I LEARNED this summer that vacation can make you feel like an entirely new and improved person when it’s going perfectly and like a dried caterpillar husk when it’s not. I unpack my clothes for what feels like the hundredth time this summer.
My fingers mechanically pull out my journal, the one containing the list of rules for my and Nico’s arrangement. I don’t even want to look inside of it; better yet, I’ll burn the whole thing when I get home.
I miss my bed, my clothes, and my collection of shoes. I miss all my things. I miss the piss smell of New York City streets. I miss Molly’s extravagant dinner events. Most of all, I miss not being in this strange state of it’s complicated.
My phone blinks.
NICO
u up?
LILY
Classy, immediately hitting me with the universal code for a booty call
The awkwardness I expected after our conversation yesterday is nowhere to be found. This morning, we woke up in the same bed together, and Nico acted like nothing happened. We left for our flight as if the entire thing had been some bad dream.
Maybe it was.
Maybe I wish I could take the conversation back.
No. I need to be realistic.
I set my phone down, not expecting a response.
NICO
just checking in on u…i know this isn’t the fun visit u expected
u feeling alright
Not at all. I miss you. I miss being in the same bed. I miss things not being so messy.
LILY
Exhausted
The fifteen-hour journey from London to the Azores entirely soured my spirit. Our quick layover turned into a six-hour delay during which we were trapped on the tarmac with no air-conditioning. I’ll have five days to tell Avery everything that’s happened before we fly to Cyprus the day after my birthday.
The clock in my room reads two in the morning.
If it weren’t for the buzz of happiness still swirling in me after seeing my best friend, I’m confident I’d be chewing the wood off my headboard like a termite.
NICO
same, don’t think i’ll sleep without u tonight
LILY
Already longing for me?
NICO
i long for you always, Lily
I yearn to fall asleep in the safety and warmth of his arms like I’ve done for the past week, but Avery and Luca are a couple of feet away in the next room.
Maybe it is better this way. It’ll allow me to work through my fried nerves for tomorrow—the day I confess a decade-long secret that’ll likely make my best friend disappointed in me and ruin the trip.
I hesitate for a moment, knowing the words I type out are probably ones I’ll regret.
Me too.
No. No, I can’t send that right now. I delete the message, then replace it with something else.
LILY
Good night
There’s a small knock on my door.
Oh no.
Maybe that’s Avery right now, sensing the elephant-sized truth I’m about to crush her with.
A mop of brown hair peeks through the door, enters, and quickly shuts
it.
“Nico, what are you doing here?” I whisper.
“I came to say good night.” He falls onto the mattress, and the springs
creak loudly. He pulls me to lie alongside him.
“Text would’ve worked just as fine.” I allow myself to indulge in the nuzzle of his nose against my neck.
“Can’t kiss you over text.”
My thoughts swim. “What about our talk yesterday and agreeing to keep things friendly here?” I want to sink in next to him.
“Summer isn’t over yet.” Nico notices my indecision. “C’mon, just lie with me for a few minutes and I’ll sneak back to my room. They won’t know a thing.”
Maybe the argument wouldn’t hold up in a court of law, but it seems to do the trick in my brain.
“Only for a second.”
 |
“OPEN UP.” Avery’s voice sings through my door.
I launch out of bed as though I’ve been strapped to a catapult.
“Lil? I have coffee.” Avery rattles the doorhandle, bouncing it up and down.
Fuck, I’ve never been so thankful for locks in my life.
Beside me, Nico’s body is wrapped up in my blanket, his arm heavy around my waist. So much for him only staying for a second last night.
“Nico,” I whisper, violently shaking him while trying to remain as quiet as humanly possible.
There has to be a window, a nook, any kind of slit in one of these walls for him to squeeze through.
“Back to sleep, baby,” he murmurs, yanking me into his bear embrace.
“Wake up.” I bite his ear, but he just groans. “Ave’s out there. You can’t be in here.”
The knock sounds again.
“Just a second,” I call out, lifting Nico’s dense arm off me and scrambling up the mattress. “Trying to find some pants.”
“Lil, I’ve seen you without pants a million times. It’s only me. Open up.”
