lo—” I caught myself. “I appreciate you for feeling that way,” I amended. “Mustache is a chauvinistic oaf, but let him be my problem. You have enough to worry about on your own.”
Nick went quiet for a second. “What happened to you at Joss’s party?” he asked.
I hadn’t remembered to come up with a suave excuse for that one.
“Are you dating Ceres?” I asked instead.
“It’s casual,” he said. “Are you dating anyone?”
I thought of Clive. “Not even casually,” I said, perhaps too emphatically, but Nick didn’t seem to notice. “Did you really yell something in Majorca about being free at last?”
“I think I was referring to being off the ship, but I was rat-arsed at the time, so who knows,” he said. “And you didn’t answer my question about Joss’s party.”
“Okay, fine. I ran away,” I confessed.
“From me?”
“Did you see my pants?”
“Only very briefly. You were moving quite fast,” he said.
“Yeah. Well. This whole thing hasn’t been easy for me,” I told him.
“That makes two of us.” He flexed his bruised hand. “You know, in that second before I swung, it felt really good to just do what I actually wanted to do, damn the consequences.”
That he’d realized this, months beyond the point where it could have saved us, was something I’d rather not have known.
“Just don’t get hurt punching people for me anymore,” I said. “I can throw my own.”
Nick looked at me for a long time. “I’ll make you a deal,” he said. “I will try not to assault people in your name if you stop running off anytime we bump into each other.”
“I don’t know if I can, Nick,” I said. “I really am okay, or at least I will be. But I’m not ready to pal around London with you like we never happened.”
He looked sad. “But this was a good step, right? Seeing each other, I mean. Not the Mustache part.”
“It was a very good step. Let’s take another one sometime.”
We lapsed into silence, companionable, but still more remote than I could fathom feeling around someone I’d loved so much. Back in that stale Paris hotel room, I’d known I had to make some changes, but Nick’s black eye drove home that I wasn’t the only person who would benefit from me putting down the bottle and picking myself up instead.
“Is it always going to be like this, do you think?” I wondered.
“Like what?”
“Well, it’s funny,” I said. “When we were together, whatever I did blew back on you. Once we broke up, I assumed that would stop, but it hasn’t. People will always connect the dots, and wonder if I’m pining for you, or if we’re secretly hooking up, or if we hate each other. It never ends.”
“You make it sound so appealing to have been with me,” he said wryly.
“It was. I don’t regret it for a second,” I told him. “But it’s just…a strange feeling. To be so tied to you in public now, when we never got to be tied to each other in public then. I guess being your girlfriend was temporary, but being your ex is for life.” I shook my head. “I don’t know. Maybe I’m just annoyed I couldn’t go on as many dumb benders as it took to get over you without people judging me for it. And now it’s made trouble for both of us.”
“Bex, the only trouble you’ve ever been for me is the fun kind,” he said gently.
And as our eyes met, the tide came in again. I had the turbulent thought that I could take his head in my hands and then just take him, like Cilla had with Gaz, and that he wanted me to and would let me. There was a softness in his bruised face, a hint of a question in his eyes. But if Nick and I were going to happen again, it couldn’t be three hours after Clive’s naked body inspired me to ralph in a hotel bathroom. I refused to be reckless with him. So I screwed up my nerve and turned away, and the charge fizzled as quickly as it had sparked.
Nick’s phone buzzed. I stood to leave, but he held up a finger before answering.
“Cer, can you hang on a tick? Thanks. I’ll just be a sec.” He pushed mute. “I’m glad we talked,” he said to me.
“I am, too.” I meant it.
“Do we hug good-bye?”
“Better not,” I said.
“Right,” he said, rubbing his phone with his thumb.