

“Pris, just get out. I’ll be in touch.”

Damn. Those weren’t the right words to say around Becca. She gapes at me, devastated.

In the quiet, all I hear is Pris tugging on her clothes and the distant lull of the ocean. It doesn’t take Pris long to dress. She didn’t have much on to start with. But when she starts to leave, it’s as if nothing I said matters and she’s leaving on her terms. She stops beside me, wrapping her arms around me to kiss my lips. I turn away fast.

She barely grazes my cheek, but I’m not giving her another chance to make up for it. I pull her hands off from around my neck. “Not happening,” I tell her.

“I see,” Pris says. “You don’t need me now. Do you, Hale? You got what you wanted last night.”

Becca gasps. “It’s not like that,” I say, yet again. But it seems nothing I say is good enough. Dark circles ring Becca’s eyes. She seems tired, defeated, and I’m only making things worse.

“I thought things were going to be different,” Becca says.

“They are, baby,” I assure her.

“Baby?” Pris repeats, her head jerking between is. “Don’t tell me she’s the reason you wouldn’t commit to me?”

I think back to the women I dated before Pris, and all those times Pris and my life in New York never seemed like enough. With everything I had and built, my loneliness never made sense. It does now.

“Becca is the reason I never committed,” I admit. I meet Becca square in the face. “I never forgot you, Becks, and you never forgot me, either.”

Pris plays with her hair, trying to save face. “You say that, but you always did know what to say. Didn’t you, Hale?”

It was more like I knew when to duck and stay out of Pris’s way. She has a different memory than I do and is doing her best to stir the pot.

“Pris,” I say. “It’s over. I told you that a few months back when you demanded a ring and I wouldn’t give it to you.” I’m looking at Pris now. I have to. I owe her as much. But I feel Becca. The hurt and anger she’s experiencing slides across her skin like the first drops of rain before a major storm. “I also told you as much last night, Pris, when you tried to kiss me and asked me to join you in bed.”

Pris could easily lie. It’s something she’s good at after years spent getting what she wants. She’s also good at taking jabs and kicking those who are already down. But this time, she doesn’t. Something she sees between me and Becca keeps her quiet, at least as much as her personality allows.

“This is what you want?” she asks.

I almost reach for Becca’s hand, but I don’t want her to deny me again, especially when I lay it all out there. “She’swhoI want.” I capture Becca’s gaze. Not with my words, but with my heart. “I never got over you, Becks.”

There have been times in my life where everything stops. There’s no air. There’s no need for breath. There’s nothing but you and that other person. The first time I felt it was back in high school. It was a Monday and Becca had found out she’d been accepted to Duke. She flounced toward me in her uniform, her sunny hair fluttering behind her as she leapt into my arms. She was so excited for the opportunity and to be so far away.

I held her, no longer as the beautiful girl I was friends with, and she saw me as more than they guy she joked and laughed with. It was the same look we exchanged the night we first kissed. It’s the same look she gives me now. There’s no air. No need to breathe. There’s just us.

“Fine,” Pris says, dissolving this brief wrinkle in time before I’m ready to let it go. “I just don’t see how she’ll ever be enough, Hale. I don’t see how any woman willeverbe enough.” Pris was always struttin’ around like a peacock, telling the world that she was the best and that anyone who tried to match her would end up cowering in the shadow of her plumage. Still, despite her nasty tone and superior attitude, I catch the barest hint of hurt. That doesn’t mean I’ll allow the snub against Becca.

“Don’t,” I tell her. “You don’t get to disrespect Becca, especially in front of me.”

Pris’s expression crumbles. It’s brief and if I wasn’t staring directly at it, I’m not sure I’d catch it.

“I need you to go, Pris,” I tell her as gently as possible. “Either me or Mason will reach out.”

“That’s it?” she asks, her voice quaky.

“That’s all it’s going to be, Pris.”

She opens her mouth, but doesn’t say a word. I think she needed to see me with Becca to accept that what we had is over. It still bothers me. I never wanted to hurt Pris, and wish she didn’t have to see me like this with Becca to believe I’d moved on. Whatever Pris imagined we had convinced her that no one could take her place. So, as much as this moment is hard, she needed to witness it firsthand.

Without another word, she steps away.

The door opens and closes seconds later. Becks and me just stare at each other. I want to tell her something, anything to erase her lingering pain. Instead, I leave her to her thoughts, permitting her to work through them.