Chapter 8 #2
“How about you guys?” Chelsea said. “What was your wedding like? It must have been amazing. The social event of the year, I bet.”
I had to bite down a bitter laugh. It had been hell. Lila and I had hung out in the hotel bar before the event, willing each other to call it off. “You don’t have to do this for me,” she’d said.
“I don’t back out of promises,” I’d lobbed back.
I’d known her parents were likely freaking out right at that moment, wondering where their darling daughter was for the photos they would later submit to the society pages.
Their darling daughter who was gay and fake-marrying her soccer buddy to hide it from them—her soccer buddy being a man who didn’t give a flying fuck about his own personal life.
Who cared only about his blind drive for success.
Obviously, I didn’t say any of this. Though tonight, I was tempted. Lila and I had a canned answer—I often gave it myself: ‘An intimate gathering of two hundred of our closest family and friends.’ But I wasn’t in the mood to play along.
“It was nice,” I said.
“Typical man,” Lila laughed, but she kicked me hard under the table.
I angled my legs out of kicking distance and took another sip of my drink.
“Actually, I remember your guys’ wedding,” Eli said.
My stomach dropped. I’d forgotten he was there. I only vaguely remembered the event, if I was being honest. I’d stopped myself from getting fully forgetful drunk, but it was all extremely hazy.
Eli’s brows furrowed now. “You guys had separate hotel rooms.”
Were his words slurring or my hearing going fuzzy with the whiskey?
“I remember thinking you were either really weird or really rich.”
“Both,” I said. “I was weird, Lila was rich.”
“Blake,” Lila said under her breath, even as Jude laughed.
“See, this is the kind of chill conversation I was talking about,” Jude said, leaning back in his chair and lacing his hands behind his head.
It wasn’t the kind of conversation any of us had been anticipating, I’d say that much. Least of all me. Our client dinners were usually friendly and sometimes a little tipsy, but we usually tried to veer away from any bad blood topics.
But tonight, it felt liberating not to care.
“Lila’s parents are traditional,” I said. “They wanted us in separate rooms until…you know. After.”
Why the hell did I look at Cassandra when I said that?
It was like I wanted to tell her we never consummated the wedding.
I think I wanted her to know because I understood then why she was still so stiff around me.
Even with that contract, she didn’t quite buy our arrangement.
Fuck. This dinner was a terrible idea. This project was a terrible idea.
I took another swig of my drink. Her eyes met mine but didn’t stay.
A man had lied to her before. And she still thought I was like him.
“Damn,” Jude said. “Well, Eli’s wedding was nice.” He’d either not picked up on the tension or was possibly enjoying it.
Eli lowered his drink onto the table. “What is your problem, Jude?”
“What? It was.”
“I’m divorced. My wife fucking left me.”
“Doesn’t mean it wasn’t a nice wedding.”
I couldn’t tell if Jude was playing innocent or if he meant what he’d said. Either way, the tension had suddenly ratcheted up, and I suspected it was somehow my fault for not giving a pat answer. I felt my phone buzz in my suit jacket pocket, but I ignored it.
“It was nice, actually,” Cassandra said, intervening. “As far as weddings go. On a lake… what was it, Diamond? Ruby?”
“Emerald Lake,” Eli said. He threw back the last bit of his drink.
Reese came back to take our orders. I think the whole table—save Jude—collectively held our breath while Eli ordered his food, letting it out when she left the table without incident. But immediately after he’d ordered, Eli got up and went back to the bar.
“Shouldn’t we stop him?” Chelsea asked.
Cassandra shook her head. “He’s a grown man.” The words might not be kind, but I didn’t miss the concern in her expression. That specific look you gave when you knew someone was hurting themselves, but you couldn’t properly stop it.
“I’ll talk to him,” I said.
“Blake—” Lila began.
But Cassandra looked grateful. “That’s probably a good thing, actually.” She turned to Lila. “If you don’t mind, Lila. Eli just needs an ear when he gets like this.”
Lila gave me a smile as I stood, but I could tell she was upset. I’d smooth that out later. Maybe. Even though my urge had been to make Cassandra feel better, I was feeling a bit nihilistic.
At the bar, Eli had seen me coming and was already ordering another two scotches.
“Your wife doesn’t look too happy about you joining tonight’s problem child,” Eli said as I settled onto a stool.
I cringed at the word wife, but masked it with a smile. “It’s fine.” I glanced back at the table, but it wasn’t Lila I was looking at. “Part of our job is to make sure our clients are happy.” I turned back to the bar. “And you don’t seem very happy.”
“Neither do you, buddy.”
I let out a breath. “Well. I’ll be honest. It’s been a shit few days.” It felt good to say it. I checked my phone as our drinks came. Lila had texted a minute ago at the table.
LILA: Get your shit together!
I almost laughed. She sounded like my father. Who incidentally had texted earlier today, blowing up about discovering I’d taken on this hotel job. I’d smiled at that one. But scowled at this. It was going to be a shit few more days, too.
