Page 21 of The Friends and Rivals Collection

GAME FOR ANYTHING

Axel

That list of regrets I keep on my laptop?

The French Riviera is nowhere near it. In fact, I might need to start a list of un-regrets and this stunning view of the sea will be at the top of it.

We’re in Parc de la Colline du chateau in Nice the next afternoon, after having trekked up a steep hill to this park.

It overlooks the Baie des Anges in the sapphire-blue Mediterranean Sea.

This is why people work their asses off all year for a vacation—I feel like I am living inside a travel brochure.

As I stare out at the water, I try to focus on this moment , rather than on last night.

That kiss has been playing on a goddamn loop in my mind, and I need to stop it.

I try to commit to memory the blazing emerald colors of the park and the rusty red of the roofs below, along with the salty scent of the sea floating on the summer breeze.

Maybe, just maybe, they can fill the space in my head that she’s taking up.

Possibly, I can use them to block out the new item on my list of regrets.

Kissing Hazel Valentine last night.

But it’ll be like scaling a mountain to erase that kiss since she’s currently standing at the edge of the park, talking to the tour group about, what else, kissing.

Fucking kissing.

“Once I discovered this park on a European trip, I knew I had to include it in a book someday,” she tells them.

I seethe.

Bet she took that trip here with a guy. Was it Max? Or maybe it was Jacob, the musician she dated before him, another guy in a history of bad-news boys.

Jacob was a jerk too, married to his guitar and his gigs rather than to her. The dude left her hanging far too many times, canceling, forgetting, then asking for forgiveness.

What is wrong with men?

Present company included.

But what is wrong with Hazel for picking these awful men? Though, I’m the pot calling the kettle black. My track record in picking women is as bad as Hazel’s in choosing men.

Still, I’m sure whatever guy got to take her to Nice, to kiss her, to have her, then to travel home with her, was a dude bro too.

Jealousy claws through me, dragging its jagged nails over my skin.

As she talks about her trip here, I look away, trying to tune her out. I should never have kissed her last night. I know better, yet when I was next to her on that awful couch, the hum of the train seducing us, that wildflower scent of her skin seducing me, I didn’t think.

I felt .

I felt an infuriating resurgence of all that pulsing, aching want I tried to vanquish when I went to Europe more than a year ago. To get away from her.

So I gave in.

Dumb fucking move, since now I can’t get her kiss out of my head.

“And it’s the perfect spot for a kiss, isn’t it?” she asks the group in that charming, vibrant voice that makes her readers adore her.

She’s so perfect for this genre, it kills me.

She has an every-girl charm about her. She’s accessible and chatty.

She’s the woman they want to be their bestie.

She’s not afraid to show them her real self.

When we climbed up the steps earlier, Hazel stumbled on the second to last step, but one of the Book Besties grabbed her elbow, stopping her from falling.

“Guess I’m a clumsy heroine today,” Hazel had said to Maria, with a self-deprecating smile.

“I’ll save you anytime, girl,” Maria had said.

Now, they’re enrapt as Hazel brings them behind the scenes to the Nice chapters in one of her most popular books— Sweet Spot.

But I can’t stomach hearing how she crafted that romance.

Because I know—I just know—some other man inspired her.

He kissed her here in this park, overlooking the Mediterranean, and I hate him.

“And I thought, someday ,” Hazel continues, all wistful, and hearts-a-fluttering, “ I will write a first kiss scene here, and it’ll be epic .”

“And the Sweet Spot kiss was so epic,” Jackie chimes in, bouncing on her pink Converse-clad toes. “It’s one of my favorite kisses of yours. But I also love the kiss in the alley in Old Nice, just past the market. When Bennett yanks her into a doorway?—”

“—and he growls at her, saying, You are maddeningly beautiful, ” Alecia puts in, hand on her chest, ready to swoon. “ And all I can think about is what your lips taste like .”

“And she says, all sultry and needy, So find out ,” Maria says, batting next with their performance of memorized lines from Hazel’s book.

Damn. They’re something else.

Hazel whistles in appreciation. “Wow. Impressive,” she says.

The Book Besties high-five each other.

“It’s one of our favorite kisses. It’s a top five Calgon Take Me Aways kiss,” Jackie says.

