27. Sadie
27
SADIE
Piper reaches for my hand. “Are you okay?”
Amanda steps into the bathroom, and if my knees didn’t feel like they were about to give out, I’d walk over and slap the smirk right off her face. “Did you pay for a date to this wedding?”
“No, of course not.” I drop my gaze to the floor, wishing it would swallow me whole. I can’t breathe. I can’t think. Most of all, I can’t believe Ian has broken not only my trust but my heart.
“She didn’t pay me,” he says slowly, no emotion in his words.
Piper holds up a hand when Amanda starts to speak again. “Amanda, get out and keep your mouth shut, okay?”
“Of course, mum’s the word,” Amanda says. “Ian, we’ll talk once we’re back in Skylark,” she adds before leaving. Her tone is so smug, but as much as I want to smack her, I’d like to smack myself even more.
“Sadie, why?” Piper moves closer to me.
Why? Isn’t that the big question? Big—how funny that word seemed in relation to The Playmaker when everything started.
Why did I think I could do this?
Why did I think I could manage not to fall for Ian?
Why did I let him into my heart?
Because now he’s broken it. Or maybe I’m to blame.
“It’s fine, Piper. It seemed easier, and I didn’t…I don’t...”
I swallow and try to collect my thoughts and emotions into something that will make sense to either of us. “It started one way, but it’s not like that anymore.”
I risk a glance at Ian, who is glaring at me so hard I feel like I might throw up.
“I heard you on the phone with your friend,” he says. “Talking about your book club bucket list and my part in it.”
“Oh, God.” I shake my head. Regret makes my limbs heavy. What the hell have I done? I know what I said to Sloane and can easily imagine how it must have sounded to Ian.
Those words were a lie, but at the time, they felt easier than admitting I lost my virginity to a man I fell in love with even though he’s so far out of my league it’s comical. Sloane has enough to worry about without adding the potential of my broken heart to the list.
How can I explain my convoluted logic now that Ian’s revealed there’s truly nothing between us? I can’t tell him I’ve fallen in love with him. Would he believe me anyway? Or even care?
It’s clear from the set of his jaw and the way his hands are clenched at his sides that he’s going to walk away.
He’s going to leave me just like everyone leaves me. And the worst part? This time around, it’s my own fault.
“I don’t believe you.” Piper is standing at my side, but she’s speaking to both of us. “Sadie, I’ve never seen you so happy. You can’t tell me this isn’t real. I don’t believe either of you is that good of an actor.”
I feel the weight of Ian’s stare like he’s waiting for my answer.
“At the start, it was for you,” I tell Piper. That much is the truth. “I didn’t want you worrying about me or to be one more thing that added to your stress.”
She blinks a few times, like she’s trying to hold back tears, then shrugs. “Since I’m about a hundred percent sure there isn’t going to be a wedding, you don’t have to worry about my stress. It would have been simpler to talk to me about how you felt. I’m not a little kid anymore. You don’t have to protect me or sacrifice your happiness on my behalf. That’s never what I wanted.”
“I’ll move my stuff out of the hotel room,” Ian tells me, his voice tight. He’s pretending to look at me, but his gaze is focused somewhere past my left shoulder. No emotion. No eye contact. Nothing. “Piper can stay with you tonight. I’ll be heading to LA after I pick up Riva. I might even take her to Disneyland for a couple days. Long enough for things to settle down.”
“It won’t settle.”
I won’t settle.
I swipe a hand over my cheeks where a few wayward tears have fallen. “Amanda isn’t going to keep quiet, so you don’t have to worry about staging a break-up scene back in Skylark. The town gossip will be more than enough to keep their tongues wagging.”
“That’s not how I wanted this to go,” Ian says.
Now he’s looking at Piper, as if she’s the one who needs the explanation.
Why can’t I tell him I was lying to Sloane because admitting the truth made me feel too vulnerable? Because I don’t know if that would even make a difference, and my pride—no, my heart—can’t take any more.
Piper puts an arm around my shoulder. “My sister deserves everything I thought she was getting with you.”
He doesn’t argue. “She does and more. You also deserve a hell of a lot better than Bradley Carlson. Remember that.” Without another word to me, he turns and walks out of the bathroom.
“Do you think we can sleep in here?” I ask Piper with a watery laugh. I’m trying hard not to completely break down, because this weekend is still about my sister. “It might be easier than facing the wedding guests. At least for me.”
“I need to call off the wedding,” Piper murmurs. “Officially.”
She sounds less traumatized by the idea than I’d expect. “I can help with that. For the record, no one would think you should marry Bradley based on how he’s been acting. Was he always that much of an asshole? How did neither of us realize it?”
She lets out a sigh. “He had you throughout high school and college, and that also made a difference for me. You make people better, Sads.”
“Not The Playmaker ,” I counter. “All I did was manage to make him hate me.”
She checks her reflection in the mirror. Her cheeks and eyelids are still pink, but most of the swelling has subsided. “I’m not convinced. After you two started dating—or fake dating if you want to keep telling yourself that—I read up on him and watched his old interviews. The Ian Barlowe who showed up at your side is way different than the man I expected to see.”
