Page 36 of The Other Side of Paradise (Story of Paradise #2)

She didn’t let up. “She didn’t tell you where she was going?”

“Why… why would she?” I shifted awkwardly on the spot, feeling like I needed to itch my own scalp off. “I dunno. Ask Ryan. I’ve gotta get back to my place.”

She raised her eyebrows. “What, Stella kicked you out?”

I kicked Stella out. Which was the weirdest fucking thing to ever happen. “She wasn’t—”

“Oh—” Brooklyn relaxed. “She just had to go for the family meetup, right?”

“Yeah,” I said, and then I realized I’d fucked up—that I wasn’t supposed to be admitting to having spent the night in Stella’s room anyway. I felt the color drain from my face, and I said, “We were, uh—hanging out.” Dammit, I sucked at lying.

She laughed. “Congratulations.”

“There’s nothing to congratulate,” I hissed, shoulders hunched. “I just came around to see her!”

She tipped her drink back, setting it down on the bar top and standing, with a, “You don’t think I’m letting you get away without telling me more.”

I bristled. “There’s nothing to tell!”

“Come on. We’ll go to a quieter corner where your coworkers can’t overhear.”

“There’s nothing to overhear!”

She smiled sweetly. “You can tell me in confidence, or I’ll speculate with Ryan.”

Fuck me. I went with her. She took me to a quiet corner, secluded from everything else, tucked in at the far side of the pool level, with a wooden lattice looking out on the other side of the botanical gardens, the thatched walls of the back of the bar closing us in, sitting at a table under creeping vines and paper lanterns that was probably perfect for a secret tryst. Or for secret conversations about a tryst I never should have had.

Once we’d sat down together, Brooklyn leaning back and kicking one leg up over the other, she said casually, “Ryan had told me that Stella might have been curious,” and I groaned, my hands on my face.

“I don’t know what the fuck is happening,” I mumbled.

“Well, did you have sex, or not?”

Jesus Christ. That was the million-dollar question, wasn’t it? “Um.” I cleared my throat. “Not… exactly? Kind of?”

“How do you kind of have sex?” she said incredulously, and I considered running off into the gardens, disappearing, catching a flight in the middle of the night, and starting a new life under a new name a thousand miles away. I’d probably fuck up that life, too, though.

“Oh, Jesus, I’m not explaining it,” I groaned, and she laughed.

“Explain it or I’ll ask Stella, and she’ll probably explain it.”

“Oh, god, she would,” I sighed. “We didn’t…” I started, every word like pulling teeth, “exactly… do anything to each other…”

Through my fingers over my face, I saw her smiling, really trying not to laugh. I appreciated the effort. “So you masturbated together, is what you’re saying.”

God, I didn’t know how she just up and said something like that. I made some noises that were not English for a good few seconds before I said, “I mean. I guess you could say it like that?”

She spoke like an interviewer when she said, “At the same time?” I guess Ryan was rubbing off on her.

“Is that important?” I squeaked, and she nodded, much more gravitas than this deserved.

“Very.”

“Um… no.” I felt like I needed to itch every part of my body at once.

She leaned in closer, grinning ear to ear. “You first, or her first?”

What the fuck was the point of trying to hide things anymore? “Me… first,” I mumbled, and she lit up.

“Oh, damn. That’s good news.”

“It is?” I gave her an incredulous look, and she laughed.

“I mean, look at the situation. She went out with you. Took you back to her hotel room and told you to touch yourself—”

“Jesus, BB, that’s not what happened!” I blurted, my face hot, and she grinned, eyebrows high.

“Isn’t it?”

“It’s—” It was exactly what happened. I buried my face in my hands. “It’s just a bit of an… oversimplification…”

“So that’s a yes,” she said, her voice smug, which was annoying mostly because she had every right to be. “Told you to touch yourself—I assume she watched—and then she got herself off, too. Because of how much it turned her on. And I assume you watched.”

“I’m not answering that,” I said, voice ashen.

“You watched, right?”

I put my hands up. “Of course I fucking watched! Jesus Christ, she’s so fucking hot I don’t know what the fuck is happening .”

She laughed. “What do you mean, you don’t know what the fuck is happening? You got off together. I mean, you basically had sex, just sex for a girl who’s still nervous about being with a girl. You had sex with the girl of your dreams, and you spent the night with her. I don’t see the problem.”

Well, I guess putting it like that, it sounded pretty good. But still. I groaned, hanging my head. “She wants to…” I hugged myself tightly. “She asked me if I wanted to get dinner.”

Brooklyn spoke carefully weighing each word. “That doesn’t sound like a problem.”

“I said no , is the problem,” I groaned. She gave me the weird-ass look I deserved.

“You said no?”

“There’s something wrong with me…”

“Why?”

