‘Times have changed.’
‘Not that much,’ Sadie said. ‘Neal keeps me updated on your exploits, you know.’
He bit back a curse. But, on the other hand, she’d given him the in he’d been waiting for—the first reference to the good old days. ‘I was just thinking how much younger you look in jeans, actually. Like you used to, back in London. I half expected Adem to appear and put his arm around you.’
Sadie’s smile turned a little sad. ‘Would that he could.’
‘Yeah. It must be hard, being here without him. The memories, I mean.’
‘We never came here, actually,’ Sadie said, looking around her curiously at the crowded bar. ‘But you meant Turkey itself. The Azure.’
‘I did, yeah,’ Dylan agreed. Dare he push it yet? Just a little? ‘No one would have blamed you for selling up and leaving, you know.’ He needed to understand why she hadn’t. What made her commitment to this place so strong? What was it about Sadie that made her so able to commit and stick? And what was missing in him?
‘It wouldn’t make any difference where we were anyway,’ Sadie said, which didn’t answer the question he hadn’t asked, but Dylan supposed he couldn’t really blame her for that. ‘I see Adem every day when I look at Finn—and, to be honest, I love that reminder.’
Of course she did. He’d never seen any couple as in love as Adem and Sadie. He didn’t really need her to answer—he knew. The Azure was her way of holding onto the love of her life. Just because he’d never felt like that about someone didn’t mean he couldn’t see it in others.
‘I’m glad you have that.’ The truth, even if it carried a little pain with it. ‘I’m sorry. I should have visited more. Spent more time with Finn.’
‘Yes, you should,’ she said, mock-sternly. ‘Why didn’t you?’
Did she really not know why? After that night at Kim and Logan’s wedding he’d been sure his motives for staying away had been more than clear—and that she’d be grateful he had. Unless she didn’t remember? She had been pretty drunk. So had he, of course, or it never, ever would have happened in the first place.
Misgivings began to creep up on him when he thought again about his plan. The two of them, drunk alone together, hadn’t ended well in the past. But he didn’t know another way to get her to loosen up around him.
‘Work, mostly,’ he lied, realising she was still waiting for an answer. ‘But I’m ready to fix that now.’ He raised his glass. ‘To absent friends.’
‘Absent friends,’ Sadie echoed. Lifting her own glass, she drank deeply, unconsciously giving him exactly what he wanted. It was too late for misgivings now anyway. It was time to put the plan into action.
‘Hey, do you remember the time Neal got locked out of that hotel wearing nothing but a corset and stockings?’
Sadie burst into laughter, putting her glass down too hard on the table so wine sloshed over the edge. ‘Of course I do—it was my corset! What I don’t remember is how he persuaded me to lend it to him.’
‘You’ve always been a soft touch for Neal,’ Dylan said. ‘Besides, he had a very good story. I should know, I made it up.’
She slapped his arm. ‘You deviant. Tell me the whole story, then—the truth this time.’
It was going to work, Dylan could tell. By morning they’d have exorcised all their ghosts and memories and be able to move on. To be the friends and business partners Sadie needed them to be.
And nothing more.
He took a glug of his beer and started the story.
‘Well, there was this girl, see...’
* * *
Several bars later Sadie could feel the alcohol starting to get to her—in that pleasant, slightly buzzy way that meant it was time to stop before another drink seemed like a really good idea. Otherwise tomorrow would be no fun at all. Now she remembered why she didn’t do this any more.
‘I need to call it a night.’ She pushed her still half-full glass across the table away from her.
‘Not a bad idea.’ Dylan drained the last of his pint. ‘You always were the sensible one.’
‘Somebody had to be.’
She gave him a friendly grin and he returned it, his smile all at once totally familiar and yet somehow new. It made that buzzy feeling in her limbs turn a little more liquid, like honey.
They’d talked all evening, almost without pause. She’d worried, when he’d suggested this night out, that it would be awkward, the conversation stilted. But instead they’d fallen into old patterns, chatting about the past in the way only friends who’d done their most significant growing up together could. The conversation had covered everything from the day they’d met until the last time they had all been together before Adem had died.
