“I can’t wait until karma fucks you the way you fucked me!”
Looking back, she was quite proud of herself that this had been her parting words last to her ex. Alec was an asshole through and through, a hotheaded jerk. But he had been her idiot. At least until she had de-idiotised herself.
The move and change of university had come just in time for her. After all, she now lived in paradise – Miami Beach, home to white sandy beaches and turquoise seas. Her afternoons now consisted mostly of hanging out at the beach with her new friends, partying, grilling marshmallows in the evenings, and staring after sexy men and even sexier women.
“Earth to Liz? Are you still with us?” A soft voice sounded beside her and blinking she emerged from her thoughts.
“Yeah, sure, sorry,” she mumbled, trying her best to avoid looking over the campfire.
“Good, I thought aliens had abducted you,” Chris, the new man at her side, went on joking.
“They’d send me back by return of post and make you pay for the postage too,” she replied self-ironically.
Chris laughed, she laughed, her friends around them laughed – except for one.
That one was busy sticking his tongue down her friend Sue’s throat. Even she laughed when she had to catch her breath, but it was more like the lewd laughter about privately exchanged smut. Sue was not normally like that. Now, however, she was more of the ‘wallflower-ready-to-be-pollinated’ category.
Gentle fingers on her cheek distracted her from the smooching couple and forced her attention back to Chris’s brown eyes. The sight of him should have made her heart race, her breathing quicken and her clothes move to the floor all on their own.
But she felt none of that.
Her insides remained cold, even when he placed his lips on hers and she almost mechanically returned the kiss.
As if of their own accord, her eyes wandered over the campfire and her heart finally raced and her breath quickened.
Here in the warm glow of the fire, with sand between her toes and the sound of the sea in her ears, strange hands in her hair and unwanted arms around her waist, here in the middle of a holiday paradise, their eyes met again.
She could never have guessed that Alec would be determined enough to follow her here, to go to the same university and successfully worm his way into her new circle of friends.
But she could also never have guessed that she would miss him, even as their lips were each occupied with someone else’s.