Page 38 of Best I Never Had

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“Hayden!”

I walk into my apartment with the lingering thoughts of Natalia and apple picking in my mind, greeted by the sound of my name. When I look,I find Ashton Park sitting comfortably on my couch. He stands, walking to greet me with open arms and a rough hug.

“Carly finally gave you a break from all the wedding planning?” I tease as I pull away.

Ashton, Dexter, and I met during our first year at Penn State. While I stayed in contact through the occasional Skype call and emails from different time zones and cities, Dexter and Ashton remained close all throughout college. Ashton and his fiancée, Carly, are getting married in a couple of weeks. The wedding and all the tedious details that involve it are consuming every minute of his life, making him eager to get away as much as he can.

“He had to make a break for it when Carly started making centerpieces,” Dexter jokes, rounding the couch from the kitchen with an unopened bottle of beer in his hand.

Ashton shakes his head, picking up his own bottle off the coffee table. “If you two ever decide to get married, suggest Vegas right off the bat. Just make it easy and elope.”

“Aw, come on,” I offer. “It can’t be that bad.”

“Carly lectured me for an hour last week because I couldn’t tell the difference between roses and peonies.”

Dexter guffaws, his head thrown back against the couch as Ashton glares at him. “It’s not funny!” he defends. “I finally gave in and told her to get whatever flowers she wanted. Roses, peonies, the whole damn florist. Whatever she wants so she can have her dream wedding.”

I smirk.

“I have to admit,” Ashton adds. “She’s doing a pretty good job. If I did those centerpieces, it would look like I made them with my feet.”

“So what brings you to this side of the bridge? I thought the slums of Brooklyn were below your tax bracket,” I ask, poking fun of the fact that he used to be Dexter’s old roommate in this same apartment until he traded it all in for his fancy Upper East Side penthouse.

He smirks. “Carly’s parents are in town for the weekend, and I needed to get out of the house for a bit. I told her I had a wedding errand to run.”

“And she bought it?”

“What are you talking about?” Ashton asks teasingly. “I’m here on official wedding business.”

“Huh?” I ask, confused.

“You two never RSVP’d.”

Dexter rolls his eyes. “Who RSVPs nowadays?”

“Literally everyone except you two,” he deadpans. “You guys are going to be there, right?”

“Of course,” Dexter and I answer in unison.

Ashton nods, draining the rest of his beer. “Oh,” he says, turning to me, “Jacky’s been asking about you.”

“Ugh,” I groan lightly. I hear Dexter snicker from his seat on the couch.

Jacky is a friend of Carly’s. She’s also a member of the wedding party that I met during a Fourth of July gathering Carly and Ashton had at their penthouse rooftop. We hit it off after a round of beer pong and when I walked her home at the end of the night, she invited me in. Before we moved on to the actual hooking-up stage of the night, I explained to her that I wasn’t looking for anything serious. To which she said the word “same” before continuing to remove the rest of my clothes. But apparently, all of that changed when morning came, and she asked if I ever thought about having kids and my opinion on destination weddings. I’ve been avoiding her since.

“I thought you liked her,” Ashton says. “What happened?”

I shrug my shoulders. “It wasn’t supposed to be anything more than a hook-up. I told her that.”

“I guess she got a taste of the appetizer and didn’t get her fill,” Dexter teases. “She wanted the whole Hayden main course.”

I cringe. “You sound like a perv when you talk about sex in metaphors.”

Ashton laughs. “Well, she asked if you were going to be at the wedding…and if you were bringing a date.”

“You know, she’s going to be all over you if you show up alone,” Dexter adds.

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