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I sat, still trying to make sense of this.
“He must have really had to go,” Brady said, clueless to my turmoil.
All of the sounds of the bar became muffled compared to the pounding inside my head.
When I spotted Milo walking back to our table, my heart rate, which had already been racing, moved to sprinting.
He took a seat next to Brady. “Sorry about that.”
“Hey.” Brady shrugged. “When you gotta go, you gotta go, right?”
Milo’s eyes landed on mine. If one look could ask a thousand questions, his certainly did. He looked so confused…hurt…angry.
“Dunc, now that you’ve properly taken a leak, I can finally formally introduce you to Hazel. I can’t believe you two are only now meeting.”
“Yeah. Only now. Amazing.” Milo reached his hand out to me.” Nice to meet you, Hazel.”
He squeezed my hand. And in his touch, there again were the silent questions emanating from him. I wanted to cry. But I had to keep my composure.
“It’s nice to meet you, too…Duncan.”
He let go of my hand and explained, “Old friends from college call me Duncan or Dunc. Duncan is actually my last name.” He looked into my eyes. “My name is Matteo.”
Matteo.
Milo’s name is Matteo.
Even though Brady was right there, it felt like we were in our own world as Milo—Matteo—and I introduced our true selves to each other for the first time. It was surreal.
“And I’m…Hazel.”
“He already knows your name, babe,” Brady interrupted.
I ignored Brady’s comment, still staring deeply into his friend’s eyes.
Matteo couldn’t take his eyes off me, either. “Hazel...like hazelnuts…”
I nodded. “Matteo. Like Matthew.”
Brady looked between us. “Okay, this conversation is like an episode of Sesame Street.” He laughed.
Neither of us joined him.
I got chills. To think I’d called my father to check on him after that psychic mentioned the name Matthew, when it was in reference to Matteo all along. He was the one she’d warned me about, and now it all made sense.
The waitress came over and took Milo’s…Duncan’s…Matteo’s drink order.
Matteo.
What a beautiful name. A beautiful name for a beautiful man—one who looked more tormented than I’d ever seen him.
His eyes still seared into mine. “So…what’s going on with you two? Last I heard, the wedding was off. I’m surprised to see you here, Hazel.”
Unable to form words, I looked over at Brady.
“Hazel and I are taking things slowly again. I haven’t had a chance to talk to you since the wedding was called off.”
“Yeah.” He swallowed. “You definitely never mentioned anything.”
“I’m sorry you’d already booked your ticket to Vail,” Brady said. “But I’m glad you got to visit your family anyway, so it wasn’t a waste of a trip.”
“Well, yeah, it was about time I visited the old turf anyway.”
“So, what have you been up to?” Brady asked. “You took some time off from your teaching gig, right?”
“Yeah. Still in the midst of my sabbatical. I ended up staying in Vail for a little while…” He looked at me. “Then randomly ended up taking a road trip from Colorado through the South. Stayed in Atlanta for a while longer than I’d planned, and then decided to go home to Seattle for a week before coming here.”
Brady was still processing. “Wait…you took a road trip alone?”
“No, actually. I met someone in Vail. She and I ended up traveling together.”
“Really.” Brady smirked. “Was she cute?”
Matteo glanced at me. “Very.”
“Where is she now?”
He paused, closing his eyes and looking frustrated, as if he wanted to answer Right fucking here.
“We went our separate ways,” he finally said.
Brady smacked his hand on the table. “This is why I love this guy. Only Dunc could get some random chick to go on a road trip with him. He has balls. While the rest of us sit around working our nine-to-fives, my man here does the things everyone dreams about.”
“Believe me, it’s not as fun as you might think being me.”
That hurt.
“Whatever happened to her—this girl? What’s her name?”
I cringed.
The waitress set a beer in front of him. Matteo took a long swig and slammed the bottle on the table. “Maddie. Her name was Maddie.”
“So, any plans to meet up with her again? Or was it just a one-time deal?”
His eyes darted toward mine. “Pretty sure now that our trip was the end of the line.”
That message reached me loud and clear. My heart was breaking. There was an undertone of anger in his voice that was unfamiliar to me. I hoped he wasn’t mad at me. How could I have known this was going to happen? This was like some kind of nightmare.
While it now made sense why he’d been in Vail—for my wedding that never happened—I still had so many questions.
Did he ever suspect who I was?
If not, how did he not put two and two together after I told him I’d been dumped by my fiancé? It never occurred to him that I could have been Brady’s ex? Something was missing.
