Carry Your Heart (28 page)

He reaches out and grabs the ring around my neck. “Nice rock.”

My anger dissipates in a rush.
Danny gave it to me. I want to tell you about him, but I can’t because we broke up.
“I said do you want to know something?” I’m fighting tears.

“You okay?”

“Do you want to know something?”

“Sure. I want to know something,” he says, in a placating voice.

I swallow. “I really fucking miss you.”

He looks at me, his face changing. “Pippa, you’re drunk.”

“I already told you that,” I say. I swallow, tears brimming in my eyes, which I fight ferociously, because I cannot cry in all of this make up.

“I told you I can’t do this.”

“Because of Laurel?”

“That’s not—she’s not my girlfriend.”

“What is she?”

“I don’t know,” he says. “You always think I have all of the answers to all of this shit, Pippa. I don’t know anything. Don’t you get that?”

“Did you miss me?”

“Jesus, Pippa,” he whispers. “You have no idea.”

He presses his forehead to mine, a shocking gesture for how public this event is. “Then what can’t you do?”

“This. I can’t do this.”

“Why not?”

“Because you’re drunk and you
don’t
mean it. And you’re
wearing
an
engagement ring
.”

“I’m wearing a necklace. To remember someone I love,” I say. I look at him. “I know he’s not here, Hunter.” I say it fiercely. “I’m not confused.”

“If you were sober…”

“I’d be too scared to say this,” I say. “But that doesn’t mean it’s not true.”

“Pippa…I can’t. I’m sorry.”

I swallow. I should have known that what he was trying to say is
I don’t want to.
I nod. “Right, well.” I bit my lip. “I told someone I’d try to…never mind. I tried.” I turn, trying to pretend I didn’t just hand over my heart and he didn’t take it.

I retreat back to Lottie’s side.

“Hey,” she says uncertainly. “Are you…”

“I’m okay,” I say gamely. I laugh. Try to laugh it off. “God, you must be fucking sick of needing to ask me that question. I’m okay, Lott.”

She nods. But I’m not that okay. I’m not that shattered either. I’m just sort of shocked. All this time I’d been holding out hope that it wasn’t over, but it is for him.

We meet dozens of people. I shake so many hands my arm aches. And I can’t stop my eyes from finding those shoulders, that hair, the green eyes if he’s close enough. Can’t stop hoping he’s watching me too. Considering what I said.

It’s a long party. There’s dinner, more drinks, loud music. There’s an elegance to the place, even as it devolves into sloppiness—big name snowboarders jumping up and down and screaming along with the blasting music, people spilling drinks, a frat party in a five star restaurant.

Lottie and I go to dance as the debauchery begins, and I find myself spun into the arms of a snow mobiler named Shawn, who has a Mohawk and tattoos and is not at all my type.

But he’s funny and he makes me laugh and given that I more or less just was flat out rejected by Hunter Dawson, things don’t seem so bad.

Lottie is in the arms of someone who has her swooning. “So, are you an athlete or here for the fun?”

“Both,” I say. “I ski. Downhill. Not competing.”

“Nice.”

“Mind if I cut in?” Hunter’s voice is deep and serious. He’s not trying to be cute, he’s not trying to flirt. He wants Shawn gone.

“Sure,” I say before Shawn can protest.

He seems annoyed, muttering as he spins away, and there’s Hunter, smoldering, quiet, taking my wrist and my hand. He’s tall. I like how tall he is. I don’t know why I ever said I didn’t. Everyone should be this tall.

“What are you doing?” I ask.

“Dancing with you,” he says simply, pulling me close. He’s a good dancer. He takes control; I just have to lean into him, feeling the heat of his body, the warmth of his hands on my waist.

“How many drinks did you have since I last spoke to you?” I demand.

“Lots,” he says. He spins me and pulls me back to him tight. I like being held by him, knowing that he’s drunk and I’m drunk and that this is a terrible idea.

“Hunter, I’m sorry for…” I say softly.

“Do you want to get out of here?” He whispers it harshly, like he needs me to say yes as much as I want to.

“Yeah.” I nod. “Yeah, let’s go.”

Lottie gives me a worried look when he takes me hand and pulls me out of the crowd. We’re both hot and sweaty from the dance floor. He’s walking seriously, like we have a flight to catch.

