Don't Kiss the Bride

I hold his gaze, wracked with fear that he’s going to get hurt. Or worse. “Promise me you’ll come home?”

He puts his hand over his heart. “Cross my heart.”

“Look, Skylar, we need to burn some sage or something when we get you home. You got some bad mojo going on lately,” Megan says when she arrives at the hospital to drive me home.

“You might be right.” I sit on the edge of the gurney, feeling dizzy as we wait for an attendant to come with a wheelchair to take me downstairs for discharge. I can’t wait to get home and put clean clothes on. The sticky blood on my shirt is making me feel sick to my stomach.

She grimaces as she studies my head. “She hit you with a hammer? What the ever-loving-hell?”

“She’s obviously fucked up and probably high on something. Who knows?”

“I may as well tell you now, Jude texted me earlier. I met him outside the school, and he gave me his house key so I could go to the house and clean up your room for you.”

“Oh my God, he did?”

She nods. “He didn’t want you to feel traumatized when you got home, and he didn’t want you to have to clean up the mess. I did my best to put everything away for you. I straightened his room a little too, but I didn’t go through his stuff.”

I reach my arms out to her, and we hug. “Thank you for doing that,” I say softly with my face buried in her silky hair. “You’re the bestest.”

“All this drama’s gotta stop,” she says, pulling away. “But, I will say this. I was feeling suspect about Jude at first, but he’s a good guy. That dude loves you.”

My head snaps up and a flash of pain stabs through my forehead like an ice pick. “What? Why would you say that?”

She arches her brows. “Hello? Are you blind? The guy is fierce over you… his eyes and voice totally change when he talks about you. It’s crazy intense.”

“You’ve got it wrong. Jude’s not the love type. We’re basically friends with bennies. It’s all we both want. It works.” Even as I say the words, I’m not so sure they’re true anymore.

“You’re both stupid and in denial.”

We don’t talk much on the way home, and I appreciate Megan’s rare moment of quiet and calm driving. My head hurts. I’m stunned by everything that’s happened. I’m heartbroken about my car and losing my personal possessions. I’m worried about what Jude’s doing right now.

And I can’t stop thinking about what Megan said—about Jude loving me. I know he cares about me, and he’s obviously attracted to me, but love?

I doubt it.

To be honest, the more I think about love, the more it scares and confuses me. Sometimes I have these moments where I think, oh my God, I might be falling in love with him and I might actually like it, and I feel all happy inside. But then a huge wave of fear swallows that feeling up almost immediately.

Falling in love means I could get my heart shattered. Because, seriously, what are the chances of Jude falling in love with me and us actually staying together? Slim to none. He’s thirty-four, and he’s never had a serious relationship. I’m eighteen, and I haven’t had one either. I’d rather stay friends forever than risk letting the L-word turn us into a mess. The road to falling in love can really only go one of two ways—toward forever or toward never speaking again. Both are terrifying.

“It feels weird going inside,” I say to Megan as she unlocks the front door for us.

“How do you mean?”

“It’s scary to find a stranger in your home. Twice.”

“I can’t even imagine. I’m sure it won’t happen again.”

“I hope not. Jude says he’s going to change all the locks and put in a security system.”

Once we’re in the foyer, I make sure the front door is locked behind us as Cassie and Gus come running down the hall to greet us. We both kneel down to pet them.

“I’m so glad that bitch didn’t do anything to hurt Cassie or Gus,” I say. “She had them both locked in the sunroom.”

“Very true,” she agrees. “I’m starving. Can we eat?”

My sore brain has a hard time following Megan’s usual abrupt switches in conversation. “Um, sure. Of course.”

She follows me into the kitchen, which thankfully, Erin didn’t trash. “You can help yourself to whatever you want,” I say.

She opens the refrigerator. “Aren’t you hungry? I’ll make us both something.”

“I can’t eat anything from in there.”

She frowns at me. “Why? There’s a lot of food in here.”

“Because Erin was in there yesterday touching all of it.”

“Okayyyyyy… everything is in containers, though. I don’t think she came in here, opened everything, and licked all your food.”