22
Unfortunately, as both Caleb and I are in the wedding party, I have to be around him during the rehearsal at the church. Miles goes with my parents and sister to check us all into the hotel, so I don’t even have a buffer. Thankfully, Caleb has left Nicole at home.
We’ve already practised the part where I walk down the aisle and the vicar is just going through the rest of the ceremony with Tilda and Dan. Caleb is sitting with Dan’s brother—the other groomsman, way over the other side of the church, thank God. I’m sitting with Violet.
“You have to ignore your mother,” she says to me suddenly.
I frown and turn to her, pulling my eyes from where my oldest friend is grinning at her soon-to-be husband by the altar, “What?” I ask in a whisper.
“About Caleb, what she was saying earlier,” she says.
My frown deepens and then I remember the conversation. Hell, how did I go from seething to totally forgetting about it? And then I remember that I have been playing princess all afternoon with Miles and Stella, and I didn’t really have time to worry about what my mum thought because there was a dragon attacking the castle and Stella’s monkey toy had to teach us all the spells to keep the castle safe. Saving the kingdom occupied my brain, apparently.
“Oh,” I mutter, “Whatever, I mean, I’m here with Miles,”
There’s a sadness in me though. Even though Miles has been an absolute hit, I realised as I was getting ready that it would be very short-lived. Even though he’s my buffer this time, there will be times when I have to be here on my own with Caleb because Miles and I will be strangers again soon.
I guess it kind of sucks that he’s made such a good impression, actually. It’ll be even worse when I don’t bring him home anymore, and once again, everyone will be looking closely at me, wondering what is wrong with me and why I always seem to get left by good men.
Maybe the plan to bring him wasn’t that well thought out. Like, sure, I got what I wanted: having a buffer here to make things less painful for me, but wow, people are going to think there’s something wrong with me when they find out Miles and I are over.
And suddenly, the crazy lady in my brain is looking at me like ‘I fucking told you,’ even though she said no such thing. I mean, I guess I didn’t think this through at all. I just wanted to ease the immediate pain .
“I like Miles,” Violet says, interrupting the beginning of a panic attack, “He looks at you like you’re a wonder,” she adds.
I snort, “Maybe he’s just wondering what the hell he’s got himself into,”
Violet frowns and shakes her head, “You always put yourself down,” she says, “It makes me sad to think you think about yourself like this,”
I roll my eyes, “I was mostly joking,” I say.
*
Tilda’s family have taken over the hotel by the time we arrive. Dan’s family is so much smaller; they all fit on one table, but all of Violet’s sisters had a brood of children, so Tilda’s got about a million cousins. Including, of course, Tommy who happens to be speaking to Miles when I arrive.
“There she is,” he calls, as I walk over, “I’ve just been telling Miles all about our romance,”
I snort, looking at Miles, “Oh yeah, you jealous now?” I ask him as he reaches down to peck my forehead like a good fake boyfriend.
Miles grins, “Of course,” he says, draping his arm over my shoulder and pulling me close.
The evening passes relatively quickly, even if Tilda keeps appearing by my side with more and more jobs for me to do. Then, at about eleven, I somehow find myself alone in the hotel kitchen. I am meant to be waiting for Dan to bring something that I didn’t hear when Tilda yelled, so when the door opens, I think it’s him.
It’s not, it’s Caleb.
“Oh, hey,” he says, “Dan said to wait here,” he adds.
I nod, looking away because I do not want to be alone in a room with him. Like, this was the whole plan. Miles was meant to be here. I wonder if I wish hard enough, will I be able to make Miles appear???
“So,” he says because he’s never been able to stand in a room without making some form of noise.
“We don’t need to talk,” I say, turning so that I’m not even facing him. Being this close to him is just reminding me of the crap he put me through. I was so in love with him. So much it hurts sometimes. And then he took it all away.
