Page 20 of The Promposal

Her? Not so much.

“Can we help you?” Bronte asked, no recognition registering on her features.

“Yeah. You can stop kissing my sister’s boyfriend.”

“Boyfriend?” she echoed. “That’s adorable how into labels you still are.”

“Says the girl who changed her actual name,” I hissed through my teeth.

Trent started to rise. “Mattie, it’s not what you think—”

“Sit down and be quiet!” I pointed at his bench, and he did as I commanded. “I’ll get to you in a minute. And don’t tell me it’s not what I think. I think you were making out with this ... this pretentious wannabe in a family restaurant! And there is no way for you to spin that into something else.”

“Look, I don’t know what your issues are, but I’m not in a committed relationship. I’m not ‘cheating,’ however you define that construct. And I don’t control anybody else’s behavior. Life is about doing what you want when you want, and I won’t let some artificial set of ‘rules’ make me behave a certain way,” Bronte said, clearly enjoying how upset she was making me with every stupid thing that came out of her mouth.

But there was a grain of truth in there. I was blaming Bronte, but she wasn’t the one cheating on my sister.

Trent was.

So I focused my fury on him.

“How could you do this?” I asked. “Ella loves you. Even when you isolated yourself from everyone, she’s never given up on you. How could you hurt her this way?”

I saw a brief flash of regret in his eyes, but then it was gone.

“You are overreacting,” Trent told me, “and you’re making a scene.”

That part was also true. I was making a scene so big I could probably compete in Hollywood for an acting award.

But he didn’t get to talk to me that way.

“Don’t tell me I’m overreacting! That is so patronizing. If anything, I’m underreacting. If I were overreacting, there’d be little pieces of you all over this restaurant.”

“You need to calm down,” he said.

Ihatedwhen men told women to calm down. Like we were some species of hysterical creatures ruled solely by our uteruses. As if we were all in desperate need of some big, strong man to tell us whether or not we were allowed to get upset and show it.

And the fact that he was cheating on my sister while telling me how to feel?

Nope.

So I did something then that surprised even me.

I punched him dead in the face.

He yelled out in what I hoped was pain while Bronte said, “You’re bleeding!” and leaned over to press her napkin against his mouth.

“I’m feeling much calmer now! Can you tell?” I shouted at him. “And you two jerks deserve each other!”

Next thing I knew Jake had me by the waist and was pulling me out into the parking lot while I loudly and repeatedly questioned Trent’s parents’ marital status at the time of his birth.

My boyfriend got me into the car, even fastening my seat belt for me. All I wanted to do was go back and finish what I’d started. I literally saw red, and I wanted to claw some eyeballs out.

We drove for several minutes, and I took in some deep, cleansing breaths. Just like I’d learned that one time Ella had made me go to yoga class. As the adrenaline and anger receded, I became aware of the fact that my left hand was throbbing in pain.

“So I don’t think we’ll be able to go back there,” Jake said, and I could hear the laughter in his voice.

“My hand hurts,” I told him in a small voice. So did my heart. How could Trent have done this?

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