When I open my eyes, Nash is still there. He’s lying next to me in the dark room with his eyes closed. Shifting back, I feel someone behind me too. Ellis’s clothed body is pressed tight against mine, and I’m covered in a soft blanket in just my bikini.
Then I remember everything. From my mother’s phone call to the breakdown, and Ellis and Nash calming me down. It feels like a bad dream. Or a hangover.
Very carefully, I climb out of the bed and tiptoe to the bathroom. When the light comes on, I stare at my reflection in the mirror. There are heavy dark circles under my eyes, makeup streaking down my cheeks, and cracks through the soft skin of my lips.
Before going back to bed, I wash my face and try to avoid looking at the ugly thing staring back at me in the mirror. I know it’s my delusions, the evil voices in my head, telling me I’m too ugly to love.
When I get back to the bed, Nash’s crystal blue eyes are watching me from the darkness. He doesn’t say anything, not at first. He just curls my body against his, holding me tight in his arms.
“That used to happen to me after Preston died. I kept them away with vodka and pot, and I didn’t even care I was only making it worse.”
Looking up into his face, I try to remember the first time I met Nash, how young he seemed then. Pushing his shaggy brown hair out of his face, I still see the same pain I recognized then.
“Do you want to talk about it?” he asks.
Ellis shifts behind me, and I feel him bring the blanket back up around my waist, covering my body. Then his lips are on my shoulder. It’s a gentle kiss, nothing like what happened in the hangar or the pool. It’s like these two actually care about me, but how is that possible?
And what’s the point? I can’t choose one without hurting the other. So why am I doing this to myself, letting my heart get attached?
Because I’m stupid and I put myself in these situations.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” I mumble, swallowing down my humiliation.
“There’s nothing wrong with you,” Ellis replies, close to my ear. He’s pressed against me, so I’m literally sandwiched between the two of them, and it’s so comfortable and inviting I hate myself for how much I love it. I wish it could always be like this.
“Who was on the phone?” Nash asks.
Shutting my eyes, I answer him. “My mother.”
“What did she say?”
I scoff. “Aside from what a failure and disappointment I am? She let me know how she cancelled the deposit on the apartment because she still has executive power over my bank account since my breakdown last year.”
“Hanna,” Ellis says, and I hate the disappointment in his voice. I know I shouldn’t give her so much power, but what else can I do?
“I have no one else. What am I supposed to do?” I ask, tears brimming my lashes again.
“You have us,” Nash says, squeezing me closer.
“You don’t need anyone,” Ellis adds.
“She’s right though. I don’t have a job or a future. I threw away my dance career. I shouldn’t be allowed to make decisions for myself anymore.”
“You know that’s not true,” he replies against my back.
“I don’t know what’s true.” I’m sobbing now, soaking the pillow again, but this time, I’m not spiraling out of control. I’m safely grounded, tethered to them. “She’s been telling me my entire life how I wasn’t wanted. She couldn’t take me back to Germany because I was born out of wedlock, how my own family would hate me because my skin is a little darker than hers. She used to tell me I had to be a perfect dancer like I had to earn my love, and eventually…it broke me.”
Crying into the pillow, I let everything out. I feel only their lips and hands on my body, tender and careful but also assertive and convincing.
And it is convincing. After these strange two weeks, I’m feeling things I never expected to feel. I was never supposed to fall for either of them, and at the very least, I expected sex. But this? This is so much more. It’s confusing and terrifying, overwhelming and exciting.
But it can’t last.
Nash and I would be dangerous together. With no one around to settle our tempers, everything about our relationship would be toxic. Not to mention, Zara would