3. Lacie
LACIE
Every single one of my well-laid plans was completely bulldozed. Debris from the wreckage dusted the air around me, invisible but choking at the same time. And I couldn’t breathe.
With my phone to my ear, I paced my apartment, waiting for Jared to pick up.
He didn’t usually take this long to answer. Was he still out with Tia? Nerves spiraling, I stared at my suitcase, at the clock by my bed, at the geometrical shapes in my gray carpet.
“Hey, Lace.”
Finally.
My lower lip trembled, and a little whimper leaked out. The sound of Jared’s voice was everything I needed to hear, and the tears I’d been holding at bay gushed like a faucet on full blast.
“This totally sucks!” I wailed.
“What sucks? Are you at the airport? Did something happen?”
“I’m not at the airport.”
“Uh-oh. Why not?”
“Because—” My throat tightened. I couldn’t finish.
I sank onto the side of my bed without realizing I’d paced so close to it. Wyatt’s voice continued to strike in my memory—his cruel, falsely sympathetic words saying every engaged woman’s worst fears aloud:
I don’t love you. I thought I did, but if I’m interested in other women, that’s not love, is it?
“He’s interested in other women!” I cried. “He doesn’t want to be with me.”
All the worst-case scenarios that had ever streaked through my mind had played out with abandon. I’d wondered what level of interest Wyatt was talking about.
Did he like to look at other women in passing? Did he strike up conversations with women and ask for their numbers? Or had he been seeing others behind my back?
Then he’d told me the truth—verifying the worst.
“Slow down,” Jared said. “Tell me what happened.”
I forced myself to speak. “Wyatt called me just after you left. And he said he wanted the ring back.”
A ring I’d wrenched from my finger the minute the call had ended and tossed in the drawer by my bed. Its absence on my fourth finger was noticeable.
“He broke off your engagement?”
Even though Jared couldn’t see me through the phone, I nodded.
“He did? Why?”
Tears streamed down my cheeks. My lower lip trembled. Heat crept its way up and clenched my throat, making speaking that much harder.
“He said he met someone else, and he’s going home with her to meet her family for Christmas. He said—Oh, gosh. So many hurtful things.”
Jared’s tone grew firmer and abrasive. “Like what?”
I allowed the hurtful words to swarm over me, and I verbalized them as they reemerged. I had to get them all out. To tell Jared everything.
“He said he prefers to be with someone who doesn’t try to control every move he makes. He said he’s found a woman who can relax while they’re out together and isn’t on her phone the whole time. He said whoever this new girl is, she knows how to have a good time—something he didn’t realize how much he missed and wanted until he went out with her last night. For the second time.”
Two dates.
Wyatt had gone on TWO DATES with a woman who wasn’t me.
I pressed my eyes closed, squeezing more tears free.
There were times when he teased me for being on my phone—sometimes while we waited at restaurants, other times while I was a passenger in the car he was driving. But whenever he said something, I always put my phone away.
And he laughed with me. I was fun, dang it.
“I know how to have a good time,” I blurted in my own defense.
“Yes, you do.”
“And I am on my phone a lot, but who isn’t? Every time you go anywhere, people are always sucked into their screens!”
Most of the time, I wasn’t scrolling through social media or playing games or even reading books or anything like that. I always took whatever spare minute I had to research cultures and whatever stylistic requests clients made of me for their various parties.
I took pride in delivering exactly what people expected—and more. I thought Wyatt knew that! I thought he liked that I was so detail-oriented.
“You’re the life of the party,” Jared said. “It’s why you’re so good at planning them.”
I dabbed my cheeks with a tissue, but at this point, there was no salvaging my mascara. I’d have to remove whatever was left of it and start over again.
And I voiced the question that wouldn’t leave me alone:
“Then why doesn’t Wyatt think so?”
* * *
Jared
I hadn’t yet made it inside my apartment complex, which was just as well because after hearing Lacie’s news, I stormed back to the parking lot. I needed somewhere to direct this sudden burst of furious adrenaline and outrage on her behalf.
