His eyes flickered to something behind me, and the usually baiting deadpan of an expression he sported (yeah, try to imagine that one, but he’d somehow mastered it) morphed into tension with a sprinkle of irritation.
Something made his butt pucker more than me? This, I had to see for myself.
I didn’t have to turn because the woman who’d caused Sunny’s silence walked around the lounge chairs to stand several feet from him, enough that I could see her from the corner of my eye if I wasn’t trying to be nosy. But, as established, I was nosy, so I swiveled my seat to face them better.
The woman was gorgeous. She was tall and slim with long, thick, flowing hair; fake eyelashes for days; and pouty lips. Sunshine shimmered on bronze skin shown thoroughly in her two-piece swimsuit with lacy cover-up. Shades sat on top of her head and a tote hung from the crook of her bent elbow.
“Fancy meeting you here,” she said, her voice higher than mine and much sweeter.
“Not really,” Sunny replied with a tic in his jaw. Hmm…interesting.
“Just trying to be nice. Meet Pradeep, my boyfriend.” She hooked her free arm around the tall, built man beside her looking like a desi god. What gene pool were these people from?
“Nice to meet you,” Pradeep said with a jerk of his chin.
“Pradeep, this is my ex, Sunny. He’s also in the wedding party.”
Oh. I watched while sipping water. This had just gotten even more interesting.
Sunny shot me serious side-eye shade, as if silently yelling at me to mind my own business, but these guys were making it my business because I was here first, and they weren’t exactly quiet or subtle.
“Likewise,” Sunny said to Pradeep, all surly.
Now I understood why Sunny was in such an uptight mood in one of the world’s most leading vacation spots. If I saw my ex here, much less was in a wedding with him, I’d be pissy, too. No wonder he’d seemed less than excited to be off to vacation. Was this the reason he was the way he was?
Nah. Couldn’t be. I couldn’t see someone as hardworking, skilled, and assertive as Sunny being knocked down a few pegs by an ex. Or anyone for that matter. Seemed like any friction with another person only made him tougher, compelled not to let that friction take anything from him. It was actually one of the things I admired about the man. He was strong and hardly anything got to him. Well, except me. It was pretty much a superpower of mine at this point, one I wielded at every golden opportunity and with not great responsibility.
Unlike Sunny, Pradeep was the chillest about the entire ex thing. He was all smiles and just as happy as a clam being in Hawaii, noting the beautiful weather and cove at the beach where his girl had excitedly spotted a sea turtle in the distance. He even asked Sunny how he was and about his flight and what he did for work, et cetera, as if they were just two strangers meeting and on the road to friendship. The ex-girlfriend smirked, enjoying the entire exchange, her eyes never leaving Sunny. It was almost as if she were draining his energy, because his posture slowly wilted over the course of several minutes.
A tinge of annoyance hit me. I didn’t care for people who acted that way. What had transpired between the two for there to be such palpable tension in the air, to the point where even I could feel the loathing? It was reducing any sort of peace I’d had. My soul might, in fact, be circling some dark, hellish hole at this point. Talk about toxic.
Sunny entertained the new man in his ex’s life by answering his questions with as much friendliness as he usually toted, which wasn’t much, but that meant he didn’t loathe this guy.
Sunny even returned the questions out of sheer politeness, because no way was his indifferent posture relaying a single ounce of interest. Unless Sunny was actually this way with everyone?
I thought back to the times I’d seen him working in person. When he was focused, he was an animal with blinders on with zero spatial awareness outside of his many screens. But I’d recalled him blending in at my work party a year ago when he’d so rudely walked into my bedroom while I was in the middle of fighting a breakdown. We’d never been friendly, but Sunny spoke with kindness and understanding and interest with other coworkers.
All the devs under his supervision said he was tough, but easy to talk to. Sunny was inviting, if one could believe that. All the designers and researchers I worked with on shared projects said he was funny, a coding genius. I believed the latter but, the former? I had yet to see what the hell they were talking about.
“Excuse me, I have to take this call,” Pradeep said after a glance at his ringing phone. “Nice to meet you, man. I’m sure we’ll be seeing each other the next few days, right!”
He gave a hearty, good-natured laugh, kissed his girlfriend on the cheek, and took the call as he walked into the shade of the lounge. He paced the threshold between the indoor and the outdoor spaces, a large archway between pillars. Close enough to see but far enough to keep his conversation private.
“Nice boyfriend,” Sunny commented, droll as usual.
His ex smiled. “Very nice. We’ve been together for almost ten months.”
“So you got together only a month after we broke up?”
“Can’t wait around forever. And timing.”
“Yeah. Timing. He must be something if you bounced back that quickly after breaking things off with the love of your life.” He said “the love of your life” with mocking.
“I really did love you, Sunny. But we would’ve never worked out. And once I accepted that, I broke up with you and pushed myself to move on. I deserve a romantic, sweeping love story, and you weren’t it.”
I grimaced. Ouch. Then I took another sip of water and continued watching.
Sunny curtly shook his head, his lips pressed, and I prepared for an explosive rebuttal. Instead, he said, “Congratulations.”
Anticlimactic. But maybe that was Sunny. I’d never seen him get angry.
He swiveled away from her, but turned back when she scoffed, “That’s all you have to say?”
“I’m happy that you’re happy. Did you expect me to throw a fit? Be depressed? Challenge him to a duel?”
“Some type of emotion. But, oh, right, I remember who you are and precisely why we broke up.”
“Because I should be run by emotion all the time? That’s chaotic. I like calm.”
She crossed her arms, extended one leg out, and tapped her foot, daring him with every fiber of her challenging expression. She…wanted him to be jealous. Ew. In my experience, when people wanted their exes to be jealous of a new flame, it was because some part of them was still stuck on the ex or whatever they’d once had. Or they liked the drama. Obviously, I didn’t know this woman, and she seemed a bit scathing although alarmingly sweet…but she didn’t look like drama-incarnate walking around in a red bikini.
“You came alone, didn’t you? Have you even dated since we broke up?” she asked.
“That’s not really your business, is it?” Sunny retorted, a flicker of annoyance in his voice.
“I worked really hard on you, and you just let all of that shrivel away?”
Eh? What sort of work was she claiming here? Now her tone was cutting edge, and I didn’t believe I cared for it.
