Virgin

She sniffles loudly. “The operation went all right, but something happened overnight. I don’t know what, but since then he’s been going downhill. They’ve been working on him all day. They can’t tell

what it is, but it seems like his body’s just … I don’t know, just shutting down. Tyson, please come. They don’t think he’ll make it past tonight.” She breaks down then, sobbing horribly. I can’t sob. I can’t even muster a tear. I can’t feel anything.

“I’ll be on the first flight out,” I promise.

“Please, hurry. I’ll tell him you’re coming. I know he would want to hold on for you, Tyson.” I get the address. There’s a fist squeezing my heart when I end the call. Liam, you fucking idiot. How dare you not even give me the chance to help?

I pull up a random travel site on my phone and search frantically for flights to Ireland—my fingers keep hitting the wrong buttons at first, but I eventually manage to schedule a flight going out in two hours. I buy the ticket on the spot and rush back to the hotel.

I rush up to my room and start throwing things into my suitcase, cursing him, mourning him, and wishing I could wring his fucking neck for being so stubborn and stupid. He is dying in some hospital bed in Ireland and there’s nothing I can do about it. He should’ve known I would want to be there, the jackass. A lifetime of being my best friend and he thought it would be all right not to tell me he was fuckin’ dying.

Suddenly, I remember Izzy.

“Damn it!” I whisper, running my hands through my hair. I look around, frantic, in a panic. I’m losing my fucking mind. I grab the phone that I tossed on the bed. I have to keep myself from hurling the damn thing to the floor when I see she still hasn’t given me that missed call.

I pace my suite restlessly like a caged tiger.

She’ll call soon. She’s just busy doing whatever bridesmaids do. Fuck, what if she calls while I am airborne? I change the recorded message on my phone’s answer machine. My message tells her that I have to fly to Ireland on an emergency and could she leave a number and I’ll call her back.

Another thought hits me. What if she doesn’t have the time to call and she is just planning on showing up in Costa tonight? Another thought hits me. Maybe she hasn’t called me yet because she was in such a hurry to get her ribbons she made a mistake with my number.

In that case, she won’t hear my message. She’ll think I ditched her. That I was never serious in the first place. She was only a fling. I imagined her sitting there, waiting for me, hopeful. Until enough time passed and she knew I wasn’t going to show. I could actually feel her pain as though someone were stabbing me.

The thought of hurting her is almost as crushing as the pain of my best friend dying. Like a knife to my heart. She doesn’t deserve to be hurt like that, especially when hurting her is the last thing I want to do. It is at that moment I realize she’s even more special to me than I had recognized.

I slump on the bed. I have enough time to leave her a message with the staff at Costa.

I snatch my suitcase, check out, and rush out of the hotel. Outside I flag down the first taxi that comes my way and direct the driver to the pub in question. While we’re on the way, I call Louis to cancel my lunch with him, then I shoot emails to Ralph and several others, letting them know about the change in plans. Ralph gets back to me instantly, telling me he’ll handle things on his end. He knows how much Liam means to me, the brother I never had.

“Wait here, please,” I say when we pull up outside Costa. I fly through the door and up to the counter. I ask to speak to someone who can understand English.

One of the girls comes towards me from the other end of the counter. “Can I help you?”

“Yes, please. Will you be working here at about seven tonight?”

“Yes, I am working, how do you say, is it … double shift?”

I nod quickly.

“Yes, double shifts tonight.”

“Good. I need you to do a big favor for me,” I explain as I fumble with my phone, searching for Izzy’s photo. “I’m supposed to meet this girl here at seven tonight, but I have to leave the country because of an emergency. Do you understand me?”

She nods. “Yes.”

“I don’t have her number. I need her to know that I’m not standing her up, right?”

“Ah, I understand.” She smiles, a smile that tells me she understands and everything will be all right. “You want me to tell her you can’t make it tonight because of an emergency.”

Nodding, I smile back at her. The relief feels like physical sensation in my body. I exhale. Oh, thank God. She will look out for Izzy and tell her what happened. “Do you have a piece of paper I can use?” The guy behind the bar slides me a notepad and a pen.

