Back Head Over Heels
Chapters (48)
  1. Dedication
  2. Author’s Note
  3. Part 1. October 2019
  4. Chapter 1
  5. Chapter 2
  6. Chapter 3
  7. Part 2. November 2019
  8. Chapter 4
  9. Chapter 5
  10. Chapter 6
  11. Part 3. December 2019
  12. Chapter 7
  13. Chapter 8
  14. Chapter 9
  15. Part 4. January 2020
  16. Chapter 10
  17. Chapter 11
  18. Chapter 12
  19. Part 5. February 2020
  20. Chapter 13
  21. Chapter 14
  22. Chapter 15
  23. Chapter 16
  24. Chapter 17
  25. Part 6. March 2020
  26. Chapter 18
  27. Chapter 19
  28. Chapter 20
  29. Chapter 21
  30. Chapter 22
  31. Part 7. April 2020
  32. Chapter 23
  33. Part 8. May 2020
  34. Chapter 24
  35. Chapter 25
  36. Chapter 26
  37. Chapter 27
  38. Chapter 28
  39. Part 9. June 2020
  40. Chapter 29
  41. Chapter 30
  42. Chapter 31
  43. Chapter 32
  44. Part 10. July 2020
  45. Epilogue
  46. Acknowledgments
  47. About the Author
  48. Copyright

The enthusiasm on her face flickers before she catches herself. “I know. Isn’t it funny how life works out?”

“I had no idea you were even into him back then,” I admit.

I feel bold saying it, daring her to acknowledge how bizarre her relationship appears to be.

“Oh,” she says, blushing. “Well, nothing happened until I was a little bit older, obviously. You had already moved by then. And it just…”

Her gaze drifts over my shoulder toward her husband, and she loses focus.

“Made sense,” she says finally.

There’s another flicker of emotion on her face, but then it disappears without a trace. I think about the way we used to play Fuck, Marry, Kill while stretching at practice, and how Dimitri was too old and weird to be put on the list, even as a joke. We seriously weighed the pros and cons of Kevin Federline, and Tom, the gym’s janitor, and even Alexei, a gymnast with a gross rattail we saw at competitions. But Dimitri? Not even once. I cannot fathom one single thing about Dimitri and Jasmine that makes sense.

She looks at me brightly again. “Do you want a tour of the house?”

As she leads me through the home she shares with a man old enough to register for an AARP card, the man who once—when she was twelve years old—poked the side of her bottom left exposed by her leotard, observed it jiggling, and told her to “watch it with the cookies,” I feel increasingly disturbed. She shows off the new velvet throw pillows meticulously arranged on the white bed in the master bedroom, and the monogrammed towels hanging in the en suite bathroom. She chirps about the gorgeous natural sunlight in the home office, though I realize neither of them works from home, and tosses a wink when we enter the guest room, or as she calls it, “someday, a baby’s room.” She does this all while traipsing three or four steps in front of me, far enough away that we never have to face each other. The tour is so tightly packed with minuscule details about where she purchased this rug, or why she deliberated over that paint color, that there is simply no room for me to interject and ask what the fuck is going on.

When the tour concludes on the first floor, Jasmine offers to refresh my drink, which I accept. The minute the glass is full, I find Ryan on the couch in the living room. He lights up when he sees me, scooting to the left and patting the space next to him so that I’ll take a seat. He drops away from the conversation with the other two men in the living room.

“You’ll never guess what Dimitri said to me while you were with Jasmine,” he says, excitement straining through his hushed tone.