2. Ellie
CHAPTER TWO
ellie
MY HEART HADN’T STOPPED racing since I’d walked into Noah London’s backyard.
I’d known this was a bad idea, but for some reason, I came anyway.
And now he was all around me again, sending my circulatory system into overdrive.
I tried not to look at him for too long, but all it took was a glance, and I had a fresh picture in my brain—of the crinkle in the corner of his eyes, the deep cerulean of his gaze, the sandy blond of his hair, which was longer than I was used to.
I could hear his hollow laughter as I walked around and pretended I wasn’t affected by the sound, so familiar and yet so foreign.
He didn’t laugh the same.
That was an asinine thing to claim, wasn’t it? A person’s laugh didn’t change. Perhaps their voice might—grow deeper or rougher as time wore on. But the cadence of their breath as humor skittered through their throat? You’d think it would be an unbroken pattern hardwired in their body.
But Sully was laughing like nothing was actually funny.
And I hated it. It sounded wrong, especially coming from him. Sully had always been so unabashedly himself. He’d never been one to fake any emotion. He was more likely to come to the aid of an unfunny joke and somehow turn it into something worth laughing about.
I couldn’t shake it. Couldn’t shake him, but that wasn’t really anything new.
Maybe it was my fault. Based on the stare he gave me before I walked away, I severely doubted that Sully knew I was coming tonight.
I’d been able to prepare myself for seeing him, and honestly, I assumed he would have been given a heads-up, too—by Natalie or Noah.
But maybe they thought he might not have shown up if he’d known.
Would he have shown up?
I had no idea what Sully felt toward me these days. We didn’t talk. We didn’t interact. I had no idea if he still hated me for the way we’d left things. I had no idea if he ever thought about me at all.
But it was clear, based on how unsettled he’d been by my appearance, that he wasn’t entirely indifferent. And for some reason, that left a warm, satisfied sort of feeling in the pit of my stomach.
A better person might not have cared. A better person might have hoped that their ex didn’t think about them anymore because they weren’t together, and people who weren’t together moved on.
Not saying that Sully hadn’t moved on. I was sure he probably had.
Sully London had the kind of charisma that sucked you in.
He didn’t go into any room without people being drawn to him, without his voice being heard.
He was flirty and fun and easy to relax around, all the things that initially drew me to him back when we were kids.
I tossed back the rest of the champagne in my glass, making a face as carbonation exploded in my mouth. I wasn’t really a bubbly kind of girl, but they’d passed it out to make toasts, and I didn’t want to be rude.
My eyes wandered around the backyard, which twinkled with the glow of hanging fairy lights now that dusk had settled over Noah’s home.
I wasn’t sure where Natalie ended up, but that was okay.
I suspected my best friend was flirting with her handsome lawyer somewhere, and honestly, I loved that for her.
I’d always been a bit on the outside looking in when it came to the Londons.
I suspected Anne London—the loving matriarch that she was—would be appalled to hear me say that, but it was the truth.
As much time as I spent at the Londons’ house growing up, as integrated into their family as I was, I still wasn’t…
them. Sure, I fit in easily. And tonight had been lovely.
I got to hang out with Chloe, catch up with Theo, and meet some of Noah’s friends from college.
In particular, I enjoyed chatting with Beau, who’d appointed himself the DJ and matched my enthusiasm for Lord of the Rings lore—a conversation that only tasted a little sour in my mouth, considering it used to be Sully who I traded theories with.
All in all, though, I was really lucky that my ex’s siblings and parents even wanted me around.
“I don’t suppose you know where my daughter ended up?” Anne asked as she walked over, a knowing sparkle in her eye.
“Nothing’s changed, Annie,” I said with a grin. “You know I don’t spill your kids’ secrets.”
I brought my fingers to my lips, pretending to zip them tight and throw away the keys.
“I know, sweetheart. Loyal to a fault, as usual.”
My stomach twisted with the guilt that I’d never really been able to shake as I stared at the woman who I once imagined would be my mother-in-law.
“Us?” a deep voice cut in that I immediately recognized as Blake’s. “Have secrets? Never.”
I snorted and looked over to see the eldest London sibling sauntering over with a smile.
He seemed more relaxed than I’d probably ever seen, and it either had to do with his new bride he’d been hovering around all night, or with the fact that this was the first time I’d seen him since he finished his cardiology fellowship.
