Chapter 29
29
“Hey, Lila.”
“Troy.” My voice sounds breathless. He remembers me. He knows my name. Once this realization would have sent butterflies through my entire bloodstream.
Now, it has…absolutely no effect.
He looks different. Older. Heavier. His bed-head of thick brown hair looks thinner. More groomed in a way that makes him look…tame. He doesn’t look like a hotshot hockey player anymore. More like a middle management lawyer who doesn’t win a lot of cases. I don’t know why I say that, I have no idea if he wins cases or not.
The Troy in my memories was bigger and more imposing. He was almost god-like, built up by my dazed adoration. Now, he looks ordinary. Tired and unimpressive. His brown eyes are dull-looking, especially compared to the vivid blue ones I’m used to. And his suit is cheap-looking and doesn’t quite fit.
“Wow, Lila,” he says. “You look amazing.” His gaze drops to my low-cut neckline.
Once this might have thrilled me. That he notices me. That he is, in fact, checking me out sort of…tactlessly.
“How have you been, Troy?”
“Oh, you know. Fine.”
“You didn’t end up going pro?”
“No.” He runs a hand through his hair, regretfully. “Tried to, but couldn’t quite get there.” His face looks puffier than it used to, his body paunchier. I knew it so well, once. I kept a photo of him that had been taken for a magazine, shirtless and holding his hockey stick, in my wallet all through college. I gazed at it so much, it grew dog-eared.
God, what a waste.
“I’m a high school coach now,” he says.
“I thought you were a lawyer.”
“Yeah, well, that didn’t quite work out. I got disbarred.” He laughs. “One little mishap with some misappropriated funds and they never forgive you.” Like it’s a joke.
“Oh.”
“How are things with you?” he asks me.
I have no desire to tell him anything about myself. My hopes. My dreams. My regrets. “I’m a designer now,” I hear myself say. It’s actually true. It’s no longer just something I say because it’s a pipe dream. I’ve got over a thousand orders waiting to be filled that people actually want. If I can do it without him, that is.
“That’s great.” It barely registers. He’s too busy staring at my tits. “You look really fucking hot, Lila. But then, you always did. Do you want to, like, go somewhere, just you and me? Let’s take a walk and get to know each other better. I don’t know why we didn’t get together years ago.”
Because you were too busy fucking every female with a heartbeat, maybe?
“Jessie said you’re with Brittany now.”
“Oh. Yeah.” He says it sort of disinterestedly. “She’s here somewhere. It’s just a casual thing. Nothing serious. I’d ditch her for you any day of the week.”
How romantic.
Troy reaches to touch a long strand of my hair, which he rubs between two of his meaty fingers.
I’m almost surprised by how repulsed I am by his touch, but before I can take a step back, a fist grabs his hand.
“Take your hands off my wife,” comes the low warning, “or I will drop you like a fucking stone.”
Troy pulls back, rubbing his hand with his other fist, like it hurts. “Dude, chill.” Recognition dawns. “Hey, I know who you are. Harvard, right? Yeah, that’s it. None other than the revered captain of the Crimson, Colton Maddox.”
“Is there something you need?” Colton seethes darkly. The cold menace in his tone makes the tiny hairs on the back of my neck lift .
“Never quite made it to the NHL either, huh, Maddox? Sorry to hear about the knee.” Jeeringly.
Was Troy always this obnoxious?
Yes, is the answer to that question.
My “crush” is officially and completely dead.
“Beckett,” Colton says, his voice low. “I’m going to ask you nicely once and once only. Fuck. Off. Go back to whatever cubicle you crawled out of and do it now. If you don’t leave this wedding immediately I will beat you to a bloody, unrecognizable pulp. And if you ever come near my wife again I’ll fucking kill you with my bare hands.”
“Wife?” Troy grins but takes a step back. “Where’s the ring?”
Colton punches Troy in the face.
Oh my god!
Troy stumbles backward into a tall hedge.
