The Friend Zone(56)

I shrugged. “I don’t know,” I said honestly. “I think a part of me was with you because you weren’t really real, you know? You weren’t here to deal with my shitty periods and get sexually frustrated like the boyfriends before you. You didn’t want kids, so my issues didn’t matter to you. Mom loved you. You were easy. And then we decided to make it real, and I was just so freaked out that you were coming home. I was scared to live with you and make that kind of commitment. But then when I saw you today, I…”

He hung on my words.

I let out a breath. “I saw you and I wondered why I was scared. I think I would have fallen right back in love with you the second you came home. But you never did.”

And I needed you to. Because you were the only thing keeping me from throwing myself into the flames.

He squeezed his eyes shut. When he opened them, they were full of hurt. “And what about him?”

I shrugged. “What about him? I can’t be with him. Ever. He wants kids. So that’s the end of that.”

He shook his head. “This is my fault,” he said quietly. “All of it. I knew something was there with you two. I could feel it. And I fucking reenlisted anyway.” He looked at me, the anguish etched deep in his forehead. “I did this. I practically handed you to him. I was so stupid.”

“You’re not wrong,” I mumbled.

I wondered what would have happened differently if Tyler had just come home. If he would have moved in. Been there. Reminded me, like I was reminded now.

But deep inside, I knew Tyler never stood a chance against Josh. Josh would have hovered on the edges of any happiness I could have ever found with Tyler.

Josh would hover on the edges of my everything for the rest of my life, I suspected.

So I might as well get used to it.

Tyler paid the check and as we got up to go, he looked at me. “I want to take you somewhere.”

He brought me to a hotel right off the beach. I thought we were going up to the roof—I’d seen a sign for a rooftop bar. But we got off on a guest room floor. When he pulled out a key, I realized he was taking me back to his room.

“Tyler—”

“Just…please, Kris. Just for a few minutes.”

He opened the door into a sprawling space. An enormous panoramic window looked out over the ocean. He led me with a hand on my lower back into the room, and I realized it wasn’t a room at all. It was a presidential suite.

A dining room table for eight sat to the left with a fresh flower arrangement on it bigger than I was. A spiral staircase led up to a loft with a library in it overlooking a gourmet kitchen.

A sleek black piano with flickering candles, two champagne glasses, and rose petals on top of it sat by the open balcony door. Champagne nestled in shifting ice next to the piano bench.

He’d obviously had something romantic planned for us before I’d made it clear we weren’t getting back together and I’d dropped the news about Josh on him.

The day hadn’t gone the way he’d hoped.

It hadn’t gone the way I’d hoped either.

“I wasn’t sure if I should bring you here,” he said. “I wasn’t sure you even wanted to see me. It took me a while to find one that had a piano.” He looked at me, his green eyes searching. “I was hoping you’d play for me. Like the day we met.”

I looked back at the piano. I didn’t want to reenact the day we met. I didn’t want to perform for him or play these games.

What I wanted was to go home. I wanted to be with Josh.

We stood there in silence, the distant sound of the ocean crashing through the open balcony door.

He put a hand to my arm. “Kris?” He tipped his head to catch my eyes. “Will you play for me? Please? One last time?”

One last time.

So this was it. Our goodbye.

This was how it started, and this was how it would come to an end. Me, sitting on a piano bench while he watched me play. It was a fitting finale. I was glad we had it. Glad that he’d come and we’d said the things we needed to say. It was better this way.

I looked at him a moment. “All right, Tyler. One last time.”

I took a seat, placing my fingers on the keys. A cool, salty ocean breeze rolled through the drapes, and I drew it deep into my lungs and began.

My mind disappeared into itself. I didn’t feel Tyler sit next to me, and I couldn’t tell you what music my fingers chose, or how long I played. Fifteen years of muscle memory made all the decisions.

When it ended, it felt like coming out of a dream. I put my hands in my lap and found Tyler sitting next to me, smiling gently, his eyes teary.

Then a hand came up under my jaw, and he was kissing me.

It was soft and careful, a closed-mouthed exploration. But it drew me up into him like a warm breeze lifting a kite. My arms found their way around his neck, and the memory of the shape of his mouth and the feel of his lips filled in the places that used to hold question marks and dark corners.

Yes, I remembered him. I remembered us.

But he wasn’t Josh.

The scruff of his beard felt wrong. He was too tall. And while my heart pounded, it didn’t reach out for him.

Maybe once, this would have been enough. I might have even mistaken this feeling for love.

But now I knew better.

He pulled away, a hand still cupping my cheek, and I looked at him, despair pouring over me.