Page 56 of Wedding Bet

A whirl of agonizing longing hit my heart, so quickly that it made my chest ache. In another world, I’d have done anything to be with someone like Jamie. He felt like a home away from home for me here.

I cleared my throat. “Thought you’d be avoiding me all night,” I told him gently.

His expression was serious. “I’m sorry,” he said simply, his eyes searching my face. “I was unreasonable earlier, and I know it. You don’t have to talk to me again, but know that I truly am sorry. For everything.”

“I’m the one who should be sorry,” I managed to say.

For the entire wedding ceremony, I’d been waiting for the moment when I’d start to cry, start to feel anything deeply at all.

And yet now here with Jamie in front of me, I felt as if every emotion was brewing right below my surface, threatening to blow up like a volcano.

No, this is just how you always used to feel, I chided myself.Falling for anybody who gives you affection.

But I didn’t know if that was even true. I’d been given a ton of affection, adoration, and attempts at something serious from random other guys over the past year—and I had never wanted more from any of them.

Jamie wasn’t just “anybody,” it turned out.

“Let’s be friends?” Jamie finally asked. “For real, this time?”

He held out a hand and after a split second’s pause, I reached out to shake it. Even that contact made me want to pull him in close and cover him with kisses.

“Let’s be friends,” I agreed.

Friendswas what I’d wanted so badly, all along. So why didn’t it feel like enough now?

The dark box that I’d been stuffed in all year—that I’d stuffed every old hope and desire and feelingin after having my heart shattered—was starting to dissolve, bit by bit. It sent me into a quiet panic, as if everything inside of me wanted to keep that box firmly locked and stowed away.

But the box was slowly opening, with each moment I spent around Jamie.

He was making me feel vulnerable. Making mefeelsomething.

“Friends,” he confirmed. His dimpled smile appeared, making me feel like a schoolboy with a crush all over again. “No more, no less.”

“No more, no less,” I said, already knowing it was a lie.

13

JAMIE

I took a slow sip of some fancy, sweet lavender-infused cocktail, looking out at the snow-covered mountains beyond the windows with only one thought in my head.

Fuck it.

Fuck it. I’d always been a bit of a control freak, and it had started to bleed into every aspect of my life. But when I’d walked out of that wedding ceremony—the most beautiful and emotional one I’d ever seen—I couldn’t lie to myself any longer.

Iwasn’tin control. Not of much. Not even close.

And I sure as shit couldn’t control what Landry did, or how he perceived me. I couldn’t control how anyone in the world ended up wealthier or hotter or luckier than anyone else. And the sooner I accepted that, the sooner I could actually try to have a friendship with him.

It might not last.

It might not even be a good idea.

But I was willing to try.

I decided to start by meeting Landry at the level where he was comfortable. I didn’t have to be anyone other than 100%,true blueme. I could be my true self around him. Deep down, I knew I should have been doing that all along.

“That ceremony changed my life,” I told Landry as we leaned against the circular bar.

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