He holds my hand. We walk away from the noise and pick up our coats quietly.

The coat attendants are sleepy and bored. It must be a strange job, working at parties with all these drunk strangers. Handing over their coats. So quickly forgotten by the people they work for.

Hunter leaves them twenty dollars, and pulls me through the door. He spins me outside the, his hands tight on my waist, and presses me against the cold wall of the building to kiss me hard. It’s like I’ve never been kissed before. Not like this. Not like it was keeping us alive.

I reach out and touch his face. The day-old beard bristles against my hand, and he nuzzles closer to me, with deep, biting kisses, and one hand pressed firmly against the brick exterior wall of the restaurant.

“Hunter,” I breathe.

“You keep saying my name,” he says with a smile. He takes a strand of my hair and tucks it behind my ear. He kisses my neck once and softly.

“It’s because I can’t believe you’re with me.”

The limo pulls up and we slide in. He pulls my legs sideways into his lap, so I’m sitting against the door and he runs his hand up and down my calf, curiously.

“You are fucking wasted,” I say as he inspects my calf.

“Yes,” he says. He glances at me. “So are you.”

“Just a little.”

He smiles.

“So, what’s your deal with Laurel?”

He throws his head back. “Oh,
come
on, Pippa.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s sex,” he says. “Someone to have breakfast with. Someone with no real expectations. She has never been my girlfriend and she will never be my girlfriend. And I have told both you and her that more times than I care to count.”

“And what would she say if she knew about this?”

He sighs. “She knows we’re not exclusive.”

“Hunter…”

“We haven’t spoken in a month and you want to talk about Laurel? That cannot possibly be what you missed about me.”

I smile, laugh throatily, and slouch further down against the door. “No. It’s definitely not.”

It’s freezing outside the hotel, where I teeter unsteadily in the gusting winds for a few seconds while Hunter signs for the car and slides on his overcoat.

“What are we doing?” I murmur to him as we cross the lobby, past the white-gloved doormen and the perfectly coiffed concierges.

The clear bell of the elevator signals its arrival and we step in. “Anything we want,” he says. He stares at me while he says it, like he’s thinking hard about something.

“What?” I ask.

He smiles. “Nothing.”

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

“You look really nice.” He licks his lips and smiles.

We get off on the top floor. I kick off my heels, done with the ache in my arches.

He opens his hotel room door quickly.

It’s five times the size of mine, a luxurious, three-bedroom suite with a single, unpacked suitcase at the foot of the master bed. The living room is cluttered with snowboards and helmets—gear that he’s deciding between.

He pushes me down onto the bed with one hand and takes off his blazer and tie to kiss me.

We’re both drunk, and it’s sloppy, but he hits off the lights, and gets me underneath the sheets. And even though I’m drunk, and he’s not available, and he doesn’t know if he wants this, he takes me so high that it hurts.

And I dig my nails into his back, like if I could just get them deep enough inside, he’d never want to leave again.

I’m too drunk and blissed out to leave like I should, when we’re done. I fall asleep, curled into him. He wraps his arm around me, which I love. I want this to last forever.

What are we doing? Anything we want.

Chapter Forty-Two

I wake up before he does, with the kind of headache that Advil was invented for, and a mouth dryer than the desert. I swallow thickly, on a dry and raspy throat and sit up in the sheets.

He stirs as I do and I run my fingers through my hair, sure I look a total mess. He arches up on his forearms and looks over at me.

He gives me a big smile. “Hey.”

I swallow, wondering how many girls have woken up like this since we broke up. Lots. Now I’m one.

I feel cheap, somehow, even though this was as much my ideas as it was his.
More than his idea, it was my idea.
I remember how I told him:
I fucking miss you.

“You want to order breakfast?” he asks.

And he said:
I can’t.

“What are we doing?” I ask.

He frowns. “I don’t know. It’s the morning. I usually get breakfast in the morning. We can do something else. I also take showers in the morning, if you want to do that with me.”

I grin. “You’re such an animal.”

“Hey,” he says. He smiles. “This is a good luck on you.”

“Hungover with smeared mascara?”

“Naked and in my bed.”

