Naked Read online

  We were engaged.

  For the second time in my life, I called my parents, my brothers, my grandparents, to tell them all I was getting married. My voice shook and I dissolved into semihysterical laughter with every one of them. Sarah greeted the news with a predictable shriek and demands for a bachelorette party, though we hadn’t even set the date. By the time I got off the phone with her, I had less than an hour to shower and get dressed for work.

  Hastily, I logged onto my Connex account, which had languished in past months. I’d been spending so much time with Alex in real time I hadn’t put much effort into my virtual relationships. I hadn’t, in fact, even added him to my page. Hadn’t even asked him if he had something as silly as a Connex account. I quickly uploaded one of the decent shots from the night before, one in which the ring and my hand obscured most of our faces, and no private parts were showing. Then I switched my relationship status from “single” to “engaged.”

  I stared at my updated profile page for a few minutes with a giddy grin. Somehow, even more than the ring, putting it out there like that for the entire world to see somehow made it all more official.

  The girls at Foto Folks all squealed over the ring, which was twice the size of any they had. If they had envy, they hid it well, or I chose not to see it. I walked around the entire day with a silly grin plastered on my face, showed the ring off to every customer, and took some of the best damned shots I ever had there. I cooed over babies in a way I’d never done. Babies seemed more real than they ever had before. I complimented even the most garish choices for the boudoir pictures, happy for the women who’d never have thought of taking shots like this for themselves, but would do it for someone they loved.

  I floated through that day, each sight of my ring sending another thrill fluttering through me. I was engaged! I was getting married!

  I worked until closing and declined an offer to go out for drinks to celebrate; I endured the good-natured ribbing about how now that I was engaged I had to rush home to placate my man instead of hanging with the girls, even though it was mostly true. I promised them another time, and thought they all got it—that rushing home to be with Alex was still new and fresh and desirable. And again, if they had envy, I didn’t choose to see it.

  The day had been so warm it was easy to imagine summer on the way, and I slung my jacket over my arm as I went to my car in the mall’s back parking lot. I tensed at the sight of a figure waiting there, but relaxed when I saw it was Patrick. I wasn’t even really that surprised.

  “Hi.” My voice still held that floaty, giddy, silly tone I’d been using all day. I was way up there, and nobody was going to make me come down, not even Patrick.

  “Can we talk?” He had turned up his collar and he hunched his shoulders, his hands jammed deep into his pockets. He rocked on the balls of his feet. He looked pale and rumpled, unlike himself.

  I unlocked my car but didn’t get in. “About?”

  I waited for anger and got only a frown. “I can’t believe you wouldn’t tell me yourself.”

  I had no reason to feel caught out and didn’t like feeling that way. I tossed my purse and jacket into the backseat but kept my keys jingling in my hand. “We haven’t been exactly chit-chatting every day lately, Patrick.”

  “I can’t believe I had to find out from your Connex page.” His voice was thick with grief I thought with some surprise might be genuine. “Me and five hundred of your closest friends. Jesus, Liv. I thought…Shit. I thought I meant more to you than that.”

  I remembered once that had been true. I stopped myself from taking a step toward him by digging my keys into my hand. “We haven’t been close for a long time.”

  “A few months!” he retorted. “We had a fight, that’s it! And suddenly I’m not on your must-call list? What the hell happened to all those years?”

  “I didn’t think you’d care,” I said, but knew it to be a lie. I’d known Patrick would care.

  “Not care?” He yanked his hands from his pockets to toss them in the air. “Not care? Dammit, Liv, how can you say that? When I have to find out you’re marrying that asshole—”

  “Hey! Don’t you call him that!”

  Patrick’s handsome face turned angular. Eyes narrowed, mouth thinned. “You’re making a mistake, that’s all.”

  “Like the one I almost made with you, is that it?” I didn’t care if my words stung. I wanted them to gouge and slice.

  Patrick flinched. “He will hurt you. I don’t want to see you hurt. I love you, Liv—”

  “You,” I said with venom in my voice, “shut the fuck up.”

  Patrick took a step back. In the spring, night still falls early. It had been dark when I came out, and the parking lot lamps cast pools of yellow-white light that didn’t flatter him. The breeze came up, chilling me, and I wished I’d put on my jacket, but didn’t bend to reach inside the car for it.

  “I’ve always loved you. You know that.” He was brave enough to try again, and though I could still taste my anger, it dissolved under the force of nostalgia.

  I did not want to hate him.

  “Oh, Patrick. Can’t you just be happy for me, the way I’ve always been happy for you and Teddy?”

  He flinched again and cast down his gaze. He scuffed the ground with his toe and shoved his hands back into his pockets. His voice went low and shamed.

  “We broke up.”

  “Oh, no.” Once I’d have hugged him, but now the ring on my finger made my hand too heavy to lift. “What happened?”

  Patrick shot me a twisted, strangled grin. “I fucked up, that’s what happened. I fucked around. Teddy found out. I was tired of lying, of being that person who lied. And I thought he’d forgive me, because Teddy always forgave me.”

  I wasn’t sure Patrick deserved compassion, but I was able to find some pity. “I’m sorry.”

  “You’re sorry.” He snorted and kicked at the ground again. “Sorry doesn’t start to cover how I feel.”

  He looked up at me, gaze bleak. “And then I find you’re marrying that…Alex Kennedy…Oh, Liv. I promise you, he’s not—”

  “Shut up, Patrick,” I said, but more softly this time and without heat. “I love him.”

  “You used to love me,” he countered. “What happened to that?”

  I almost wanted to look around for hidden cameras, sure I was being punked. “You know what happened.”

  “At New Year’s you still loved me. That was only a few months ago. You don’t stop loving someone that fast. Do you?”

  “You can stop loving someone in a second,” I told him.

  His hand dropped, but he still stood much too close. “I’m sorry I ever hurt you, Liv. I really am. I’d do anything to take it back.”

  I backed up and pressed against the car’s chilly metal. “Are you fucking kidding me, Patrick?”

  “No. I’m not.” He shook his head, sorrow stamped in every line of his face, the shift and sag of his body. “I know I’ve messed up. And I’m sorry…”

  I put my hand on his shoulder because putting it over his mouth would’ve been too intimate. “I will always care about you, Patrick. You know that. I’m sorry about you and Teddy, and I know you’re hurting. And what happened between us…it’s the past. I’m not holding a grudge, okay?”

  He moved closer, angling his body for a hug I didn’t give at first, until it was either embrace him or push him away. It didn’t last long, and when I didn’t melt against him, he must’ve sensed my reluctance. Patrick stepped back.

  “Do you think…you could ever…?”

  I stared at him, then laughed. It hurt him more than anything I’d said so far; I could tell by how his mouth turned down and his lip curled. “Take you back? You are not asking me that, Patrick. Are you?”

  “Teddy said it was because of you—”

  “What? Teddy said…?” This sliced me. “How is it my fault?”

  “Not your fault. Because of you. Because of how things happened with us, and what h