Chapter 5 #2
He walked over to the couch, picked up a throw pillow, and dropped it on her face. She arched up and swatted at the pillow, giving him a furious glare.
“Well, thank God. I thought maybe you died.”
“I’m not dead,” she said. “I’m… in shock. I think.”
“Well, that’s too damn bad.”
She blinked up at him. “How am I supposed to feel?”
“I didn’t say there was anything wrong with how you feel. It’s a shame you feel that way, though. It’s too bad. I’m sorry you’re poorly.”
“Poorly? Poorly? I was jilted.”
“Yeah, and I expect that leaves you feeling pretty poorly.” It was the weirdest thing, because he did kind of feel sorry for her. He couldn’t help it. But, as was the way with Addison, everything was a tangled-up mess of fucked up.
Because this was like some kind of karmic revenge for the way that she had ghosted him at prom, and yet, it was so much of a bigger deal it felt a little bit outsized, and then it also made him feel like he was somewhat responsible for rebalancing the scales because karma was apparently a bitch that liked him a lot, and had gone a little bit too far meting out the reckoning. Or whatever.
So yeah, somehow this felt like his fault. It shouldn’t, but it did. He also couldn’t say that he was very pitying.
Better that the guy run away at the altar than force her to divorce him.
He just couldn’t respect a man that he had hogtied, couldn’t take him seriously, couldn’t believe that Addison would be better off if he’d stood there and said his vows.
Bottom line.
“Here’s the thing,” Walker said. “You have a whole life ahead of you. He’s the one that looks like an idiot. I know that it’s terrible that the video has gone viral –”
“It went viral?”
“Were you not listening to me?”
“I was. Kind of. I just… I feel like I’m underwater.”
“You’re not underwater, you’re on my couch. The video has gone viral. Millions of people have seen it, hell, probably millions more since I’ve checked.”
She scrambled toward him, reaching for her purse.
“No,” he said. “Under no circumstances are you to doom-scroll the Internet looking for comments about your wedding. Absolutely not. It’s too fresh.”
“What do you mean? How am I supposed to not do that? What are people saying?”
“Who gives a fuck? They’re not the ones that have to deal with this, you are. And it isn’t going to help you deal with it better to have 1 million voices chattering in your ear while you’re trying to deal with the fallout in your own life. People on the Internet are terrible.”
“I’m aware,” she said. “I’ve gone viral before.”
“How many views?”
“Three million,” she said.
“Yeah, this was at five almost an hour ago.”
“No,” she said.
“Yeah.”
“Why are you… Why are you doing this?”
“Doing what?”
“Being… nice to me.”
“Is this nice?”
“You could’ve left me there.”
“I could have. And you know, the video might’ve been less interesting in that case. But no, I couldn’t have. This wedding was my responsibility, and this whole thing affects my business too. I’m just as invested in you coming out of this unscathed as you are. I promise.”
“I can’t even think about all that right now.”
“Oh, I know. And you don’t have to. Anna is thinking about it for you.
And I’m thinking about my side of things.
You can sit here and be catatonic as long as you want.
I promise. I’m not home very much. I’ll barely even notice you.
I can sit over there on the chair. And if I have company over I’ll just cover you with a blanket. ”
“Hey,” she said, frowning deeply.
“I’m just saying. Hide out as long as you want. It’s no skin off my nose. You don’t have to tell anybody where you are.” He started to hand her purse to her. “Promise me that you’re not going to be…”
She grabbed the purse, unzipped it, and pulled her phone out. “I have a thousand new messages.”
“Nuke them.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Yes, you can,” he said. “Fuck it. Fuck them. Fuck him.”
“I can’t do that,” she repeated.
“Why the hell not?”
“Because. Because that’s not who I am. I take responsibility for things, I’m always in touch with people, I –”
“You just got jilted at the altar, you are allowed to take a minute for yourself. You don’t have to be there for everybody else.”
“Why don’t you let people be there for you for once?”
“What about my dad…”
“He seemed fine. We directed everybody over to the barn to have dinner. Just like we planned initially. And don’t worry, the rest of the food will be donated. Along with any gifts that you don’t want.”
“You did that?”
“I’m good at my job.”