I should go back to Lacie’s. Better still, I had the irrational urge to veer over to Wyatt’s and throw a fist in the fool’s face just for hurting her.
Her words, the pained tone of her voice, resonated in the cavern of my mind.
What was wrong with this guy? He had the greatest girl in the world—and he couldn’t see that?
He couldn’t see that she wasn’t only the entire universe but the axis on which it rotated and the gravity pulling everything, keeping me at its center?
Him, I mean. Keeping Wyatt at its center.
He was an utter and complete moron.
I voiced this thought aloud.
“He hurt you,” I said with a snarl, pacing the painted yellow line between my car and Miguel’s.
“Not physically.”
“Doesn’t mean you’re okay right now.” I wasn’t with her, but I could imagine the pain in her eyes.
The pain saturating her voice. The pain I wanted to take away.
A tiny pinprick of realization deflated my fury. I wanted to rage. I wanted to defend her honor. I wanted to smack this guy upside the head multiple times.
But I couldn’t, not this time. Not the way I’d done during her past breakups.
Because Tia.
I gripped my phone so hard I imagined my fingers would leave imprints behind. How many times had I wished for exactly this—only in reverse? For Lacie to break things off with Wyatt because she realized she loved me instead?
And now, I was with someone else.
Someone I liked.
I knew the prospect of getting together with Lacie was impossible. It was the reason I’d dated Tia in the first place.
Lacie and I were both twenty-four. She’d made a career for herself, and so had I. Most best friend duos I knew from high school had gone their separate ways, keeping in touch the way most people did—online or with the occasional text message.
The thought of passing months at a time without speaking to Lacie squeezed the air from my lungs. Though I traveled during the busy summer months to find the best places to sell security systems, we still talked every day. I couldn’t bring myself to move away from Texas.
Away from her.
“Wyatt’s an idiot,” I said, drawing myself back to our conversation.
She chuckled through her tears, and I went on.
“I’ve always thought he had more than one screw loose. Now, I know he does. This is a good thing, Lace. It’s good to realize before vows were spoken that his brain is smaller than BB pellets and he’s about as reliable as a plastic fork.”
I hadn’t made my feelings regarding Wyatt a secret, that was for sure. I’d always made comments about how she could do better, about how weak Wyatt was compared to me, or how he never paid attention to her like he should have.
Deep down, I’d hoped Lacie would see the comments for what they were—invitations to see me as something more than just a best friend.
I’d never been able to bring myself to tell her how I felt about her.
Now was that time.
A small urge somewhere deep in my gut twisted with insistent hands, coaxing me to speak up, to strike while the proverbial iron was hot.
I’d always loved her. From the time we’d kissed during drama class in tenth grade, I knew she was the only woman I ever wanted.
I pictured driving over to her place. Opening up to her. Telling her what a good thing this was—that now, she could open her eyes to see what had been in front of her for years.
And if I wasn’t with Tia, maybe I would have gone out on a limb and taken that chance.
But I swore inwardly and kicked the back tire of my Ford.
I was with Tia .
And Lacie was extremely hurt and vulnerable right now. She needed me to listen, not attempt to sweep her off her feet and probably confuse her more than she already was.
I knew she didn’t return my feelings. Much as I’d hoped she would, she’d never expressed anything similar.
She’d dated other guys. And I’d been trying to get over that fact.
It wasn’t fair to Tia to drop everything on her now. Not when she was leaving for vacation and when I’d spent so much effort trying to convince her there was nothing between Lacie and me. For all I knew, Lacie would pick up and find the next loser she could to mend her heart with.
Somehow, I’d accepted that I could never have her. But I refused to give up our friendship, even if that was the case.
Maybe I was a glutton for punishment. And I was probably setting myself up for more heartache later on, but I did what I always did when the thought came?—
I kicked it in the butt.
“I am so glad I didn’t vow to love and cherish him because he is so not cherishable.”
Lacie laughed, though I didn’t think it was because what she’d said was all that funny. It was more like laughing was easier than crying, and she needed me to help ease the tension threatening to make her burst.
“Like I said, he’s a total loser,” I said. “I’m sorry he hurt you, Lace.”
