Page 115 of Drowning Erin
“Hmm,” I say through pursed lips. “You sure managed to look like you were ‘thinking’ about othergirls.”
“From our second week at that job, I never slept with another girl without imagining you. Not once. It fucking pissed me off, and it made me hate you a little extra, but I couldn’t changeit.”
My mouth curves into a smile. “And what were you imagining us doing?” Iask.
“Sometimes it was you, just like that,” he says. “You swinging those legs over the tourdesk.”
“That’sit?”
He creeps closer, pushing my knees apart until he’s standing between them and our chests aretouching.
“Not even close,” he says, cupping my jaw. “But I’d start likethis.”
He kisses me, and for some reason—in this place, in this moment—I become my 22-year-old self, the one so consumed with lust, so obsessed that even the sight of the back of his head could make my legsweak.
“And then,” he says, unbuttoning my blouse, “I’d dothis.”
He pushes my skirt around my waist. “Now lay back,” he whispers, “and I’ll show you therest.”
78
Erin
Two MonthsLater
As I’mapt to do, I start yawning the moment Brendan and I board the flight to Seattle, where we will celebrate Will and Olivia’s anniversary as well as our goddaughter’s baptism. It’s been a busy couple of months, but the best possible kind of busy—I love my job and Brendan’s tour company is thriving. Because of our schedules, we really only see each other at night, but we make the most ofit.
There are no more 2 AM calls for either of us. Brendan finally blocked Gabi’s mother, and my father and Sean successfully completed rehab. I have no idea if they’ll stay clean, but I know I’m done covering for both ofthem.
Brendan once worried that he’d drag me down, the way he thought he did Gabi. But the truth is that I was already drowning—suffocated by the demands placed on me by my family and Rob—and Brendan gave me just enough air to realize it was happening at all, and to make itstop.
“You know what would make a good anniversary present?” he asks me now, sliding his fingers through mine and glancing back toward thebathrooms.
“A, we are not attempting to join the mile-high club in the middle of the day when every single person will watch us both entering and leaving thebathroom.”
“And what’sB?”
“B is that it’s not even our anniversary. It’s Will and Olivia’s. And before you start bitching, keep in mind thiscouldbe our four-year anniversary too if you hadn’t taken off with the wedding coordinator thatnight.”
I’ve convinced myself it no longer bothers me, but I hear a level of irritation in my tone which might lead one to thinkotherwise.
“I never laid a finger on the wedding coordinator,” he says. “Where’d you get thatidea?”
“Rob told me,” I say, realizing that yes, even after all these years, I’m still upset by it. “I was completely devastated. I went to my room afterward and cried myself tosleep.”
His jaw clenches. “Erin, I waited. I waited and waited, feeling like an asshole, until I got a text from Rob saying he’d finally gotten you to come to hisroom.”
I stare at him, wide-eyed. “He walked me upstairs and dropped me off at thedoor.”
Rob played us both. He knew, even back then, that there was something between us, and he went out of his way to make sure nothing came of it. We sit in silence for a moment, undoubtedly thinking the same thoughts: what might have happened if it had gone another way? Where would we be rightnow?
“I should probably thank him,” Brendan finallysays.
“What?” I demand. “He kept usapart.”
“He did us a favor,” Brendan replies. “I was too young, and you were definitely too young. It wouldn’t havelasted.”
“Maybe. But I still feel like he deserves to bepunished.”