I pocketed my phone. “So, want to talk?”
“Not unless you want to hear about what it was like to have the love of my life dump my ass,” Eli said.
“Your ex-wife?”
“Yeah. I won’t depress you with the details.”
“Feel free,” I said. “I’m all ears.”
Half an hour later, I’d learned a lot about Eli Dunham—not Kelly.
He’d married a woman he’d met in New York State.
He’d devoted himself to her—even taken the step of changing his surname for her when she married, because her first name was Kelly.
“She still wanted to take my name, so I used my mom’s. ”
“Wow,” I said, meaning it. I don’t know a lot of guys who’d do that. Which was shitty considering how many women changed their names for their husbands.
By then our drinks had come, also our dinner, brought over not by Reese, but by a bubbly blonde woman who brushed against me as she handed me my beef bourguignon. I guess they’d decided we were better off over here.
“Oh gosh, I’m sorry!” the server said. She didn’t look sorry, but I was now officially inebriated.
I’m pretty sure she winked at me too, which maybe should have been flattering, but only made me scowl.
Why couldn’t Cassandra brush against me and wink at me instead?
But Cassandra didn’t seem like the type. Maybe I wasn’t her type.
The server hovered a moment longer, unabashedly drawing her eyes up and down the length of my torso. “You need anything else—anything at all—you let me know.”
I grimaced, hoping that would be enough to pass as a polite smile. “So, what happened with you and Reese?” I asked as I poked at the dish I’d ordered. My stomach was woozy from all the booze.
“We hooked up right when I was going through my divorce,” he said, chewing. “It was messy. My divorce, I mean. Reese was… she was too sweet for my shit, you know? She wanted to be all in with me, but it just… wasn’t a good time. I didn’t handle it well.”
“Then your sister hired her to work here.”
Eli scowled, shoving his plate aside. “I told you, I know she did it on purpose.”
I wanted to ask him more—why she’d do that, for instance. But Eli took a swig of his drink. “What’s up with you and her anyway?”
“Me and—”
“My sister.”
My stomach jolted. I glanced back at the table, where the rest of them seemed to be having a good enough time without us. Suddenly I felt queasy.
“What do you mean?” I hoped my voice was casual.
“There’s something weird,” Eli said. “Did she get mad at you for saving her or something?”
I leaned in to the excuse he’d provided me with. “I guess so, yeah.”
He snorted. “She has this thing about figuring stuff out for herself. I think it came from our dad, back when he was normal.”
“Normal?”
“He taught us how to take care of ourselves. How to be self-sufficient and all that. Guess he had to, looking after all of us. Cassandra kind of idolized him. Always brought stuff to him when she figured it out. Looking for a pat on the back or something.”
My chest twinged as I thought of Cassandra as a little girl, bringing her carefully constructed stuff to her dad for his approval.
Would he pat her on the back? Or was he like my dad, who’d laugh at every attempt at anything that wasn’t perfect” It made sense suddenly why Cassandra seemed so upset about her dad being gone.
She wanted to show him how well she was doing.
She wanted his approval. I hated that I knew exactly what that was like.
“Well, sorry about her,” Eli said. “Not everyone hits it off with Cass. But she’s a softie on the inside. Loves sappy movies and shit. She’ll never admit it, though.”
“We did okay on the island,” I said. Then kicked myself for not dropping the conversation.
“What do you mean, did okay?”
I shoved a bite of food in my mouth to give me room to think. What the hell did I say? I liked the way Cassandra got mad at me? That she’d blinked and looked down when I called her attractive, like she didn’t believe it? That we’d nearly kissed?
But Eli spoke before I could. “She’s really messed up, you know.”
I snapped my gaze to him. “What do you mean?”
“Her ex—Ned—he cheated on her, with one of their friends. Not just once, either. A long-time thing.”
I felt sick. I also couldn’t stop thinking about punching Ned in the fucking face. Several times. Then myself, for trying anything with her. Even though I didn’t know. It didn’t matter—I’d known it was wrong.
Eli was looking at me strangely.
I cleared my throat. “We had a messed-up introduction. But we didn’t fight as much as you and Jude.”
“Fucking Jude,” Eli said.
My red herring worked. I looked back at the table, wanting to see Cassandra again.
But it was empty.
“They ditched us.” Eli stated the obvious, yawning as if he couldn’t care less.
What the hell time was it? I pulled out my phone.
There was another text from Lila, this one from only a few minutes ago.
LILA: I’m going home. Taking the car. Find your own way back.
Shit.
Eli popped a fry in his mouth. “That Lila?”
“Yeah.”
“Did I get you in trouble?”
“I got myself there.”
“Shouldn’t you go after her?”
“Nah.” I shook my empty glass. “Let’s stick to the plan. Shit-faced, right?”
Eli grinned. “Yeah boy.”