“Well, at least… At least you can be right now. I don’t know what to do. I don’t… I don’t have a house.”
“You can stay here.” He couldn’t believe the offer just came out of his mouth.
“On the ranch, not here, but odds are we’ll have availability either in the hotel or in one of the cabins.
Hell, at the very least, Marlowe is in her apartment almost never.
I know she could stay with Cody until everything comes together for you. ”
“They don’t live together all the time?”
“Oh, they do, but sometimes she works late at the hotel, and then she sleeps there, and usually so does he. I know more about my brother’s love life than I’d like to, but he’s wildly obsessed with her, so, they don’t do a very good job of hiding it.”
“That must be nice. To be wildly obsessed with. I thought that I was at least loved.”
“You had no idea that he had doubts?”
“No. I never pressured him for marriage. Ever. We’ve lived together for two years, and while I definitely thought that it was time for us to get married, time for us to have kids, I didn’t push.
Nobody wants a shut-up ring. I thought that he was ready.
I thought that we both were. We were both in a good place in our lives professionally and… ”
“You didn’t think he was cheating?”
“Is he cheating on me?”
“I don’t know. I just… I’m asking, are there any signs of anything?”
“No. Well… Not as far as I know. I genuinely don’t have any idea. The wedding was going perfectly. I kept waiting for signs, I kept waiting for some… sign that I wasn’t supposed to do it, but everything was coming together. I just can’t believe this. I genuinely can’t believe it.”
“Just lay low.”
“I can’t, people are going to expect –”
“Give it a week. You were going to go away on a honeymoon, right?”
“Yes. I guess.”
“Give yourself a honeymoon.”
“I’m not going on a sad cruise by myself.” He inferred from that a cruise had been the plan for their honeymoon.
“It’s only a sad cruise if you stay sad on it.” She frowned at him. “Fine, you certainly don’t have to go on your honeymoon alone. You can stay here. You could just get out of town. You could do whatever you wanted to, because you have carved the time out for yourself, yes?”
She blinked up at him, seeming bewildered.
“Well, I guess, but I don’t know what that has to do with –”
“Take a break. Everything is going to run just fine without you. Let Anna do damage control for the campaign. Let me do some damage control.”
“And I just… hide out here.”
“Why not?”
“Because people are going to think I’m hiding. Because they’re going to think that I am embarrassed and humiliated and heartbroken.”
“Aren’t you?”
“Two out of the three, I think.”
He wanted to press her and ask which two, but then decided against it. “You’re allowed to have feelings. If you were the one that had done the leaving, there would be a lot more to clean up.”
“But people are going to feel sorry for me.”
“And why is that a bad thing?”
“A leader needs to be… I don’t know, a leader. Not somebody that you pity.”
“Yeah, in the long term, I agree with you, but the fact that you have emotions now makes you look like you’re a normal person. You’re human, Addison. You’re allowed to sit down and have a feeling.”
“I don’t want to. I don’t like it.”
“That’s too damn bad.”
“But what am I…”
“Let me figure out what the availability is for the next week, and I’ll get you booked into something decent.”
“I’m going to pay for it.”
“You really don’t have to. Consider this comped for the disaster.”
“The disaster wasn’t your fault.”
He smiled, slowly. “As much as I like to hear you say that, and I do, it doesn’t much matter whose fault the disaster was.”
“Well, it was Alan’s fault.”
“Oh. Agreed. But do you want to know who’s not going to be able to PR himself out of this mess? Him. Because he’s the one that ran from the altar, like a little bitch. And he’s the one that got roped like a baby cow.”
“That is true,” she said, looking thoughtful.
Her brow furrowed. “Do you suppose that someday I’m going to look back on this and laugh?”
“I’ve learned to laugh about all kinds of things, Addison. You will too.”
He handed her the bag with her change of clothes in it. “I’m going to figure out where we can stick you for the week. Is your luggage in the hotel room?”
“Yes.”
“Packed for the honeymoon?”
“Yes.”
“Great. I’ll have that moved to wherever we move you.”
This, in his estimation, was practically a good deed.
Magnanimous, even. And if his stomach didn’t get tight when he looked at her, he might have been able to freely smile and pat himself on the back for what a good person he was being to Addison Carey.