Page 90 of Snowed In
“There’s not going to be a wedding.”
I pause, choking on the mini-rant I was about to unleash. “Excuse me?” I ask because, surely, I misunderstood.Surely,I misheard or—
“It’s not happening,” he continues. “The wedding. The relationship. Any of it. We broke it off six weeks ago.”
“But you—”
“Her dad’s sick,” he explains, scratching the back of his neck. “Seriously sick. Nat asked if we could keep it up for his sake, just for the next few weeks, but we’re not getting married. She’s moved out and everything. She’s staying with her sister.” His hand falls to his side. “So that’s it. No wedding.”
No wedding. No… “You’re pretending you’re still in a relationship?”
“Pretty dumb, huh?”
The noise that comes out of me is borderline hysterical. “Does anyone else know?”
“Just her sister. I haven’t even told my parents yet.” He winces at the last bit, looking utterly woeful.
“I’m sorry,” I say because I don’t know what else Icansay. Isaac just laughs, the sound bleak.
“Me too. Two failed engagements and I’m not even thirty.” He shakes his head. “It’s like a soap opera.”
My sympathy dims at the bitterness in his words. He makes it sound like the universe is out to get him.
“You seem to be doing well, though,” he adds, and I tell myself I’m imagining the accusing note in his words.
“I am.”
“You and Christian.”
“And other things,” I tell him. Hobbies and holidays and friends and plans. A job. An apartment. A life. One without him. “I’m doing great,” I say, and to that, he has no response.
I shrug his jacket from my arms, no longer cold. I’d panicked when I saw him in the parking lot. And I thought I would feel that way again. But right now, I feel nothing. After all the time we spent together, after the explosion that was our breaking apart, I look at this man, and at most, I get a vague sense of irritation that he’s here, and I don’t want him to be.
“I’d better go back in,” I say. “Christian’s probably wondering where I am.”
Isaac looks annoyed. “He can wait a few more minutes. You owe me that at least.”
“He’s getting me a drink.”
“But I—wait.” He grabs my hand as I move past, and I immediately tug it from his grasp, shocked. He doesn’t reach for me again. If anything, he seems surprised by my reaction. Like I’m the one in the wrong.
“No,” I say, my voice calm even if the rapid beating of my heart is not. “You don’t get my time anymore.”
“I only wanted to—”
“And I owe you nothing.” I shove his jacket at him, furious I accepted it in the first place. “Goodnight.” And before he can do anything else, I turn my back and hurry inside.
NINETEEN
CHRISTIAN
Charm a girl. Dance with a girl.
Leave a girl alone in the middle of a ballroom because you lose all ability to function.
I glower at the back of the man’s head in front of me, trying to get a hold of myself. Two minutes has turned into five, the line at the open bar several people deep, and I’m impatient to get back to Megan, even if it means making an even bigger idiot of myself.
But that damn dress.