When we broke up, Caleb obviously denied the affair at first, but once I finally got him to admit it, he blamed me. I mean, they always do, don’t they? But seeing it in action, hearing him tell me that I’d basically abandoned him to start a new life at university, how I should have stayed at home and he wouldn’t have felt lonely, how Nicole had been there for him when he’d been down. Like somehow, my wanting to get an education was the cause of his wandering dick.
“What if I want to?” he says, and I can see him frowning out of the corner of my eye. He’s such a child. Why, oh why, does my mother want me to get back together with this idiot?
“I can’t imagine what you have to say to me,” I say, rolling my eyes and wondering at the audacity of men. Like sure, he gets to be petulant with me. Even though he is the one who not only cheated but now brings his girlfriend everywhere with him just to make sure everyone and their fucking dog knows who came out of this relationship on top.
“You seem happy with Miles,” he says, as though he couldn’t think of anything else to say.
I roll my eyes and turn to look at him properly for the first time since I came home. He looks almost exactly like he always did. Lightly tanned skin, brown hair, and green eyes that are way too innocent for a demon like him.
“I am,” I say.
He raises an eyebrow, “And you’re not, like putting it on for me?” he asks, smiling slightly.
I frown, “Excuse me?”
Again, with the audacity.
“Well, you know,” he says, “We haven’t seen each other in ages. I wouldn’t blame you if you wanted to make me jealous,”
I snort, “Why would I be trying to make you jealous, Caleb?” He frowns and I smile, “No really? Please tell me why I would want to make my ex jealous. My ex who not only had a full-blown affair for a year behind my back but is now in a relationship with that girl. What exactly would I be trying to achieve?”
He looks like he’s trying to work out a really hard maths problem for a minute and then he speaks, “Miles doesn’t seem like your type, that’s all,”
The. Aud. A. City.
I give a short laugh, “Caleb, you don’t know me. You haven’t known me for a long time. You don’t know what my type is, and even if it’s not Miles, I sure as hell am not going to take dating advice from you,”
“Why are you being so defensive?” he asks…defensively.
“Why are you suggesting I’m trying to make you jealous? You left me for someone else, it would be pretty pathetic of me to try and win you back by bringing a guy home. So, either you think I’m pathetic, or you’re the one who’s being defensive,” I say, trying really hard to not remember that I am, in fact, that pathetic.
He doesn’t know that!
“I didn’t leave you,” he says and I am momentarily blindsided by the fact that’s what he picked up on.
I snort, “Okay, fine. I left you, but did you really expect me to do anything different after I found out you’d been sticking your dick in another girl for a year?”
He studies me for a second like what I have said doesn’t make any sense. I am about to ask if he would have left me if I’d been screwing someone else but he gets there first.
“I thought you might want to work on our relationship,”
I just stare for what feels like a full minute. That audacity I was talking about? Yeah, what the fuck. And then all of a sudden I find it hilarious that he just said that. I can’t help the maniacal laugh that rips out my throat, “Tell Dan I got sick of waiting,” I say between laughs, and I walk out, leaving him there looking dumbfounded.
I am still cackling like a crazy person when I round the corner, so I don’t even see Alana, a friend of my mum and Violet from school.
“Delaney,” she says as I almost pass her.
“Oh, hey,” I mutter, scanning over her head looking for Miles and coming up short.
“Your mum told me you arrived with a new boyfriend out of the blue,” Alana says with a grin like she knows a secret I don’t.
I would argue that I’m sure my mum didn’t put it like that, but knowing my mum, she absolutely did.
“Yeah,” I say, “I’m actually looking for him,”
Alana frowns, “It’s such a shame that you and Caleb didn’t work out,” she says, “He’s such a catch. You know, he’s probably going to run that garage one day. You can’t want for more than stability in a relationship, Delaney,”
I frown, finally meeting Alana’s wrinkle-framed eyes, “My new boyfriend owns his own business,” I say.
Alana looks taken aback by how blunt I am, but she shrugs it off, “Well, let’s hope you can pin this one down,” she says with a tinkling laugh and then wanders off .