“Yeah. Last night. The night before we were leaving on a romantic trip, he was on a date with someone else. And he said while he was kissing her, his whole future flashed before him. He said?—”
“He kissed her while he was engaged to you?” I kicked my tire again.
I got the feeling she didn’t want to relive the painful conversation, yet the details gushed out as though she needed to be rid of them.
“He said he’s been agonizing over how to tell me all of this because he knew how much it would hurt to hear—but that he couldn’t go on this trip with me and lead me on anymore. He said he’s been having second thoughts since I started planning our wedding.”
Her voice broke, but she pushed on.
“Apparently. Apparently, I was supposed to wait until we were sure the wedding was a solid.”
Seriously? I wheeled around and raked my hands through my hair. Did this guy have a brain at all?
“ Proposing to you, and having you accept him, was enough to prove that,” I said. “Honestly, what planet is this guy from?”
If Wyatt wasn’t sure about marrying her, why had he proposed to her at all? Anyone who knew Lacie at all would know she’d been making note of dresses, flower colors, and table arrangements for her wedding for years now.
I wanted to pummel this guy. I wanted to smash his face in until his nose came out of the back of his skull.
Lacie gave a little hiccup. “Right? I just wanted things to be perfect. After planning so many other people’s big days, I’ve been excited to finally put one together for myself.
“Is it wrong to want the right flowers? The perfect event hall? For my table settings to coordinate with the décor?”
“Sounds pretty typical to me. Whoever this new girl is will probably get paper napkins and plates from somewhere sensible like Walmart.”
Lacie laughed, and a smile worked its way onto my lips as well. I’d been trying to lighten the situation in whatever way I could, and it had worked.
“For normal parties, that’s okay,” she said, “but a wedding? If you can afford it—and I can—why not go all out?”
She’d smothered me with talk of all her notebooks, website listings, magazine clippings, and memos from the various weddings she’d planned over the years. Lacie had documented exact details of everything she’d liked that her clients had chosen—and everything she hadn’t liked—so she knew what to avoid in case she forgot.
It was all there, all ready, and she’d been putting things into motion since Wyatt had proposed last month.
“Now, what do I do? Getting to the airport in a reasonable timeframe is long past. I guess I could still make it through security and rush to board, but I don’t really want to go by myself. I have all these events planned for couples once we get to Harper’s Inn, and—You’re not saying anything. Why aren’t you saying anything?”
My mouth hung open. I gripped the branch of a nearby tree and replied. “What do you want me to say?”
Truth be told, my thoughts swarmed in all kinds of directions they shouldn’t. Going with her on this trip would be the perfect opportunity to confess my feelings. I was already halfway onto that limb—might as well see it through the rest of the way.
Fear of losing Lacie’s friendship had kept me from speaking up, btu Tia had me up against a wall with her ultimatum.
In that moment, I knew what my answer for Tia was—what I wished I’d said.
She wanted more with me? I wanted to end things.
I wanted to step into this void in Lacie’s life and convince her that I was more than a friend. That the two of us could have so much more than the amazing relationship we already shared.
I wasn’t only thinking along the lines of benefits, but more so that I could keep her from ever feeling this dejected again. Because I would never break her heart.
Not like this.
“You’re too quiet, Jare.”
I grimaced. Being quiet was out of character for me, but what could I say?
I could invite her to my mom’s house for Christmas since, in all likelihood, our families would meet up at one point or another during the holiday. I could suggest the two of us spend the holiday together since neither of us had plans now.
But there was the whole Tia issue to deal with. I was no cheater.
I could call her now. Tell her I’d thought it over and had an answer—that maybe it was time we stepped apart and saw other people. I glanced at my clock and cursed inwardly.
Too late. She’d already left for her cruise. Besides, breaking up with her while she was on a family vacation was a jerk move if ever there was one.
I’d have to wait until after Christmas to talk to Tia. It was the right thing to do. Which meant I’d keep my feelings for Lacie on hold a little while longer.
That was all fine and good…until Lacie made an offer that threw my world upside down.