Page 1 of Should've Been Us
Chapter One
Lulu Nichols needed a drink.Not one or two but rather a never ending supply of them. That was the only way she was going to make it through the next five days without a complete and total mental and emotional breakdown. She was going to get drunk enough to forget that the only man she’d ever loved was marrying someone else and she wasn’t planning to sober up until the happy couple was hitched and she had to accept the cold hardtruth.
Derek Harper wasn’t hers. He’d never been hers. Not in any of the ways thatmattered.
He’d been her best friend since she was five years old. The first boy she ever kissed. The same boy she’d given her virginity to in what would come to be known as their greatest mistake. They’d survived it though. Their friendship had survived all the awkward teenage years and then growing up and building their adult lives. She’d been sure it could survive anything but it wouldn’t survive this, at least not their friendship the way it had beenbefore.
She couldn’t letit.
She couldn’t keep going on like this. She couldn’t be the woman that constantly settled for crumbs of his attention. He was about to be a married man and she wouldn’t be the most important woman in his lifeanymore.
If she was honest with herself, she hadn’t been in years. Sometimes she wondered if she’d ever been at all. If she’d been even half as important to him as he was to her, they never would have ended uphere.
She’d fallen in love with Derek when she was a little girl and twenty years later, her heart still belonged to him, but his heart had never belonged to her and it had taken him proposing to another woman for her to finally see thetruth.
He’d never loved her the way she lovedhim.
She hated herself for loving him. Some days she hated him too. She hated that he didn’t love her the way she needed him to and she hated knowing that he never would. Just like she hated that deep inside of her she knew that knowing didn’t changeanything.
She’d loved him in one way or another all her life and if there was a way to stop loving him short of cutting out her own heart, she’d yet to findit.
She hadn’t stopped loving him when he’d paraded a string of cheerleaders past her in high school. She hadn’t stopped loving him when he’d broken her heart as a teenager. She’d still loved him when he brought girlfriends home to meet his friends andfamily.
Even when he’d met Aubrey, when he’d told her that Aubrey was different than all the others, even when he’d proposed to Aubrey, Lulu had still loved him in silence. Even as she’d helped pick out bridesmaid dresses and tasted cakes and ordered a gift from the registry for his wedding to Aubrey, she’d still harbored and hidden her feelings for him. Soon she would stand at his side as he pledged his life and love to Aubrey, not her, and even if she couldn’t stop loving him she would have to let himgo.
He wasn’t hers. He would never be hers. And she wouldn’t spend the rest of her life mourning herloss.
It was time to moveon.
Derek had made his choice. Derek had made it clear years ago that they would never be more than friends. Derek didn’t love her the way that she loved him. Derek loved Aubrey and he was going to marry her and build a family and a life with her and Lulu would forever be on the outside lookingin.
She had to give up the dream that was her and Derek, together, and focus on her future. As her mother liked to point out, she wasn’t getting any younger. She needed to move on, let go, put herself out there and get serious about dating. That was the only way she might ever find a man that could overcome the ghost ofDerek.
She wanted her happily ever after. Even if she couldn’t have it with the man she’d always considered her Prince Charming. She wanted a family of her own. She wanted a husband that would make her the center of his universe. She wanted a man that would look at her and know without a shadow of a doubt that he was lucky to call her hiswoman.
But those plans were for after the wedding. Not right now. Right now, her only plan was to get through this destination wedding week and to do that, she planned to get drunk. Really, really,drunk.
“I’ll make you a deal…” She squinted at the nametag the bartender was wearing, “Homie?Really?”
“Howie.” He corrected with achuckle.
“Oh… yeah, well, that makes more sense.” She grinned back at him as she held up her drink, “Howie, we’re going to be homies, BFFs even. You feel me? All you have to do is refill this glass whenever it getslow.”
“This is my job,miss.”
“No, I don’t think you understand. I will reward you very, very generously if you make sure this glass is never emptytonight.”
That sparked a level of interest in his eyes that might have made her react if she wasn’t cold and dead inside. He was cute, really cute actually. He had honey-brown skin with hair and eyes so dark they were practically black. Add in his alluring accent and he probably made a fortune flirting with boozy tourists from his perch behind thebar.
Unfortunately, this boozy tourist had no interest in his pretty face or his flirty attitude. Her libido was on life support and she didn’t see her lady bits warming for anyone anytime soon. Particularly not while she was stuck here celebrating Derek’s happily ever after with anotherwoman.
Maybe, someday, she’d be able to open herself up to someone but for now, her insides felt like a brick of ice. Her only interest in the cute bartender was his ability to pour a drink that would keep her blessedly numb until all of the wedding merriment wasover.
Five days in paradise, that was what the invitations promised, but for Lulu it was like being dropped into hell. Five days of forced couple’s activities when she was single. Five days of wedding parties where she would be alone. Five days centered around the fact that Derek and Aubrey were about to pledge their undying love and devotion to each other in a ceremony that would be the end of every dream Lulu ever had for her own happily ever after. Not even five days of getting drunk on a beach in Mexico would guarantee she made it through without completely losing hershit.
She’d tried to convince Derek that making her a member of the wedding party wasn’t necessary but he wouldn’t have anything less. He’d anointed her hisBest Woman. As if to drive the point home that he didn’t see her as feminine or attractive, he’d asked her to be part of his groom’s party instead of a bridesmaid. He’d said it didn’t make sense for her to stand on the other side of the aisle when she washisbest friend. He didn’t know that the only place she wanted to be standing at that altar was in front of him and he neverwould.
He couldn’t. He was about to be a happily married man. He was still her friend, her best friend, but that was all they would ever be and it was about damn time she knocked that fact into her own hardhead.
