SOMEWHERE

  IN THE

  SUNSET

  First published in the UK in 2024

  This electronic edition published in 2024 by Ink Road

  INK ROAD is an imprint and trade mark of

  Black & White Publishing Ltd

  Nautical House, 104 Commercial Street, Edinburgh EH6 6NF

  A division of Bonnier Books UK

  4th Floor, Victoria House, Bloomsbury Square, London, WC1B 4DA

  Owned by Bonnier Books

  Sveavägen 56, Stockholm, Sweden

  Copyright © Estelle Maskame 2024

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  The right of Estelle Maskame to be identified as Author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN (PBK): 978 1 78530 493 4

  ISBN (EBOOK): 978 1 78530 492 7

  eBook Compilation by Data Connection

  www.ink-road.com

  For C.

  CONTENTS

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  GRACIE

  Maybe I should burn down the apartment.

  Pile his clothes high on our coffee table, soak them in gasoline, and set them ablaze.

  Maybe I’ll stand and watch this place burn. Watch as the flames spread to the rug, tear across the couch, soar up the curtains. They’ll spread quickly, I imagine, and soon our home will be nothing but crumbling walls, burnt furniture and belongings turned to ash, all blanketed by toxic smoke. And if I haven’t passed out by that point and the door hasn’t melted, I’ll maybe even slam it shut as I walk away from the wonderful life we’d built together.

  But we are also on the fourth floor of this apartment building, with the most amazing neighbors either side, and I suppose it wouldn’t be fair to risk their homes and their lives because I can’t get a grip on my mental state.

  I light the orange and vanilla scented candle that sits on the electric cooktop and then bury the lighter deep inside a drawer, safe from my dangerously intrusive thoughts. This is not me. My mind doesn’t unravel like this. Never, ever, ever.

  So, fuck him.

  Fuck him for having me question my sanity.

  Deep breaths, Gracie. You’ve already cried a thousand tears over him. He doesn’t deserve a single drop more.

  I polish the kitchen sink until it’s sparkling, water the gorgeous arrangement of lilies my mother sent over earlier in the week, even stand on a chair to dust above the refrigerator. But there is only so much I can do to keep my hands busy – the apartment is the cleanest it has ever been, and that’s saying a hell of a lot. I am undeniably a compulsive clean freak. If my home is cluttered, so is my brain. Maybe that’s why I have convinced myself cleaning the bathroom three times a day might help me feel better.

  Well, no.

  I admit defeat and grab a bag of chips from the cupboard, then settle on the couch in front of the TV that I don’t turn on. I wrap myself in a blanket, prop the bag of chips between my crossed legs, and allow myself to feel the insurmountable weight of my broken heart nestled deep in my chest.

  And it is agonizing, feeling it. Every time I sit down and focus on the hollowness inside of me and the echoes of a thousand memories, I lose my breath. My lungs constrict, my stomach twists; it is so tangible, so real. Pain. That’s what heartbreak is: insufferable, physical pain.

  But there’s no Band-Aid to fix it. No pills to soften the blow.

  You just have to carry it. Maybe even forever.

  And I can’t handle that. This throbbing ache, this piercing agony, this breathlessness . . . I can’t feel this way forever, because if I do, it will kill me.

  A whimper escapes my lips and I punch the pillow next to me. Whoever said crying is therapeutic is a liar. Crying hurts like a bitch. That lump bulging at the back of my throat, the sting at the corners of my eyes, the tension in my shoulders . . . It all hurts. And it is so relentless.

  We were supposed to have forever. We were supposed to want to have forever.

  And a week ago, I would have never spent a Saturday night alone eating chips on the couch. I’d have been bent over it, his mouth hot against my ear and his hands pulling at my hair.

  A thunderous knock at the door shakes away that image.

  “Open up!” Elena’s voice pulses through the apartment. “We’re here for an intervention!”

  I wipe away my tears with my blanket and carry my chips to the door. My best friends have had to deal with my unwavering lack of self-care all week, so I’m no longer ashamed to open the door and reveal myself. My apartment may be a show home, but I look like a slob who’s broken in.

  “Oh dear,” Madison says.

  She and Elena pityingly tilt their heads in sync before pushing past me into the apartment. I survey them in alarm. They are dressed to go out. Mini dresses, five-inch heels, volumized hair, strip lashes. They are dressed to go out-out.

  “I thought I made it clear the last thing I want to do tonight is go out,” I say as I click the door shut. My voice doesn’t even sound like my own anymore. It’s so flat, quiet, void of my usual liveliness.

  “And you think this is better? Eating junk food in your sweatpants and crying?” Elena asks, pursing her glossy lips and daring me to deny that that’s exactly what I’ve been doing. “It’s your birthday!”

  I glance at the birthday cards I made an effort to line up on the coffee table. She and Madison already came by this morning to drop off gifts and give me hugs that were tighter and longer than usual. More meaningful. That’s all the celebration I need. This is not a birthday I wish to remember.

