Page 9 of Matched with Her Runaway Groom

I open my mouth to come up with a response, but Kenzie is too quick.

“She saw her ex-fiancé at the paint balling place and shot him and then we left.” The words are out so fast, it takes my brain a minute to register them. And then the laughter starts and I can’t stop.

Evie looks like she’s just seen a dinosaur in real life. “You saw Landon while paint balling? This is the first time since you broke up, right?”

I nod, my mood sobering. Anger simmers and I lean into it. “Yeah. I was hoping he’d jumped off a bridge or something.”

“You don’t mean that. He proposed to you and everything.”

“That means absolutely nothing,” Kenzie says, walking over to the large bookshelf on the wall behind me and pulling out a giant-sized Hershey bar. Not the kind with almonds or the cookies and cream kind. Plain milk chocolate. I used to be surprised, but I’ve just learned she uses chocolate to work through her feelings.

“And even if men do propose, some just crawl back to you a few days later and say they’re sorry and they need the ring back. Oh, and by the way, can we break up?” The fire in Kenzie’s eyes is intense and I file this topic away to talk to her about later. It’s best to wait until the chocolate has soaked into her soul before bringing up past relationships.

I nod, ready to follow the tirade. “Men just don’t get it. Like, hey, I just spent six years of my life with you, thinking there would be a future. But you’re going to just waltz in and out of my life whenever you please—”

“Landon was there.” Kenzie’s head is turned, talking to someone outside the door.

I don’t have to turn to know the gasp comes from Millie.

“Who’s Landon?” Millie asks from behind Kenzie.

“Her ex-fiancé.”

I can see Millie’s eyebrows raise out of my periphery. “Sorry, I forgot his name because we call him so many other things.”

There is an audible pause before the four of us break up laughing. Millie is the youngest of my three roommates, and sometimes I think we’re scarring her for life with our open discussions.

Kenzie calms down first and says, “We can all use a reminder of a few details. That hot, athletic man proposed to you at one time. Girl, why are you still single?”

I tip my head back, trying to slow my breathing. This is a loaded question because I never wanted to be single. So I spin the question to only partially answer it. “Hello? Kenzie, you helped me put paint balling on the Breakup Bucket List, which I’m fairly sure will never happen again. He’s the reason I have a list.”

Evie shakes her head. “I know, but you’ve never said why or what happened. Maybe it would help to talk it through?”

My gaze flits to Kenzie, who looks like she’s debating whether to stay so we can talk about feelings.

I’ve never worked through the details with anyone except Hillary and Tiffany. The only thing I told everyone was that Landon called the wedding off. Which is true, but it still slices through me after seeing him again today. He seems happy, which is the opposite of what my jaded mind has hoped for all this time.

And then the memory takes hold and I do a slow, up-down perusal of him from earlier today. I really shouldn’t be appreciating that he’s only gotten better looking and stronger in the twelve months we’ve been apart. He’s never been into bodybuilding, but he’s always been strong. The arms I appreciated before knowing he was Landon are toned and his upper body is leaner. And those milk chocolate eyes that understood me and saw through me so many times.

Nope. I’m not doing this now. Just because I see him for all of five seconds, that erases a year’s worth of progress in getting over him? Not going to happen.

“We were a month away from our wedding and he avoided me for a few days, which was unlike him. We were the couple who talked a lot throughout the day and then spent the evenings together. I figured it was just him trying to get things done at work, because he’d been given a promotion at his grandfather’s company. He asked to meet at our favorite little cafe for lunch. I showed up and a server we know handed me a letter in his handwriting.”

Kenzie’s eyes grow to the size of fifty-cent pieces. “No way! He broke up with you by letter? That’s just as bad as through a text.”

I nod. “Right?”

“What did it say?” Millie asks, looking like she might start crying.

“The letter? Just that he loved me, that he wasn’t good enough for me and I needed to find someone better, someone I deserved. I’d been with the guy since high school. We’d gone through everything together. I think if we could’ve talked about our relationship and worries, even taken a break for a bit and pushed back the wedding, I wouldn’t have been so crushed.”

Evie puts an arm around me. “I wish you’d shared this before. We could’ve helped more.”

I shake my head. “No, I just didn’t want anyone to look at him like he’s an awful person. He isn’t, at least I hope he hasn’t changed that much.”

“We should go on the Love, Austen app and find someone for you to date,” Millie says with a wink. “Tiffany said they just had a couple walk-ins sign up to be matched within the last month who are pretty cute.”

Evie shakes her head. “I don’t know if Rachelle is at the ‘blind-date’ level of dating. We’ve tried a few of those and they–”

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