“Fuck, fuck, fuck.” My eyes dart between the door and Nico.
Oh, he’s going to absolutely hate me for this.
I pull my knees up to my chest, settle my feet on his hips, and with one giant push, I roll him off the bed. He thumps against the ground so hard, the bedframe shakes.
“Are you okay?” Ave rattles the door again. Nico glances above the mattress. “Wh—”
I toss a pillow right at his face, hoping the wild look in my eyes is enough for him to understand the gravity of the situation. “Get the fuck under the mattress and stay quiet.”
He nods quickly, dragging himself under the small space beneath the bed.
I rush to the entryway, flip the lock, and swing open the door. “Dropped my suitcase.”
Avery looks polished as always: her cropped blonde hair tucked into a sleek bun at her nape, gold earrings on each ear, and a swipe of lipstick on her smile.
“I brought coffee.” She walks into the room before settling herself on my mess of bedsheets. My pulse climbs when I notice Nico’s shorts at the foot of the bed. “Where are your pants?”
“Couldn’t find any.” I rush over to her, kick the evidence of last night’s mistake under the mattress, and take the steaming mug out of her hand.
She eyes me suspiciously, strolls to my dresser, and pulls open the second drawer, revealing my neatly folded stack of bottoms.
It’s unreasonable to exist in a world where someone knows you as well as she knows me. I’m going to crush her when I tell her about Zoe Mona, if not with the secret, then definitely with the fact she didn’t figure it out before Nico.
“Did you get a tattoo?” She glances at the fine-line drawing of a lily on my right arm. I should’ve thrown on the sweater I was wearing last night when we arrived, but I guess I couldn’t hide the ink from her the entire trip.
I shrug. “Yeah, Nico and I got them in London.” Fuck, I shouldn’t have said that.
A soft brush of skin tickles my foot, and I look down to see Nico’s fingers tapping away on my ankle. I give him a firm backward kick before my best friend returns to the seat beside me.
“You guys got matching tattoos?”
“Oh.” I should’ve put some concealer on this or something just until I get back to New York. “Nico copied the design before I had a chance to stop him,” I lie, not wanting to give the matching ink more weight than it already has.
It’s my namesake and a funeral flower. That’s all.
“Sure.” Thankfully, Avery drops the questioning, but I can tell there’s more in her suspicious gaze. “You can explain that to me later. I want to know everything about your trip. Especially the parts you didn’t want to mention in front of the guys.” Ave gives me a knowing smirk.
On any other morning-after, in any other place, and in any different time, I would have spilled that there’s a naked man beneath my mattress.
But I can’t.
Because the man is her brother-in-law. If Luca gets wind it, this will turn into a bloodbath.
There’s no coming back from that.
“Where do we even start? I’m a little homesick. I’m sure I’ve put on like ten pounds with how much Nico’s been feeding me.” A cough sounds from beneath the bed, and I clear my throat loudly, hoping she didn’t hear it. “You don’t wanna go out into the living room?”
“Luca’s doing his morning yoga out there, so best to stay here before he tries to sell you on a thirty-minute deep-stretching session.”
We laugh, but not for long.
Avery’s nose lifts from her mug of coffee, and she gives me a stare I know won’t allow me to avoid her questions. “So, Nico?”
“Hmm?” I stall for as long as possible.
“Come on, Lily. Both of you are single, traveling together all summer… That’s so you. Sexy and fabulous.”
Is it me?
It breaks my heart to think the past week has been the opposite of reality for me.
“Look, I do actually have something I need to tell you.”
Avery’s face lights up with a spread of pink across her cheeks. “Are we going to be sisters-in-law? I knew it.”
“No, Ave—” I sputter, trying to reel in her unnecessary wave of excitement. I set down my mug. She gets carried away so quickly, my passionate flame of a best friend.
“Okay, well, I have even more exciting news on top of your amazing news,” Avery says. My heartbeat stalls in my chest. Does she already know? Did Nico tell Luca? “I’m a little early, and honestly, I probably shouldn’t say anything just yet, but I want you to be the first to know—”
“You’re pregnant?” I leap out of my seat, spilling my coffee everywhere, and wrap her in the biggest hug. My moment of sanity urges me to grab the mug out of her hand and set it on the floor before returning to our embrace.
