“Not really.” She shrugged his arm off her shoulder and rolled her eyes before crossing her legs and turning her attention to Andy, who hovered over Bailey, looking down at her with a glint in his eye.
“No Cohen?” Bailey asked.
The mere mention of his name had my stomach tightening, and not in a good way.
“Nope.” Andy sighed. “He decided to stay back at the apartment. Boring fuck.”
“Is he always like that?”
“Pretty much.”
“Then, why would you bring someone like that to Mykonos with you?” Bailey scowled.
“It’s complicated, but he’s kind of like a brother to me, so I’m stuck with him whether I want him here or not.”
“Le sigh. Always such a shame when a stunner has the personality of a slug.” Rhea exhaled heavily. “It’s always the pretty ones.”
After that, the conversation seemed to move on to something else that didn’t hold my interest, when all I really wanted to do was ask more questions about Henry Cohen—figure out what lived behind those tortured eyes of his besides venom. Work out why I seemed to irritate him so much by doing nothing more than breathing in his direction. But then I had to give myself a silent reminder that not every arsehole had layers you could peel your way through. Not every guy out there had the depth of those book boyfriends I loved to read about. Not every brooding man had a cookie dough centre they didn’t want the rest of the world to know about.
In real life, pricks were just pricks—nothing more to it. We lived in a world where it was now cooler to be colder, and Henry clearly took that to the extreme, no doubt hoping he came off as the untouchable stud everyone should want but couldn’t have. If ever I bumped into him again, I’d make sure to let him know that that kind of ice didn’t do a thing for me. I’d always preferred the warmth over anything that left me cold.
“Hey, Phoebe?” Jace called to me over the music. “You’re too pretty to be looking so lost inside your own head like that.”
Rhea dug a sharp elbow into his ribs, making him wince and ‘humph’ in her direction.
“Woah, what was that for?” he asked, rubbing at his side.
“You never tell a girl she’s too pretty to be anything, whether it’s smart, moody, sad, or distant. Pretty girls have a right tobe anything they want to be. If she wants to daydream, let her daydream withoutmaking her feel guilty about it. Okay?”
His eyes widened as he took her in, looking like a man ready to feast on a buffet. “Did you know a girl with fire on her tongue is my ultimate weakness?”
“I’m a woman, not a girl, fool.”
“Even better.”
Rhea groaned and shook her head. “Boys.” She sighed.
The sun had started to rise in the early hours of the next morning when the five of us finally stumbled our way back to our apartments, a little worse for wear after far too many cocktails and shots. To Andy and Jace’s credit, they hadn’t left our side all night, making sure we were safe among the crowds. They offered to pay for our drinks, even pretending to be Bailey’s and Rhea’s boyfriends at one point when they’d been unable to shake a very enthusiastic pair of brothers away. There’d been flirting, of course, but other than that, neither Jace nor Andy had stepped out of line or taken things too far.
I had to admit, I hadn’t minded their company or the feeling of safety they’d provided on our first night away in a foreign land.
“What time is it?” Rhea yawned, swinging the straps of her heels in her hand as she lazily trudged through our complex’s entrance, where bright pink flowers and striking green leaves covered the walls of the white-washed buildings.
“No idea. Phone’s dead.” Bailey sighed. “But the sun is rising, and that means we gotta make like vampires for a while before we have to wake up and do it all again.”
“I’m too old for this.”
“We’re twenty-three, Rhea.”
“And a half.”
We eventually said our goodbyes to Andy and Jace, who both looked a little dejected about the fact that they weren’t going to get lucky on the first night. God loved them for trying, though, I was sure of it.
We were making our way to the staircase that led up to our room when I caught a glimpse of the sunrise hitting the infinity pool in the centre of the complex, tempting me closer. With my feet throbbing, I suddenly couldn’t think of anything better than dipping them into that cool water before sliding myself into bed.
“You two head up. I’ll be right behind you,” I told the girls, coming to a stop and thumbing over my shoulder. “Just going to dip my feet in the pool for a minute.”
They gave each other a look before Rhea called me a weirdo, and they trudged off up to bed as if they’d just run a marathon and couldn’t take another step. In a way, we had. I’d not danced that much in years, but I was still way off letting myself go fully. I’d danced, but I still hadn’tdanced. Not like I used to. Before responsibilities and holding down multiple jobs back home just to be able to spend as much time away from home as possible. Before Rob.