There’s a knock at the bathroom door, and an older woman who isn’t part of the bridal party peeks in. “I really need to pee,” she says apologetically.
“Come on in.” Piper nods. “We were just leaving.”
My shoulders tense, but she takes my hand. “I’ve got you, Sads. Let me be the strong one for once. You’re not in this alone. Let’s get out of here.”
As much as my pride hurts at being outed to Amanda and her grown-up mean-girl posse, my heart has taken a bigger hit. But Piper’s words and calming presence ease the ache ever so slightly.
I should be the one comforting her at the moment, but it feels nice to take a break from being the perennial caregiver.
I’ve always believed that if I wasn’t taking care of people, I couldn’t offer any value. As if just being me would never be enough. Perhaps it’s not for some, but by not opening myself to receiving support in the same way I give it, I’ve cut myself off from more meaningful connections with the people I care about.
And thanks to my unwillingness to outwardly risk my heart and tell my friends I’m in love with Ian, I’ve also lost any chance I had with him.
Even though I don’t say the words out loud, Piper seems to realize I’m one well-placed side eye away from losing it. We might have that in common, although she’s remarkably composed. Were her pre-wedding jitters masking legitimate second thoughts?
Slipping out of the bathroom, she leads me down the hall away from the main dining room. We exit into the alley behind the building. It smells of pine, like the nearby forests, and the scent of cooking from the steakhouse kitchen.
I feel like this beautiful mountain town is ruined for me forever. I won’t be able to return without remembering this night and how I torpedoed my own life with my cowardice and dishonesty.
Piper and I are silent as we return to the hotel, but continue to hold hands like we used to when I came back to Skylark right after Mom died. Like we’re each other’s tether to the world.
I stop at the edge of the hotel property. “Do you think Ian’s gone already? I don’t know that I can handle seeing him, and I’m fairly certain he doesn’t want to see me.”
“We’ll be fine. You’ll be fine,” she assures me.
For possibly the first time in my life, I let someone else take control.
My body and heart grow heavy now that the adrenaline and shock of Ian’s revelation—and Amanda witnessing it—starts to wear off. I slump against the wall of the elevator and catch the scent of Ian’s clean, spicy scent.
Did he take this same elevator down as he left? Would it have changed anything if I’d told him I love him? Does it even matter now?
We enter the room with the digital key on my phone. The bed is made, and the room shows no sign that Ian Barlowe was ever here.
Not even the faintest whiff of him lingers in the air now.
It’s hard to believe I spent last night in his arms right here, not to mention the things we did to and for each other before and after sleeping. The desire and tenderness seem like a dream to me now.
I move forward, thanking my legs for carrying me despite the unrelenting weight of my broken heart, and flop onto the bed, covering my face with my hands.
“Do you need anything?” Piper asks as she stands over me.
I shake my head but don’t look at her. “I need a do-over on the past hour.”
I hear her moving around the room. “What about the past couple of weeks? Would you make the same choices? I can’t believe you faked a relationship for me.”
“I’d do anything for you, Piper.”
“I know, Sadie, and that’s a problem. You need to start doing things for yourself.”
Not to be crass, but I did Ian for my own pleasure, and look where that got me. I laugh and remove my hands from my face just as Piper tosses a T-shirt toward the bed.
“Change out of that dress. We’ll watch a movie while I text Bradley and my bridesmaids. Casey will love handling the drama of a cancelled wedding. Do you want me to order food?”
I shake my head. “I feel sick already. Do we need to discuss the wisdom of calling off your wedding via text?”
“Hell to the no,” Piper declares as she undoes the knot at the nape of her neck and shakes out her shiny blonde hair. “It’s what Bradley and his mom deserve.”
“I’m proud of you, Pip.”
“You didn’t raise me to be a complete doormat,” she says with a wink.
Might be time for me to learn that same lesson.
We both change into comfy clothes. Piper’s wearing one of my T-shirts like she used to on visits home from college. Then we climb under the comforter and sheets and move toward the center of the bed until our arms and legs touch.
“I wouldn’t take it back,” I tell her. “It was wrong and stupid, but I liked being Ian Barlowe’s girlfriend, even if it was fake.”
“Was it fake, Sadie?”
“No,” I admit quietly. “None of it was fake. At least not for me. What a fool I’ve been to believe his feelings were as real as mine.”
She reaches out and links our arms.
“He’s a fool for not falling,” she tells me.
I turn onto my side so I’m facing her. “Not as much of one as Bradley Carlson.”
She glances over at me, but I can’t read the expression in her gray-green eyes. Then she rolls her eyes. “What a dick.”
“Complete dick.” I kiss the tip of one finger and trail it along her rosy cheek. “Let’s pretend reality doesn’t exist tonight. Tomorrow will come soon enough.”
She grabs the remote from the nightstand and flips on the hotel room’s television.
“Love you, Sads,” she whispers as she scrolls through the channel guide.
“Love you too, Pip,” I answer, and we settle in for the night.