“Eight weeks,” she whispers, squeezing me tightly. “You’re going to be Auntie Lily. Can you believe it? I still can’t.”
When she pulls away, her hazel eyes well with tears, and mine do the same.
“Oh my god, Lily, you’ve never cried in front of me.”
What is wrong with me? Is crying just one of those things that doesn’t stop once the well opens?
“I’m just so happy, Ave. You’re going to be the best mom in the world, and fuck, I’ll need to fight all the MILF-loving pervs in the city. I should brush up on my self-defense course.”
“I love you,” she professes.
I cover her face in kisses. There’s no way I can tell my best friend about Zoe Mona right now.
This is her time. Entirely and wholly.
There’ll be a much better moment to break it to her later. We have all week.
“I’m so happy for you guys.”
“I feel like such a cliche, getting pregnant on my wedding night, but the little vibrating friend you gave me, well, let’s just say you had the right idea.”
Nico tugs on my foot beneath the bed. I kick at him again. “We didn’t leave the bed the entire trip,” Avery says.
“Look at you.” I put on my best smile, but the guilt gnawing at my mind is robbing me of this moment with the only person who’s been like true family to me. “You’re such a little slut.”
The words cause her face to redden, and we light up the room with another rumble of laughter.
“Okay, wait until I tell you about this candle wax thing Luca did.” “Hold on, candle wax? Who are you?”
Avery’s body vibrates with excitement, and she leans close, as we do when we’re about to spill some very deep secrets. “No one told me marriage turns you into an absolute whore.”
There’s no way Avery, my Ivy League master’s program, never wore a flat shoe other than her running sneakers, neatly ironed clothes, ocean conservation executive, just said that.
“Trusting someone with fire while you’re naked is a privilege.” I wink at her.
“Maybe don’t mention the strip of chest hair Luca’s missing. It’s a sensitive subject.” She snorts.
There’s nothing like the sound of my best friend giggling after being apart. No matter the distance or time, everything is as it always was when we’re together. We’re still the same pair of souls from eight years ago. Avery, a turtle-saving Wonder Woman, and me, a liar.
An apprehensive knock sounds from the corner of the room.
“Cariño, can I interrupt?” Luca’s arm appears through the open door, holding another cup of coffee for Avery.
The Navarro brothers sure do love bringing their women drinks first thing in the morning.
No, wait.
Avery is his wife.
What Nico and I have is different—right?
“Come in. We’re just oversharing.” Ave beams at the sight of her six- foot-four husband dipping his head beneath the doorframe and walking over to her. A kiss on the head, a cup of coffee in her hand. Their routine is as simple as breathing. I pull the covers over my bare legs.
“Good morning, Lily.” He eyes me suspiciously. “Have you seen Nico?”
“Nope,” I say quickly.
Luca’s thick brows knot together. “Interesting.” He untangles himself from Avery before strolling over to my closet and yanking open the door.
“Luca,” Avery scolds him. “What are you doing?” “Checking for moths.”
“Moths?” My voice croaks.
Avery gives me an apologetic look and drags Luca away from his search behind the shower curtain. “Your brother’s an adult. He wouldn’t be hiding in the shower or under the bed like some teenager. He’s probably already at the bar.” She loops her arms in his, walking him out of the room. “Let’s go look for him.”
On her way out of the room, Ave winks and tilts her head toward the nightstand. Tucked beneath it is Nico’s shirt from yesterday.
Well, at least one secret is out in the open.
The door clicks shut, and I run over to lock it. I turn around, and Nico crawls out from under the bed, his signature grin bright. I want to wipe it right off his gorgeous face.
“She knows,” I tell him.
“Of course, she knows. When she hugged me yesterday, she said, and I quote, ‘Lily only looks that happy after she’s spent the weekend with her vibrator.’”
“Avery’s become unhinged.” I wipe the back of my hand on my forehead. “Now climb out the bathroom window. I’m willing to bet my life that Luca’s standing right outside the door waiting for you to walk out.”
“The window?” Nico says, tugging on his boxer shorts and T-shirt. “Be glad it’s not a doggy door.”