  Madison waves the bottle of wine in her hand. “We thought about it all day. Should we do what you want, or should we do what you need? And what you need is to get out of this apartment, let down your hair, and have a good time with your friends. We aren’t leaving you here to mope on a Saturday night. Birthday or not. Where’s your corkscrew?”

  “Guys. Guys!”

  The pair of them ignore my pleas as they search through my kitchen for wine glasses and a corkscrew. I knew I should have burned the apartment down while I had the chance. As I approach, Elena pulls the bag of chips from my hands and replaces it with a glass of white wine. My glass is noticeably fuller than both of theirs. Clearly, they think I need it more than they do. And they’re right.

  I take a sip. More than a sip. A gulp.

  “See?” Maddie says. “You need this.”

  “I do, but . . .”

  “A toast,” Elena interrupts, holding out her glass. Maddie copies her and the two of them stare me down until I reluctantly hold out mine too, the three of us in a perfect circle. “Here is to Gracie, for being an amazing person who doesn’t deserve to have her heart broken. Here is to girls’ night. To being single and independent. To accepting drinks from sexy bachelors, because we do not date pathetic little boys. We only want men.”

  “Here, here!” Maddie cheers, and they clink their glasses hard against mine.

  I force a small laugh, but I’m doing it again. Focusing too hard on the cutting edges of my heart. I suck in a breath. Elena is right – I do need this. A night with my girls, giggling over cheap wine in the club as the deafening music drowns out every painful thought. By the end of the night, I’ll be hugging a cheap pizza in the backseat of an Uber.

  “I haven’t washed my hair in five days,” I admit.

  “We can tell. Shower. Now,” Elena orders. She puts a hand on my shoulder and turns me toward the bathroom. “We’ll go through your closet and find you a dress. You just . . . get those sweatpants off.” She wrinkles her nose teasingly and shoves me into the bathroom, shutting the door on me.

  I tap on my smart watch. It’s only eight. My birthday isn’t over yet, and if there’s a chance to salvage the day, I have to take it. Elena and Maddie are trying their best to make me feel the slightest bit more human. I have to meet them somewhere in the middle, and that requires effort.

  Discarding my sweatpants on the floor, I turn on the shower faucet just as I hear Taylor Swift’s “22” blast through my apartment. Of c
ourse. What else would my friends play over my speaker on my twenty-second birthday?

  All of Taylor Swift’s albums, apparently. “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together” blares next, and both Elena and Maddie scream the lyrics at the top of their voices. I imagine them now, dancing in my living area, wine glasses held high.

  Maybe tonight is exactly what I need.

  WESTON

  I hate Zeitgeist on the weekends.

  It deserves its reputation as the most popular dive bar in downtown San Francisco. It’s grunge as all get-out, rough around the edges, and has the most bizarre rules. If you’ve never been grabbed by the scruff of the neck and dragged out by a bouncer, then have you ever truly visited Zeitgeist? It’s a rite of passage, given it’s famous for kicking people out over snapping a photo or sitting on a table. But it’s exactly the kind of rowdiness I need tonight.

  It’s nearing ten and the patio is packed. Every single picnic table is overflowing with boozed-up patrons and there’s not much standing room left, either. I keep my head down as I navigate through the thick crowds and squeeze back inside the bar. Punk rock roars in my ears and I keep on pushing, past the long bar with endless beer on tap, past the pinball machines, and out onto the street. There’s now a small line to get in.

  I stumble off around the corner and find a quiet spot. Leaning back against the graffitied wall, I sink down to the ground and draw my knees up to my chest. Out here, alone, the beers rush to my head. I blink away the stars and fish my phone out of my pocket.

  There is a severe lack of notifications on my home screen. Not one single text, missed call or voicemail. Just a resounding silence in response to my pleas.

  And I know I shouldn’t do it again, but my desperation only grows stronger, consuming all of me. Her number sits at the top of my call log, emboldened in red, and I ignore the fact that I have (apparently) already called it nineteen times today. I dial it again.

  It doesn’t even ring. It goes straight to voicemail. Am I blocked? Did her phone die? What the fuck?

  I suck in a breath of fresh air, and tell her voicemail inbox: “Hey, listen, I’m a little drunk now. But I just . . . I just really want to hear your voice, babe. Please call me back so we can talk about this. I love you. I love you. Okay? Are you even listening to these or are you just deleting them as soon as they hit your phone? Because I wouldn’t mind if you deleted the voicemails I left around lunch. I was a crying son of a bitch then. I had a moment. I’m sorry. It’s just that I really do love you. I can be better.”

  “Man, you really are scaring the fuck out of me. You are whipped.”

  I pull my phone away from my ear and look up. Cameron has followed me outside and now stares down at me with furrowed brows. Did he listen the entire time? Probably. I’m too drunk to have noticed.

