I had talked with my mom that very morning, and she told me I sounded happier than she’d heard in a long time. Sure, I kept out the part about me sleeping with Dante, but I told her it was nice to have a friend to explore the island with.
Friend.
It still tasted a little sour in my mouth, but I would fake it ‘til I made it.
And he’d been great. He even had me take out my list and add things to it that I’d read about. I wanted to see the fort. We went. I wanted to eat more gelato, so we did. I wanted to get drunk on mojitos at the bar. He rolled his eyes at that one and said he’d think about it.
My list was helping me heal.
Helping me be happy.
Or maybe helping me fall in love.
The man I laid down with on the grass after going through San Juan’s fort was the guy I was supposed to be getting over. He was the one I couldn’t lose again, not after what I went through with the miscarriage. I knew it, and still each day, I went exploring with him. It wasn’t something that I’d forgotten. It was just something I avoided.
I had him as a friend now.
That would be good enough.
It had to be.
“You can’t be seriously contemplating a date with that man.” He pointed to my phone screen.
I dove back into completing number five again, even though Dante avoided it. I couldn’t work around it forever. Izzy had to be getting out soon, and that meant we would be back to our regularly scheduled programming.
Dante and I had just walked through the fort and gotten gelato. I was sure it was the best tasting thing here next to the mojitos andmofongo. We laid on the grass in a big field and watched kites fly above us.
“What is the alternative, Dante? I can’t… You’re the only guy who makes me feel anything. That’s like some twisted trauma I’m holding on to.” I’d become a freaking open book with the guy over the past week. He massaged my back, he brought me my favorite foods, and he stayed up late talking with me until I told him to get back over to his room before he fell asleep in my bed.
If that happens, I won’t sleep and neither will you,he’d responded, and I’d practically spread my legs for him right there.
Still, we’d kept everything PG like we thought was best.
“You’re kidding me, right?” He rolled onto his side and propped himself up on his elbow, staring at me. “It’s just that the men you get with are fucking shit shows.”
“You haven’t met any of them.”
“Well, I know Allan didn’t do his job with you right. And I still need the number of that guy who wanted to fuck Izzy instead of you.”
“You went on a date with Izzy too,” I tossed back, and he instantly recoiled.
“I already told you I would never have slept with her. Not when I wanted you. Damn, Lilah. I’d been training overseas and was doing so much shit for the family that I…”
“You don’t have to share it with me.”
“I can’t. It’ll go to the grave with me, but my mind wasn’t always as settled as it is now. It took a lot of time and healing to get where I am.”
I probably shouldn’t have, but I grabbed his hand in the grass and turned to look at him. “And where you are is amazing. I should probably still be mad at you and Izzy, but I’m not. You’re both doing a lot. And I know your hearts. Or at least, I think I do…”
“You know it better than probably anybody,” he murmured.
We’d spent all these moments in this beautiful place together, and as the kites flew over us in that field, I couldn’t have stopped what happened next if I’d tried. I don’t know if his lips met mine or my lips met his, but we fell into one another to steal each other’s hearts, if only for a second.
I got lost in the way he tasted, the way he coaxed my tongue to submit to his, and the way he pulled me up on his body to straddle him in that grass. I felt all of him below me, and I didn’t know if I could stop myself.
I gripped his jaw as I consumed him, and his hands ran over my back and ass.
Had his phone not rang, I think we both would have fucked each other in broad daylight right there.