Izzy,

I’m so sorry, but there’s been an emergency. My best friend is critically ill and I have to fly out a.s.a.p.

Please call me when you get this.

x Tyson.

Underneath, I scrawl my cell number.

“Here.” I hand it over to her. “Please, give this to her.” I show her the photo again. “This girl.”

“She’s beautiful,” she says.

“Yes, she is. Which is why I can’t let her think I stood her up. This means the world to me.” I pull out two hundred Euros and shove the bunch of notes into her hand. “Thank you.”

“Sure, no problem!” she says, grinning from ear to ear. “I’ll be here tonight, and I promise to give her this note. Actually, if you call here at that time I can even let you speak to her.”

A great weight slides off my chest. It’s not ideal, but it’s the best I can do at the moment. “That would be wonderful. Thank you.”

“No problem. When you call just ask for Margot.” She grins. “That is me.”

I smile at her gratefully. “You’re a life saver.”

“Good luck,” she says as I turn away, clutching the notepad with the establishment’s phone number.

As I walk out, I suddenly wish there was a way for me to take Izzy back with me. It seems wrong to leave her here, but I have no choice but to climb back into the taxi and tell the driver to take me to the airport. I get to the airport with just enough time to get through security and board the plane. As it takes off I look down at the earth below and my heart feels heavy with some unknown fear.

Izzy will be all right, I tell myself. She’ll call soon and hear the message. She’ll understand. I know she will. We have something special. Any other woman might think it was a brush off, but not her. She’ll know there was nothing else I could do. I have to be with my friend—or at least try to help his girlfriend through the aftermath … if I don’t make it there in time to say goodbye. He would do the same for me.

I can’t wait around another day. I gave my word. And my word is always good.

Chapter Twelve

Izzy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X930_IyhGfo

Dust to Dawn

I tap my nails against the glass of iced coffee. Condensation wets my fingers and runs down the side to pools in a ring around the glass. My eyes dart around—every movement on the street could be him. Every tall, dark-haired man makes me jump. Even the ones who aren’t so tall, or so handsome. My heart still skips a beat whenever anyone who looks even remotely like him strides past the windows. Whenever the door opens I turn my head. It might be him. It just might be.

But it isn’t.

I can just see the look on Kylie’s face when I tell her I sat around in Costa, waiting for a man who clearly had no intention of ever seeing me again.

Yes, that would go over really well.

My chest hurts. A deep, stinging pain that only gets worse with every minute that passes. Every tick of the clock feels like another second of my life gone. Last night comes back to me like scenes on a reel of film. His smile. The way he looked at me. The way he laughed at himself. The electricity of his touch. The way my breath caught when he swept me off my feet—literally—and carried me to the bedroom. The look in his eyes when I woke up the next morning. The way my heart pounded double time when he told me he wanted to see me again.

The images play like a movie I can’t stop. I wish I could stop it. It’s hell—th

e memories don’t bring pleasure or fill me with a secret joy like they did all day. Now they’re a reproach. The reminder of what an idiot I was to believe him.

And yet, I keep hoping.

Craning my neck whenever the door opens. When it doesn’t turn out to be him, my heart sinks further and further. I know I can’t sit here all night, waiting, but … just a little while more.

As the night moves on I feel the eyes of the wait staff watching me, pitying me. They’ve probably seen dozens of girls like me, maybe hundreds. Walking in with their heads high, all dolled up in their best clothes, their hair and makeup much nicer than they’d wear it if they were meeting up with just friends. Checking their reflection, self-consciously looking up every time the door opens. Just about radiating anticipation.

Until enough time passes. Until anticipation turns to embarrassment, then despair. And all the while, they try to keep up a brave front because they are in public. They can’t let anybody see them fall apart, even though falling apart is the one thing they are going through. What a pathetic fool I was to be roped in by a good-looking face.

I cringe to think that I was so easy.

The staff are roping off sections without customers. They are about to close shop. Some of them look in my direction. They want me to go.

The nasty, taunting voice in my head starts a monologue. Kylie was right. What were you thinking? A man like him is not for you. This was bound to happen. Better now than later. It was just a one-night stand. It’s life. Every night millions of men and women all over the world are doing it and walking away.