I stare after her and I must have steam coming out of my ears because my sister pulls up next to me a second later.
“What is that face for?” she asks.
I turn to her, gritting my teeth, “If one more person tells me that I should get back with my cheating ex, I’m going to scream,” I say.
Scarlett shakes her head, “Ignore Alana,” she says, “And anyone else, for that matter,”
I roll my eyes, thinking that it’s incredibly easy for her to say because she did, in fact, manage to pin down her perfect boyfriend. “It’s like, no matter what I do, not a single person here will ever see me as anything other than the girl that Caleb left,”
Scarlett nods, “Well, you left him, and anyone with a brain in this century knows that it is better to be with no man than a man who cheats on you,”
I sigh, “Can you tell Mum that?”
She chuckles, “If I could tell Mum what to do, she would have stopped telling me that I will regret it every time I tell her I’m thinking about having another kid,”
I frown at Scarlett, mostly because I thought that my Mum thought she was perfect and I was the failure. Impressive that Scarlett and I live our lives in total opposition and yet we’re both still somehow wrong. It really is fucking difficult being a woman.
*
Miles is, once again, laid at a respectable distance from me but it’s far easier in the Alaskan King size bed they have in the hotel. I didn’t know that this size of bed existed but it’s like a fucking planet. I think I want one for my flat, though Emme may have to share it with me because we’d have to get rid of all of our other furniture to fit it in.
“So, I saw you storm out of the kitchen about five minutes after Caleb went in,” Miles says into the blackness
“Oh,” I say, having blocked that out of my brain. Fucking Miles.
“What did he have to say?” he asks quietly. I want to tell myself that it’s a hint of jealousy I hear in his voice, but it’s probably just curiosity. Probably wondering if he’s going to have to deal with any drama tomorrow.
I roll my eyes at my fantasy and recount the conversation for him.
“What a prick,” Miles says, turning onto his side and putting his hand under his cheek. “You know that he’s obviously still obsessed with you,”
I snort, “I did not get that from that conversation,” I say, “All I get is that he thinks I’m pathetic enough to do exactly what I did do,” I mutter. Fake dating isn’t meant to make you feel stupid. It’s meant to make you empowered, but instead, people keep reminding me that I’ll never do better than Caleb fucking Locke?? What an aspirational life I am living.
“I thought you said I wasn’t here to make him jealous,” Miles says, and though we’re in complete blackness thanks to the fancy blackout curtains, I imagine his eyes twinkling.
I sigh, turning onto my side now, “Okay fine, you’re not. You’re like a buffer so nobody looks at me sadly tomorrow. But, I don’t know, he still clearly thinks I’m pining for him,”
Miles frowns, “I actually think that what he said is really sad,”
“Why?”
“Well, he said he thought you would want to fight for your relationship,” he says, “It’s as though he’s only with Nicole now because you didn’t want him anymore,”
I laugh, “If that’s true, then maybe he shouldn’t have cheated,”
“Again, he’s an idiot,” Miles says, “But he’s clearly not looking at what he did,”
I am quiet for a moment, considering that Miles could be right and then admonishing myself for being so arrogant as to think Caleb might still want me.
“Either way,” I say, “I don’t want anything to do with him. I mean, I didn’t before this, but when he said he thought I’d fight, I almost felt sorry for Nicole,”
Miles snorts, “Let’s not take it that far. It’s not like she didn’t know he was with you,”
“I did say almost,” I say, chuckling, “And, I’m kind of glad it ended like it did. If it didn’t end I think I might have been engaged too, ”
“Is that what you wanted?”
“I did then,” I say, “But when we ended, Emme convinced me to move with her to London and I’ve had so many good things happen since moving there. Life would have been very different if I’d moved back home to be with Caleb,”
Miles nods, “Sometimes the worst things to happen to us are just the beginning of our best times,” he says, and there is something in his voice like he knows what he’s talking about. I wonder what the worst thing to happen to him was, and what his best times could have been.