A few people nearby look over at him, but the party has revved up several gears and most people are dancing or talking and haven’t noticed. They might just think he’s drunk a little too much.
Troy is holding his bloody nose. One of his false teeth has fallen out. When Colton takes another step toward him, Troy holds his palms up and starts walking away. “I’m going, I’m going.”
“Hurry the fuck up.”
As soon as Troy is out of Colton’s easy reach, he calls out to me, “If you change your mind, Lila, you know where to find me. ”
I grip Colton’s arm to stop him from going after Troy and it takes all my strength. “ Colton. It’s Jessie’s wedding . Stop it right now.”
“He fucking touched you.” Like there’s never been a worse crime.
“Barely. You didn’t need to punch him.”
“Of course I did. You’re my wife .” His eyes are blazing. “If he hurt you, I’ll go after that fucker and kill him right now.”
“He didn’t hurt me. Please, Colton. Do not follow him. He’s leaving.”
“He fucking better be.”
Troy pointed it out, that I’m not wearing my ring. But I notice then that Colton still is.
Of course I can’t help comparing the two of them. Colton is dark and handsome and perfectly built. Glowing with male virility. Troy, as he slinks away, pulling his protesting date along with him, seems smaller than he used to be, in every possible way. Unformed, somehow. Like a guy who peaked a long time ago and who’s now, slowly but surely, being consumed by his own shallowness.
Once, they might have been similar men. But now they inhabit different universes.
Jacob taps a spoon against his glass of champagne from the front of the tent. “Please take your seats everyone. Dinner is served. We’ve got a few speeches to make and then we’ll get back to the dancing. ”
Colton’s hand is on my back. Jessie’s waving to me. My seat is next to hers at the wedding party table.
I don’t know how to feel. I’d like nothing better than to escape and be alone for a while, to try to process this avalanche of emotion, but I can’t let Jessie down. I’ll just have to cowgirl up and act like I’m fine for an hour or two.
Colton escorts me to my seat and then finds his own, which is at a nearby table, between Rafe and a beautiful woman with red hair. She’s obviously with the guy to her right, who looks so much like a slightly younger version of Rafe, with tattoos and a darker vibe, that he could only be Rafe’s brother. He and the red-haired woman are obviously very much in love.
I guess this is a relief, maybe, that Colton isn’t going to be flirted with again, but my emotions feel stone cold.
Troy is gone and the relief of being fully over him is indescribable. That chapter of my life is well and truly over and if I could rip it out of the book of my life and burn it, I would.
I somehow make it through the dinner and the speeches. I do my best to be fun for Jessie on her special night but I’m sipping 7-up instead of champagne because my stomach feels off— and that other reason —and all I can think about is how most of the women at this party are staring at him.
Olivia gazes at him from a far table with dreamy, unmasked lust. Like she’d allow him to use her all over again if she could only have one more night .
Meanwhile Jacob is giving a toast to his beautiful One and Only.
It sinks in, and I wish it wouldn’t. But it’s obvious what I have to do.
At this point, it’s not going to be easy. But I refuse to put up with a relationship that isn’t worthy of me. I spent years doing that and I can’t do it anymore.
I hope he’s better than Troy. I know he’s better than Troy. Of course he is. A trillion times better. But the doubts and the warnings and the red flags are all I can see tonight.
I want my own fairy tale. And I won’t share him.
I want something true and steady and real . Something that isn’t going to topple over every time we run into one of his exes. Okay, yes, tonight’s drama was more about running into one of my “exes” than his, but still. At least I only had one of them. Not so many we can’t even go to a wedding on the opposite side of the country without running into at least one. Who even knows if there are others here.
There’s only one solution that will ensure that my heart doesn’t get smashed into smithereens like my mother’s did. Some days I wonder if she died of a lifetime’s worth of heart-brokenness. Maybe sometimes a person’s body just gives up when they’ve had enough of it.
I love him.
But I love myself too.
I have to let him go.