“Because!” I threw my hands up in frustration.

“Because I’ll… because I’m fucking stupid, that’s why.

And I know I’m going to spend two seconds with her and be stupidly in love with her and I’m working tomorrow and the day after and then she’s going to leave, so I won’t get as much time with her as I want, and I’m going to be fucked up for years because—because she’s so good and she’s so far out of my league, and I just thought—I mean, I don’t know, I promised I’d have a hookup!

A one-night stand! This was close enough! ”

She frowned, her eyes narrowed studying me. “You’re already basically in love with her as it is now. Isn’t it better to have three partial days with her than to have just one night? You don’t really think it’s not going to hurt just because you cut it off like this, do you?”

God, I didn’t fucking know. I was just stupid.

I covered my face again, sinking into the seat.

“I’ve got… too many… issues,” I mumbled.

“She’s so good, and… if I keep doing this, then I’ll start getting ideas about being able to do more with her.

And then I might do something stupid like ask her about that, and then she’ll laugh in my face and tell me how I’m ugly and annoying and just good to keep her company for an orgasm while she’s bored on vacation, and she’ll leave and never see me again, and I’ll look her up and see her with some guy who looks a million times better than I do, being all happy and in love, having a million babies, and I’ll walk into the fucking ocean and fucking die. ”

“Or she might have had sex with you because she’s into you.”

I pouted. “I doubt that.”

“It’s not that weird a thought.”

I scowled, folding my arms. “It is. And we didn’t have sex!”

“Uh-huh…” She didn’t seem convinced. To be fair, neither was I.

“We just… did our own things.”

“Right,” she said, nodding. “Would you do that with a man?”

Well, that was a gross thought and I wasn’t reading into why. I cleared my throat. “No…”

“Because you’re not into sex with men.”

“That’s… different,” I mumbled.

“If you were exclusive with somebody, would you do that with somebody else?”

I shot her a horrified look. “No—of course not!” I already had enough guilt around being the other side of that without her putting me in that spot. She smiled serenely.

“Because it’s sex?”

Ah, fuck me. She won. I buried my face in my hands. “Okay, maybe it was kind of sex. I don’t fucking know . Either way, it’s not like she’s going to feel anything for me like what I feel for her!”

She shrugged. “You’re already going to regret not having more time with her whatever happens. It’s too late to not catch feelings for her. Just enjoy it while it’s happening. Who knows? Life surprises you anyway.”

Ugh. That sounded nice and all, but… “There’s no way I have a chance anyway,” I mumbled.

“She probably hates me since I said no. It was all awkward and embarrassing for everyone… I lied and said I had other plans, but she totally knew I was lying, so we were all just politely pretending we all believed this, and then she went off to see her family, and I’m an idiot. ”

She leaned over the table towards me, an intense look on her face, and she said, “Allison, look me in the eye right now and tell me you won’t regret missing the chance to maybe get her off yourself next time.”

“Brooklyn!” I shot her a look, my face hot. “I swear to god.”

“What?” She put her hands up. “Am I wrong?”

Well, no, she wasn’t. Thinking of it… of how fucking perfect Stella had looked last night while she was touching herself looking at me, the heat in her face as she was getting close… thinking about if I had the opportunity to touch her, or how she liked receiving when it came to…

“You’re picturing it now, aren’t you,” Brooklyn said, and I about jumped out of my skin, shooting her a withering look.

“Ugh! Leave me alone!”

“All right, I will,” she laughed, patting me on the shoulder. “Just think about what I said. I’ll bet you a million dollars Stella would gladly go with you if you came back and said hey, sorry, I was lying about my plans, I was just nervous, can we still do dinner? ”

Yeah, sure. “She’s got way better things to do,” I mumbled, not looking at her.

“Didn’t stop her from doing you.”

“Oh my god. You’re the worst,” I said, standing up. “I’m going back to my place. Go… hang out with your girlfriend.”

“See you later, Allison,” she laughed. Everything rolled right off her… I sighed.

“Um… I guess I’ll… keep it in mind,” I mumbled, looking down. “What you said. Okay. Whatever. Bye.”

I left before she had the chance to say anything else embarrassing, making it double-time across the resort and skipping out on the cafeteria, heading back for my car instead—got back to the parking lot and slumped in the driver’s seat of my car, leaning the seat back and staring up at the roof.

It was easy for her to say things like that. She didn’t have to deal with the letdown if she let herself believe things like that.

But I wanted so, so, so badly for her to be right. To… I don’t know. To kiss Stella. That was what it really came down to, wasn’t it?

I wished I were brave enough. But I hadn’t been brave enough to tell Ellie’s girlfriend anything, so what were the odds I’d have the guts to say anything to Stella?

Maybe… maybe not zero. But probably pretty close to it.