Page 64 of Jesse

“You know. We’d have fallen in love, and broke up a million times by now. Been in more fights than we could count. Hate-fucked so many times we lost count.”

“So romantic,” she says.

“We’d be… that couple. You know?”

“No,” she says. “I don’t know.”

“That couple,” I say again. “The one everyone hates because they’re so in love, but all they do is fight. And break up. But then they can’t live without each other, so they always get back together, even if they’re not together.”

“You mean… they have ex sex? And no one wants to be around them because they’re so annoying. ”

I point at her. “Yeah. There you go. That kind of couple.”

“Why would anyone want to be that couple?”

“Because,” I say. “It’s true love.”

“Sounds more like true hate. Definitely an emotional contradiction I want no part of. Quite probably a severe psychological condition that results in decades of misery.”

“Or,” I counter, once again pointing my finger at her. “Love is a battlefield and they’re just both generals.”

“You’re insane.” Then she finishes her fizzy drink and folds her paper. Takes out her phone and pretends to be busy so she doesn’t have to talk to me.

But I sit there for the next few minutes just gazing at her with a new sense of awe.

Yeah. That’s what this is. Love is a battlefield—thank you, Pat Benatar—and we’re just both generals.

“I’ll prove it,” I say.

“I’m sorry?” she says, glancing up from her phone. “What’s that mean?”

“You’ll see.”

I was gonna say, Just wait till we fuck.

But I decide that’s what she wants me to say. She wants me to want her like that, just so she can say no and keep the game going.

But guess what?

I didn’t get to be a general on the battlefield of love by accident.

A few minutes later we’re landing and I’m looking out the window. Something I should’ve done earlier, I decide. But I was pret-ty distracted.

“Palm trees,” I say. “Blue-green ocean. Beach.”

Emma just grins and says, “Welcome to Key West, Jesse Boston. You wanted to take me back in time? Here’s your chance.”

And all I can think, when I walk outside and let the hot, summer, Florida sun hit my bare chest, is, Well played, Ms. Dumas.

Well played.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE - EMMA

He’s smiling.

That wasn’t the plan. I didn’t start this little adventure to make him happy. “Why are you so happy?’

“What?” He chuckles. “Why wouldn’t I be happy? I’m in Key West with the girl who got away. Fucking sun. Fucking ocean. Fucking beach. This is my jam, girl.”