“What’s your all-time favorite? Across the whole romance genre. Not just my books,” Hazel asks the whole group. As different people answer, mentioning Kennedy, and TJ, and plenty of others, Hazel listens attentively and once, or maybe twice, I swear she steals a glance my way.

A furtive little stare.

Is she checking me out?

Regretting last night too?

Obsessing over it?

I don’t have a clue, so instead, I stare sullenly at the water, inventing character bios for all the people passing by down below. I do my best to keep my brain busy, so I won’t linger on that kiss I regret.

I definitely regret it even more after knowing she came here with a guy.

But I can’t tune her out since her voice grows louder, a closing note tone to it. “And that’s why I’m glad my mother took me on a trip to Nice years ago. When we visited here, I even told her someday I would write a kissing scene here,” she says.

It’s like a smack upside the head.

I was dead wrong. She came to Nice with her mom, not a lover. As she ushers the group out of the park, I straggle behind, delightedly corrected.

Feeling like the most relieved idiot in the world.

I grin privately as I head down the steps. I maybe even preen. Yeah, no one else kissed her.

You jackass, you didn’t kiss her here either.

You’re not sharing a sleeper car with her for real.

You’re not having a relationship with the woman who has utterly captivated you for years.

And so, I still regret last night.

Because I’m still the jackass who wants another kiss. One that doesn’t end.

As she finishes the tour, I stay quiet. I refuse to look at her. I live in my head. That’s easy for me. My imagination is rich and vivid, and I have so many stories to tell. Stories where the hero always gets the girl, no matter what.

But when the tour ends, and the readers head off with a local guide for a late afternoon snack (translation—glass of wine), Amy tells us we have a free hour before the early evening bookstore signing.

“I have some calls to make but if the two of you want to wander, we can meet up in an hour,” she suggests, checking the time on her phone.

Hazel looks at me, her eyes saying yes before her mouth does. “I’d love to,” she says, and I’m not at all surprised. She loves kicking the tires.

I just give a curt nod.

“Perfect,” Amy says.

“By the way, did you ever hear from the travel manager about the suite?” Hazel asks, sounding eager. Overeager maybe? It’s a kick in the gut, yet another reminder that a kiss can’t happen again.

She doesn’t even want to share a suite with me. And, really, do I want to share one with her? Well, not like we did last night, playing crime-scene-tape-down-the-middle-of-the-bed.

Amy waggles her phone. “Working on it. I’ll have an answer soon,” she says, then picks a spot for us to meet in an hour.

Once she heads off, Hazel looks me dead in the eyes. “Are you mad at me? Because the only thing you’ve said all day is same here .”

That’s the real smack upside the head.

I am so see-through.

Better add another regret to my digital Post-it—how I’ve handled every single irritating emotion I’ve ever felt for her, then and now.

But I can only move forward, and I won’t ice her out again. That means I need to try to act like last night didn’t devastate my heart. I’ll have to find a way through with something I didn’t do when I took off—be honest. Be… kind .

“No. I’m not mad,” I say, but that’s not quite right. “I was sort of lost in my head today,” I add, since that’s true enough to give her something, but safe enough to protect me.

She takes the answer and nods crisply. “Fair enough. I’ve been there.”

She gets it. She gets me. “But I would love to check out the alley where that maddening kiss took place,” I say, since I’m not going to turn down a free hour in Nice. Especially with her.

She rolls her eyes. “Yeah, right.”

“No, I mean it,” I say, free of sarcasm or acid. I want her to know I truly would like to kick around town. We’ve only ever hung out in New York, exploring that city together. Never another. This is a brand-new activity for us, for me. Maybe it’ll be what I need today to clear my head and my heart.

Her right eyebrow reaches above the sky. “You do?”

I suppose she’s right to doubt me. So there’s one surefire way to let her know I’m where I want to be right now.

“Brooks will definitely have to hunt for treasure here as he evades bad guys,” I say with a smile that says I’m ready to plot, and she damn well better come along for the ride. “Want to help?”

“Sure,” she says brightly. She’s game for plotting anytime, as she’s always been.

That’s promising. It’s a return to what once worked between us. And if we return, perhaps last night can truly be behind us now.

Where it should be.