Page 25 of I Always Will

But it wasn’t enough.

Alexandria had messaged her. Outside the group. Something that was both never supposed to happen and, simultaneously, the thing she wanted more desperately than anything else in her life.

She stared at the message for several minutes before she snorted. It was so Alexandria—proper and to the point and probably nervous, and desperate to know whether they could just ignore the last twenty-four years.

Hey. Yeah, we can act like nothing is weird, like we don’t have any history. It is your brother’s wedding. I’m not looking to start any drama. See you in the group chat, Hailey replied.

This was Alexandria who barely knew her, Alexandria who wasn’t comfortable and relaxed around her. This was Alexandria long before they’d kissed and signed a contract to get married.

And it was Alexandria long after that too, apparently.

Hailey hated it. She understood it, but she hated it. She wantedherAlexandria back. She wanted to know how she was supposed to get through a month of wedding planning with this distant version of Alexandria.

She wanted to know how she was ever supposed to get over Alexandria.

Even distant and stressed and formal, she still loved Alexandria. She loved her always. When she was there, when she was gone, when she was half in the doorway—the one between what they had been and what they were, between the life they could have had and the one they turned their backs on. Hailey loved her. It didn’t matter that things were different now. Deep down, Alexandria was still the same person she had always been. She was still smart and funny and private and loving and so ridiculously beautiful in every way a person could be beautiful. Even if she was holding Hailey at a distance and pretending they didn’t know each other, pretending they hadn’t kissed or been in love, she was still the whole world. And Hailey really wanted to know who she was now. She wanted to be back in that tiny inner circle. She wanted to see all of the ways Alexandria had grown and changed and evolved over the years, and all the ways she’d stayed the same.

Thank you, the reply from Alexandria said.I recognise that it’s an awkward situation for us both and I appreciate your cooperation.

Had she been asked, Hailey would have guessed that having Alexandria speak to her like an employee she barely knew would have stung. Badly. And it did, a little, but that wasn’t nearly the whole story. It amused her, this insight into Alexandria still being the exact same person she’d always been.

And there was something more. Something complicated and potentially dangerous. It lit a spark inside Hailey, one she wanted to chase.

This was Alexandria’s tone when she was stressed. If she was this bothered by Hailey, that meant she still cared, still felt something. It meant Hailey still had an impact on her, and she couldn’t help but wonder whether it might be the same type of impact that Alexandria had on her. After all, Hailey still cared. She was still bothered and flustered by Alexandria. They exhibited it very differently, but it was still there.

And she still hoped they might one day find their way back to each other. Was it possible Alexandria felt the same way? Was it possible this odd little rushed wedding was exactly that?

She needed a second opinion.

Much like the rest of her friends, she wasn’t really one for talking on the phone, but desperate times…

She leaned back on the sofa, pulling her feet up onto the coffee table and carefully avoiding the marriage contract, as the call rang in her ear.

“Ahh, the inimitable Hailey Davis,” Farid said when he answered the phone. “Of course.”

She paused, frowning. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Oh, nothing at all,” he replied, faux-innocent and not convincing her for even one second. She’d be lying if she said she preferred his shy personality from school, but that didn’t mean she liked this cheek. “What can I do for you this fine Tuesday evening?”

“I need… advice? Help?”

“Is that a question?” He sounded far too amused for her liking. Hailey was certain she was missing something, and that she’d feel like a fool once it all made sense.

“I don’t know.” She huffed. This was not how she’d been expecting this to go. “It’s just…”

He let the silence hang for a moment but, when it became evident that Hailey didn’t have words for what itwas just, he said, in a lofty voice, “Let me take a guess. Could it be our dear friend Alexandria Daley, by any chance?”

Hailey’s breath caught. “How could you possibly know that?”

“I have my ways,” he replied cryptically.

“You’re not a bloody magician, Farid. What’s going on?”

He breathed a laugh. “I might have heard on the grapevine that you two recently ran into each other and that it might have been… atouchawkward.”

“First of all, that’s a massive understatement,” Hailey said, scouring her brain for who he could possibly have heard that from. There was nobody at Mash-N-Go on Sunday that knew the three of them. “And secondly, who the hell did you hear that from?”

“I told you, I have my sources.” He laughed, clearly enjoying her frustration. “More importantly, how are you doing with it?”

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