“I bet.” Scott’s tone was flat. “I’m surprised you haven’t already booked a flight to Europe. Early retirement and all that.”
Zach turned back to his friend. More hostility crept out with each comment. He didn’t want to do this in front of anyone else, especially after the argument he’d had with Rae, but they needed to get over this. They’d lost, they needed to move on, and he wouldn’t let Scott wallow. “I was thinking I’d start with Italy. If it’s pretty, I might not come back. You made plans yet?”
Scott’s knuckles went white around his glass. Out of the corner of his eye, Zach saw Rae drop her face in her hand.
“I thought I might not throw in the towel so easily.” A sharp edge ran through Scott’s voice.
This was bullshit. Zach was tired of dancing around it. He was irritated with himself for letting it go on so long, and Scott for not seeing they needed to stop pretending. “What are you going to do? Out of the five billion times we’ve had this conversation, what’s your brilliant plan this time that you didn’t have before?”
“I…” Scott faltered. “Something.”
“Brilliant. Not one of your better ideas, but they can’t all be best sellers.”
“That’s not fair.” All the hesitation vanished from Rae’s voice. The flush didn’t look shy anymore. Her eyes were hard. “Your only solution is running away, so you don’t have any room to talk.”
And there it was—the reason he didn’t want to do this here, in front of her. “And you’ve got a better plan?”
Shit. He shouldn’t have asked that.
Her smile didn’t reach her eyes. “Since you asked…”
“Wait, what?” Scott sat up straight. “You have an idea.” He leaned in, anger evaporating in an instant.
“Wrong.” Zach cut him off. “Remember Kelly?” Rae was actually doing this. She was going to hash out her painfully risky plan in front of the one person who would cling to any hope he could find, regardless of how unrealistic it was.
“The entire internet remembers Kelly.” Rae’s cold smile ate at him.
“Why is she here?” Zach asked Scott.
Scott shrugged, the hard set of his jaw softening a hint. “She asked if I was busy today.”
“Because despite the protests the two of you aren’t a couple, you can’t bear to be apart?”
“We’re not dating.” Rae’s denial spilled out quickly, almost before Zach could finish talking.
“Because she dumped me.” Scott’s casual tone didn’t match the words.
Confusion slammed into Zach’s thoughts at full force, knocking his tentative grasp on the conversation into complete disarray. He’d been nailing his best friend’s girl? What the fuck was wrong with him? Why hadn’t they told him? She’d cheated on Scott? No, that didn’t make sense.
Rae’s snarl cut through the torrent of thoughts. “I didn’t dump you because we weren’t a couple.”
“We could have been.” Scott’s voice held a sharp edge and lacked the waver that might imply jealousy.
A vein pulsed in Zach’s eyelid as he watched the exchange. This was completely out of control. “What’s going on?”
Rae glared at Scott. “Nothing.”
“We’re listening to her idea,” Scott said.
“No, we’re not.” Zach had his phone out. “I’m booking a one-way flight to another continent.”
“Enjoy.” Rae slouched in her seat, arms crossed and lips pursed.
Zach looked at Scott. “Come with me. Get over this pseudo-breakup of yours.”
“What about Rae?”
Zach shrugged. “You don’t really bring your ex-girlfriend on vacation with you, especially when she was never actually your girlfriend.”
Rae slapped the table as she stood, irritation running under her words. “This was a bad idea.”
Zach’s fingers twitched, and he had to grab his own leg to keep from reaching for her. When Scott wrapped a hand around her wrist, an unfamiliar surge of jealousy seared through Zach.
“Wait, please?” Scott said. “Don’t listen to him. I want to hear what you have to say. Let him go whore around the Southern Hemisphere if he wants.”
She crossed her arms, accentuating every curve the T-shirt hugged. Creases lined her forehead. “Yeah, no.”
Zach forced his attention to stay on her face. Not her angry flush or bright kissable lips, but her piercing gaze. No, that wasn’t working either. “Either sit or leave. People are staring.”
She rolled her eyes but dropped back into her chair. “I’m not talking unless you’re both listening.”
Zach clenched his teeth, measuring his response. “Because your ego needs that kind of validation?”
Her narrowed eyes didn’t hide the shimmer of almost tears. Shit, he shouldn’t have gone there. He couldn’t believe he’d thrown a private conversation—one about what parts of them they held back from the world of all things—back in her face.
She breathed through her nose. “Because—and so help me, I can’t believe I’m saying this—it doesn’t work without both of you.”
“What doesn’t?” Hope crept into Scott’s voice.
She glanced up at the sky before turning back to him. “Starting over.”