I laugh as he rolls over me and I slip further down to cover my mouth. “I have terrible breath.”

He kisses my forehead and rolls of me, completely oblivious to my attempt at hiding underneath the sheets. I peek out as he rolls out of the bed, ass naked, to the bathroom. “Coming to shower, Speedy?”

I shake my head and laugh at him, watching him go, burying my head in my pillow. He’s built like…a professional athlete. The door closes to a sliver behind him and I get out of bed quickly. I get a look at myself in the mirror as I slip my dress back on. I’m as much of a mess as I expected, my hair doing things that gravity shouldn’t allow.

“Shit,” I mutter in the mirror. The silk dress is crumpled up and smells like gin and beer. My heels are strewn on the floor and my feet curl in unhappy anticipation of sliding them onto my abused feet.

I glance back at the door, slide out of bed, slip into the dress, and start looking for my underwear. “Fuck,” I mumble. I pick up my heels and wait outside the bathroom. I want to talk to him. I also want to get some Advil and wash my face. Go for a run, sweat it out, and debrief with Lottie.

I sigh sitting on the edge of the bed, not wanting to sneak out and leave him guessing.

The water stops and he appears. “Aw, you got dressed.” He comes out with a towel wrapped around his waist and sits next to me on the bed as I slide on my shoes.

“So, I should go…”

He nods once. “No breakfast?”

“No, I…” I nod at the door. “I should…get going.”

He nods. He has a bitter grin on his face. “Right. He licks his lips. “So, that was a mistake.”

I swallow. “If you say so, Hunter.”

“I wasn’t saying—I was asking, actually.”

I get to my feet. “Didn’t sound like a question.”

“Well, it was.”

“I don’t know what that was.” I slide my arms into my coat, as if I can conceal the fact that I’m blatantly walk-of-shaming it inside the hotel I’m staying at.

He seems uncomfortable, rubbing his chin. “So, what should I tell…I mean, like what do you want me to tell Laurel?”

The name causes bile to rise in my throat. “What do you mean? What should you tell Laurel? You said she had no expectations.”

“No, I just. Should I end things with her totally?”

“Do whatever the hell you want, Hunter. I’m not going to make that decision for you,” I say. I run my hands through my hair, trying in vain to smooth my hair back, and I leave.

What should I tell Laurel?

This should be easy. Tell her you fucking love me. Or else tell me that you’re not interested. Don’t ask me. Asshole.

I collapse back into my bed when I get there, kicking off the devil shoes and sliding out of the dress. I think I like being naked and alone in my own bed better than I like being naked in Hunter’s bed. At least nobody is going to talk about Laurel when I’m alone in my own bed.

What a douchebag,
I think hitting the pillows hard, geared up for some sleep. I flip through my texts, trying to get comfortable. Lottie left with that cute kid she’d been dancing with. Mike.

You get home okay?

She texts me right back.
Still with Mike ☺

I relax, reading that. Relax as much as I can with Hunter’s question reverberating in my head.
What should I tell Laurel?

I grip the ring around my neck, frowning. I take it off for the first time since I’ve gotten it and roll over in bed. The sleep I’ve been looking forward to doesn’t come.

Instead, Laurel does. And Hunter’s face. The way he says my name. The way he can’t commit. The way that he asked me, because he didn’t know the difference between the two of us.

***

After I go for a run, I’m tired but I don’t feel like I’ve been hit by a truck anymore. I still look that way, but I feel marginally less shitty. I sit down at the hotel desk with a small journal to write down what I’ll talk about on Good Morning America when they do their piece on my comeback.

I make a short list:

-ryan

-danny

-leg/sadness

I look down at it, surprised by the bullshit I come up with. Leg/sadness? I crumple up the piece of paper and throw it away. There’s a reason I’m not majoring in English.

I walk over to Lottie’s room and rap on the door. No answer.

I walk back to my room, restlessly. I pace back and forth and pick up my phone to call Courtney. No answer.

I need someone to talk to.

Dad?

To say what?

Oh, hey dad. I got really drunk and slept with my ex-boyfriend last night, and all he had to say was whether or not he needed to stop seeing this skanky ho who created a series of online blogs to spread vicious, untrue gossip about me.