And, well, there was heat.
There had to be heat, y’know?
But it wasn’t a wildfire of passion, love, that had us unable to spend another moment not joined in matrimony.
It was more like… I don’t know… the right progression of things.
You dated to get to know someone, to see if you would work long-term.
Once you established that, you took steps toward that long-term situation.
That was what we had done.
Step by step until we were supposed to take those big ones. The ones down an aisle. The most important walk of your life.
Romeo and Juliet or Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy we were not, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t a good relationship, a great match, a couple to aspire to be.
And because so much thought had gone into the day, because I took it more seriously than I took anything – save for my work and personal finances – it made sense that I felt queasy and shaky and sweaty while I sat there waiting for it to be time.
“Do you need something?” Miller had asked, brows drawn down because, well, she knew something was up, that I was usually nothing other than completely composed. And I certainly looked anything but that right then.
So I gave her a little nothing question to ask Gary, just so I could have a moment completely alone to pull myself back together.
I never imagined – not in a million years – that she would come back with ashen skin, panic in her deep eyes, and tell me in her somewhat signature blunt fashion that she couldn’t find Gary.
That he was gone.
His room empty.
His car picked up.
Gone gone.
I’d called him.
Of course I did.
Because I understood if he was feeling a bit like I was, if maybe he went for a drive, went to grab some of those gross 5-Hour caffeine drinks he liked so much to try to calm himself down before coming back, and going through with everything.
It wasn’t until the fifteenth call – and the tenth unanswered text – that I started to freak out.
Miller went to check his room again in case he had come back.
And me, well, I left.
And as I yanked the skirt of my wedding dress up, so I could slide into my driver’s seat, there was no mistaking the churning in my stomach.
Not just nerves anymore.
Something else.
Something more devious.
Something like a gut instinct.
Something that said things had just gone very wrong.
Not simply because he had gotten cold feet.
I could forgive that, move past it.
But because something inside of me said there was something very wrong.
About Gary.
I flew into my apartment building, calling out his name frantically, voice getting more and more hysterical by the moment.
Don’t ask me what made me do it.
Turn into my guest room.
The room that acted as that as well as my office because I hated having electronics out where anyone could see them.
Butted up against the wall under a window that had a nice view of a park that was always packed on weekends with Little League games or families out for some fun, even lovers having picnics, or people walking their dogs, was my long, low, light pink writing desk – a silly, girly impulse purchase one night that I never regretted.
My computer was on top of it.
And, well, it was another situation where I was glad for my job.
Because the IT guy that Quin hired had told me how to turn my internal camera on my desktop or laptop into a security camera triggered by motion.
I had set it up because of a slight bit of paranoia about someone from work – since there were plenty of slimy characters in and out of the place – finding his way into my place. At least with the security camera, I would have a way of knowing that it happened if it ever did. And then I would have proof.
I usually only checked it if I was having a particularly bad bout of paranoia, when some client genuinely rubbed me the wrong way.
But then, gut clenched in a vice grip, determination making my heels sound like they would burst through the hardwood floor, I checked it for a whole new reason.
Because I never thought to look into Gary.
Not that way anyway.
And that, well, that was suddenly starting to feel like a giant, epic mistake.
One that could have horrible repercussions.
I moved toward the computer, sitting down in the chair, taking deep breath as I turned it on, and went in search of the saved camera feed.
And there was Gary.
In ten different files for ten different days, all time-coded when I would not have been home, when he really had no reason to be in my apartment seeing as he was supposed to be at work as well.
He looked good in all of them, too.
Of course he did.
He was one of those people who looked good with bedhead, who looked good when he was on the second day of the flu, who looked good doing tasks that no one would find someone looking good while doing – trimming their toenails, flossing their teeth.