  I stand from the ground and stuff my hands into the pockets of my jacket, shaking my head helplessly. “What am I supposed to do?”

  “For starters, you need to stop harassing her,” Cameron says, lighting up a cigarette as he leans against the wall next to me. He takes a drag and exhales a plume of smoke into the evening air. “Stop blowing up her phone. It’s been one day. She needs time before she can even think about reconsidering her choice.”

  “But shouldn’t I fight for her?”

  “Not like this,” he says, waving his cigarette at me as though I’m some sorry excuse of a man. Cameron is my closest friend, and that means he always tells me things straight. No bullshit. “And I’m not telling you to take Adam’s advice of flying off the rails, because that won’t help either, but you need to relax a little, man. Things happen for a reason, Weston.”

  We don’t say much more as he smokes the rest of his cigarette. I stare at the sidewalk, at all the gum embedded in the concrete, and can’t possibly imagine ever getting over her. She has been a part of my life for four years and I took it for granted that she always would be. She knows it too. It’s why she left.

  We head back through Zeitgeist to rejoin Adam and Brooks at our table in the beer garden, where a new round of tequila shots is waiting for us. Adam is wasted already, but he’s also superhuman in the way he can drink to obliteration every single weekend and not even have so much as a headache the next morning. His body is that of a sixteen-year-old. For me, one beer too many results in a very fragile experience the next day.

  “Did you sneak off to call her again?” Adam asks with a roll of his eyes. He slides one of the tequila shots across the picnic table toward me.

  “Nah, he just needed a second to himself,” Cameron answers, and we exchange a glance. I’m always grateful he has my back. Not that Adam and Brooks don’t, but Cameron is always the one I go to with any worries. The one I can talk to without fear of judgment.

  I take the shot of tequila without hesitation. Maybe if I get blackout drunk like Adam, I’ll forget about her. The others follow, slamming their shot glasses down on the table.

  Brooks involuntarily gags. “It’s official. I can’t drink like I used to.”

  “I’m just glad you’re here,” I say, clasping his shoulder. Brooks is now the only one in a committed relationship and he only ever joins us guys for beers on special occasions. He’s a hard guy to pin down, because his girl comes first. Mine didn’t.

  “Hey, you need us for moral support tonight. I had to be here. But you.” Brooks raises his middle finger to Adam across the bench. “Stop buying goddamn shots.”

  Adam grins in that usual, overly confident way of his. “Oh, baby, we’re just getting started! The night is still young. Temple is calling our names!” He turns to the group of college girls sharing the other half of our picnic table. “Where are you girls heading later? Wanna come with us to Temple? Our buddy right there” – he points to me – “is heartbroken because his girlfriend just dumped him.”

  “He’s so insensitive sometimes,” Cameron mutters, and Brooks nods in agreement.

  The girls let out a chorus of “awws” and pout their lips at me in sympathy. “Sorry about your girlfriend,” one of them says, and I only offer a tight smile in return before chugging the remainder of my beer from earlier. It’s warm and gross.

  “So where do you guys go to school?” Adam proceeds to ask the group, getting up from the bench to walk down to the other end of the table. I stifle a laugh at how predictable his moves are. He just wants to be closer to the little brunette on the end.

  And then he does it – he sits his ass down on the corner of the table. A Zeitgeist sin.

  “Ah, fuck,” Brooks says, smothering a hand over his face.

  A nanosecond later, the bouncer is grappling with Adam to remove him from the patio. Cameron, Brooks and I calmly finish our beers, grab our stuff from the table, and then follow Adam out onto the street. This is the only way we ever make an exit from Zeitgeist – following in the wake of Adam’s careless behavior, and as always, not one apology leaves his mouth. He wipes his hands on his jeans and points down the street, muttering something about the club we’re heading to having a hotter crowd anyway.

  I trail a little behind until Cameron waits up for me, syncing his steps to mine. “Head up, Weston. You’ve still got us, even though Adam’s value is questionable.” He scoffs and nudges his elbow into my ribs. “Shake her off and try to have some fun tonight for your own sake. You’ll feel much better if you can get through the rest of tonight without thinking of her.”

  I tilt my head back to the dark sky. Cameron’s right, but he so often is. I’m already out and I can either continue to be miserable, or I can push her to the back of my mind and start embracing this new life without her. Even if I have to fake it at first.

  I glance at Cameron out of the corner of my eye and force a smile. “The women at Temple are hotter.”

  He thumps me on the back of my shoulder and says, “Attaboy!”

  I can survive without Charlotte.

  I have to.

  I will.

  GRACIE

  It’s a breezy, chilly evening in San Francisco and as I step out of the Uber, I grit my teeth and hug my arms around me. I never want to give in and wear a jacket, so I suck it up and bear the chill in the air to avoid the inconvenience of checking in a jacket at the door.