He groans and lowers his mouth to mine, one leg nestled between my thighs.
His phone beeps and buzzes again, clattering against the floor.
“You should check that,” I say against his lips.
He exhales heavily and climbs off me to retrieve it, but when he looks at the screen, something in his face changes. “I’m so sorry. I’m going to have to go.” He taps the screen and shoves the phone back into his pocket. When he looks at me again, he rakes his gaze over me and shakes his head. “I don’t want to, but I have to.”
I push onto my elbows and frown. “What’s wrong? Who was that?”
“It’s a friend.” He grabs his shirt off the floor and tugs it on over his head. “I’ll fill you in on the details later, but I have to go help her out.”
Her? My hands shake as I pull my dress back on and follow him to the door. He shoves his feet into his shoes, and my stomach twists. My voice is weak when I ask, “Who?”
I can tell by the way he stiffens that I’m not going to like the answer. “Meredith.”
The name hits me like a punch in the gut. Meredith. My mind conjures the images of him leaving on Valentine’s Day. His sweet attention completely diverted the moment she texted. The way he hurried out the door when she needed him. And now, on the night of our fucking engagement party, he’s going to her.
“What does she need?” I ask, but my question is masked by the ringing of his phone.
“I love you.” He presses a kiss to my forehead and pulls his phone from his pocket. “Hey… Yeah, I’m on my way.”
Then he’s out the door.
I watch him jog down the stairs, the phone to his ear the whole time. When he disappears around the corner, I return to my apartment. Breathe. Just breathe.
But the reminder doesn’t help, and I have to rush to the bathroom to throw up.
I never thought I’d be engaged to a man I couldn’t trust. I never thought I would doubt Max of all people. He hasn’t done anything to deserve my suspicion, but I can’t help it. The old insecurity is back, and it doesn’t matter what I look like now or how many pounds I lost, because Meredith is everything I’ll never be. Blond, slim, the kind of woman men’s eyes go to when she enters a room.
And to top it off, she’s a complete bitch. William Bailey dated her for a while before Cally came back in town, and when he broke it off for his first love, Meredith got artificially inseminated and let everyone in town think it was Will’s baby.
After brushing my teeth and settling my angry stomach with Sprite, I found my
underwear—so much for that seduction plan—and a pair of canvas flats and started walking.
Nothing calms me like the sound of the river, so I hit the path behind the bakery. Three times, I’ve pulled up Max’s number on my phone, ready to call him and demand answers. Three times, I’ve changed my mind. I don’t want to be that girl. Insecure. Untrusting. He’s marrying me, isn’t he? And if he were doing something wrong, would he have told me where he was going?
I pull off my shoes and walk in the cool grass, the stars mocking me from above with their happy twinkling. I don’t know how long I walk or how far, but by the time I’ve left the center of town and can see my mom’s house in the distance, the bottoms of my feet are raw from walking barefoot.
In front of me lies the empty expanse of Mom’s backyard. The party is over. The band’s been packed up, the decorations taken down. All like it never existed.
I’m not ready to return to my apartment yet, so I stop at the dock just between Mom’s and Asher’s adjoining properties.
I sink onto the wooden planks, wrap my arms around my knees, lean my head against them, and tell myself everything is going to be okay.
I focus on breathing. In. And out. In. And out.
“You planning on sleeping there or just staying long enough to ruin that sexy dress?”
I lift my head to see a dark figure leaning against the rail at the end of the dock. I blink until Nate Crane comes into focus. He takes a drag off a cigarette—no, not a cigarette, a joint. I sneer in disgust. I hate drugs. I have no use for people who can’t think of any better way to entertain themselves.
“You planning on getting stoned the rest of your life or actually doing something meaningful?”
He steps closer, and in the light of the moon, I can make out the half smirk, half smile on his lips. “Asher and Maggie invited me to your engagement party tonight, but I decided being stoned and useless would be more enjoyable. So would Chinese water torture, come to think of it. Looks like maybe you feel the same.” He takes another step closer and offers the joint.
“Fuck no.” I wave away the puff of smoke left behind and cough for good measure.
“Suit yourself,” he murmurs. He shifts his gaze back to the river, but instead of taking another drag, he pinches off the glowing tip into the water and tucks the rest into his pocket. “Do you want to talk about it?”