He didn’t have that characteristic bleakness about him that I’d grown used to.
It was good, of course. Really good to see him with a smile on his face.
“Hey, Ellie Bellie,” he said, throwing an arm around my shoulders for a brief side hug.
“Hey, Blakey Boo,” I replied, grinning when Blake rolled his eyes.
Anne sighed from my other side. A wistful sound that filled my insides with more piping hot guilt.
“All my kids together in one place,” she said, shaking her head.
“I’m just going to burst!” Anne threw her hands up like she was praising whatever entity brought us all here and then bustled off in the direction of Gemma, or more accurately, beelining for the baby.
From what I’d heard, Gemma’s daughter not being biologically Noah’s had not stopped Anne from treating that baby like her second grandchild, but that didn’t surprise me.
There was nothing Anne did better than take kids under her wing; I would know.
“She’s talking about you, too, you know,” Blake said, his voice softer as he dropped his arm.
I turned to face him, shaking my head. “Maybe at one point. But things are different now.”
Blake’s brown eyes flicked over my face, somber and assessing. Then he did a quick look over his shoulder, and I just knew he was searching for his brother.
Sully had gone inside about ten minutes ago, though.
I’d been rooted to this spot ever since I saw him walk past, forcing myself not to follow.
My muscles itched with the need to chase after him, but I knew I shouldn’t.
We didn’t have enough practice being around each other as exes, and I didn’t think tonight was a good time to start. Not at his brother’s engagement party.
When Blake couldn’t find Sully, he faced me again, opening his mouth to say something I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear.
“Congratulations,” I cut in, flashing him a smile. When his brows furrowed slightly in confusion, I added, “The wedding, the wife, the dream.”
Understanding dawned, and a look of peace and comfort trickled over Blake’s face. “Thank you,” he said warmly. “It certainly has been a dream.”
“I’m so glad.”
And I was. Delaney, his longtime best friend turned wife, seemed lovely.
I’d heard about her many times, but we’d never actually met prior to today.
Blake would talk about her—almost incessantly, giving Theo and Sully far too much fuel to tease their older brother—when he’d come home during breaks in medical school, and she was essentially everything he’d said: a pretty blonde who was smart and poised and kind.
We’d chatted for a long while earlier. Like Blake, she was a cardiologist, and after she’d learned about my career as a web architect, we took a deep dive into the EHR—electronic health record—that Suffolk County Medical Center uses and how it could be improved.
Yes, it was a nerdy-as-hell conversation, but if there was anything that could distract me from the presence of my ex-boyfriend, it was coding.
Especially coding that could positively impact critical infrastructures in society, such as hospitals.
My day job didn’t have a whole lot of that, unfortunately.
“I would just think that in this day and age, I wouldn’t have to manually input the responses from patient surveys into their charts. Shouldn’t there be some kind of…” She’d waved her hand in the air, trying to conjure the right word.
“Interface, yeah,” I’d filled in for her. “To do it for you.”
“Exactly.”
I’d tapped my lips. “I’ll have to think on that.”
“Oh, you don’t have to.”
“No, I want to,” I’d told her, because I did. I liked that kind of thing. So we’d exchanged numbers, even though I really didn’t need another link to the London family in my life.
But I liked Delaney, I really did. And I was glad that Blake and Noah were proof that at least some of us got everything that we’d ever wanted.
“How have you been?” Blake asked, shaking me out of thoughts of his wife while cocking his head to the side. He watched me with an intensity I’d come to recognize as uniquely Blake London.
“Pretty good.” I shrugged. “I’m actually in town on a work trip, otherwise I wouldn’t have crashed the party—”
“You didn’t crash it, Ellie.”
“But I just really wanted to see Chloe while I was here, and Nat says that man is picking her up after this because it’s his weekend with her.”
I hated my best friend’s ex with a passion.
Blake’s lips twisted ruefully as he nodded. “Yeah, Chloe’s about to leave with him. I was out front a few minutes ago when he pulled up. Had to walk away because the urge to punch him was becoming too strong.”
I chewed on my lip. “Do you think Nat’s okay? Should I go up there?”
“She’s okay,” Blake assured. “Cameron’s still there, watching the Chloe exchange and unnerving the hell out of Korey.” The corner of his mouth tugged upward.