Everything except one night—the night of Kim and Logan’s wedding.
Did he even remember? And, if so, how much? Curiosity was burning inside her with the need to know. Had she remembered wrong? It had been so long ago she was starting to doubt her own memories. They’d both been pretty drunk that night...
But she wasn’t drunk tonight. Just tipsy enough to be a little daring.
‘What’s the plan for tomorrow?’ Dylan asked, getting to his feet and grabbing his jacket. ‘I’ve got a business call first thing, then I’m all yours for the day.’
Tomorrow. Had she even made a plan for tomorrow? ‘I thought maybe the beach?’
‘Lying prone in the sun sounds like the perfect way to deal with my inevitable hangover.’ He groaned as they headed for the door. ‘I am officially too old for this.’
Sadie smiled. ‘I never thought I’d hear you admit to that.’
‘We all have to grow up some time,’ Dylan said with a shrug, and somehow it felt like he was saying far more than just the words.
Outside, the autumn evening air had turned a little chilly, and Sadie shivered as they walked along the seafront, looking out for an empty cab.
‘Cold?’ Dylan asked. Then, without waiting for an answer, he slung an arm around her shoulder for warmth. A friendly gesture, Sadie knew. That was all it was—and nothing he and Neal hadn’t done often enough in the past. But suddenly, here and now, as the fabric of his jacket brushed her bare neck she felt it. Fizz. Undeniable, impossible to ignore, fizz.
It was no good; she needed to know. And she was just drunk enough to ask.
‘I’ve never asked you. Do you remember Kim and Logan’s wedding?’
Dylan squinted out towards the ocean. ‘That was the one up in Scotland, right? Where we all stayed in that weird hotel down the road and kept the bar open all night.’
‘And Adem and Neal got into a drinking competition and passed out on the sofas in the next room.’
‘I remember,’ Dylan said, and even the words sounded loaded. ‘You and Adem had been together, what? About a year?”
‘Something like that. Do you remember what you asked me that night?’
He was standing so close, his arm around her shoulders, that she could feel his muscles stiffen. Oh, yeah, he remembered. ‘Do you? We never... You never mentioned it again, so I always figured you must have forgotten. We weren’t exactly sober that night.’
She’d gone too far to back out now. ‘You asked me if I’d ever wondered what might have happened if I’d met you first instead of Adem.’
‘Yeah.’ He let out a long breath. ‘You said you hadn’t.’
‘And I truly hadn’t, until that moment.’
The words hung there between them, the implication both clear and terrifying. They’d stopped walking without Sadie even realising, and suddenly a taxi pulled up beside them, the driver rolling down the window to ask where they wanted to go.
‘The Azure, please,’ Sadie said, shuffling along the back seat to let Dylan in beside her.
They rode in silence for a long mo
ment before Dylan asked, ‘And after?’
‘After?’ She knew what he was asking, but she needed a moment before she answered.
‘After that moment. Did you...?’
She looked away. ‘I wondered.’
‘Huh.’ Dylan slumped back against the car seat, as if all the tension had flowed out of his body with her words. Then he shook his head, laughing a little—Sadie got the impression it was at himself, rather than her. ‘And then, of course, I tried to kiss you like a total idiot and—’
‘Wait. What? I don’t remember that bit.’ And surely, surely that was the part she would remember, however much she’d had to drink.
‘Don’t you?’ Dylan smiled, the expression shaded in the darkness of the cab. ‘It was after we’d lugged Adem and Neal up to our rooms. You gave me a hug goodnight and...’ He shrugged, trailing off. ‘You pushed me away, of course.’
‘I can’t believe I don’t remember that.’
‘I’m glad you didn’t,’ Dylan said. ‘Not my finest hour. I felt absolutely awful the next day—and was very glad one of us had been sober enough to be sensible.’
Sadie turned away, searching her memory for the lost moment and coming up blank. How different might their world have been if she’d remembered the next day? If she’d confessed to Adem? A thousand different paths spiralled from that moment, all but one untaken. And she wouldn’t want to change it, she realised, not really. She wouldn’t give up the years she’d had with Adem, or having Finn, for anything in the world. Things had worked out exactly as they were supposed to.