Page 23 of Little Gray Dress

“Yes, I mean she’s engaged to my brother so I felt like I should include her. I’d kick her out but it’s too late for that.” She shrugs her shoulders apologetically.

“No, you don’t have to do that.”

“We need to find you a date for this wedding. Someone better than asshole Jack,” Lily says enthusiastically. I watch her mouth the word sorry to Hannah, probably for calling Jack an asshole.

“Right. How’s that going to—” I stop mid-sentence and remember meeting Liam last night. I know he mentioned that he’s been recently heartbroken, but maybe him hearing my Greta story last night made him feel sorry enough for me that he would help a girl out. It’s not like I’m asking him to get married, or even go on a real date. I just need backup proof that I’m well over Jack.

“What?” Lily asks me, knowing, as best friends do, that I’ve got an idea.

“I actually met a man last night.”

“My God.” Evan shakes his head as if I’m the most pathetic person he knows. I’m not sure why, but he’s always felt the need to protect me from even myself, and this headshake is the same reaction he had right before he gave Ezra Mitchell a black eye when he heard him talking about taking my virginity when we were seventeen.

“Not like that.” I glare at Evan as a warning to stay away and let me deal with me for once. “We just talked. He owns a bar up the street. He agreed that my entire situation this week is more than rough, so maybe he’d help me out?”

“Do you have his number?” Lily asks.

“No, but I know where he works.”

“Well you don’t have time to go there this morning. We have my bridal shower in an hour.” Hannah smiles through clenched teeth. She knew I was hoping they would have had this bridal shower before I got here. Mingling with my ex-fiancée’s mother is not something I’m looking forward too.

“I’ll go afterwards. I’m sorry if this whole thing is becoming weird,” I say, even though I don’t think it’s entirely my fault.

“Don’t apologize, I only wish I’d known all this earlier.” Hannah frowns, obviously upset that she isn’t in on all of my secrets. But it’s not like I intentionally kept all this from her. Until yesterday, I didn’t even know Greta was back in the frame.

“I’m sorry. I was humiliated.” I sigh deeply, knowing I should tell the rest of my secret to Hannah right now before she finds out on her own and hates me forever. “There might be something else between Greta and me…”

“There’s more?”

“Yeah, it gets worse. I could have lived with the Christmas party thing. But…” I pause, trying to find a delicate way to say this next part. How do you tell someone their cheating brother was in cahoots with Greta the bitch the entire time? “The day I caught Jack… you know. With Lily’s advice, I went over later that day to talk to him but, it didn’t go as I planned.”

“How did it go?” Evan asks, more interested in the story than I expected him to be. He’s never been one to be interested in every detail of my drama, but right now, he’s all ears.

“When the elevator doors opened, I heard Jack’s voice so I peered around the corner before leaving the elevator, you know, so he wouldn’t see me, and I saw…” I have to stop and take a breath to keep myself from becoming emotional. It happens every time I relive this part of the story. “I saw Greta at our front door telling him she heard he was newly single. And then… he invited her in.”

“WHAT?! He did? What happened next?” Hannah’s voice is high and whiney, almost like she’s having a hard time believing her perfect May could do something this brazen.

“I dunno. I never spoke to him again. But now they're engaged. So what does that tell you?”

“I am so sorry, Ems.” Evan reaches across the table and pats my hand. “I had no idea. I can kick his ass if you want?”

“No, you can’t, because no one is going to mention this. He chose her even before we broke up, so, no matter how much any of this appears to bother me, he gets to keep her. He’s obviously not the Jack I once knew.”

“I promise to keep a fair distance between you and Greta at the bridal shower.” A thin apologetic smile spreads across Hannah’s face before she stands from the table. “I hate to cut this short but we have to get ready. Is there anything else we should know?”

“That’s it.” Thank God that’s it. “I’ll try and not let my emotions get the best of me the next couple of days.”

It won’t be easy, and I definitely can’t make any promises, but for Hannah’s sake I’ll at least try and do my best and not over-think the situation. No matter how much my heart hurts over all this, Hannah and Evan deserve a stress-free wedding.

“Emi!” Amelia greets me before even her own daughter when we walk through the door. “My dear girl, how I’ve missed you!” She surprises me by pulling me in for a hug. I kind of figured after I bailed on the huge wedding she was planning that she’d be more irritation, and less missed me. “You look…” She looks me over for a minute, probably trying to find another, less obvious, word for fat. “Fabulous.”

I’ve noticed in life that when people tell you you look ‘fabulous’ you really don’t. You look just slightly less great than they expected, and ‘fabulous’ rolls off the tongue so quickly and easily in a tense situation.

“Can you believe that we finally get to be family?”

“Well… Not me, but Evan.”

“That includes you. Who’d have ever thought that instead of you and Jack, we’d end up with Hannah and Evan getting married.” She smiles sweetly before putting her arm around my shoulder and walking me into her lavish living room. “Still such a shame about you and Jack, though.” She leans closer to me. “The boy was heartbroken for ages. Even now, I sometimes wonder.”

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