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Today we’re celebrating Luna’s freedom from the dreaded cone. The vet cleared her yesterday afternoon. In the process, Marianne asked a dozen or so questions about my upcoming wedding. I evaded all of them. I’ll wait for Gavin to make the public announcement. He has a team of people at his beck and call, plus the fearless Margaret. They will know what to say. I don’t have a clue.
But there is one person who needs to hear the news from me.
With a sigh, I sit down on a fallen log and retrieve my cell from my fleece pocket. I find the number and hit send.
“Hi, Mom,” I say when she answers after the first ring.
“Hello, Kayla. Is everything all right?” I hear the whirl of the golf cart in the background.
“Yes and no,” I say, going for honesty. “Did I catch you before you hit the golf course?”
“I’m driving my cart over now,” she says. “But I can play later. What’s happened?”
“The engagement is off. Gavin and I aren’t getting married.” The words come out in a rush. There’s so much more to explain, but I stop there. I don’t want to burst into tears at the top of my favorite hike, on this beautiful fall day, because a boy broke my heart.
Not just any guy. He’s my best friend.
Though at this point, I’m not sure we’re even friends. I can’t picture sitting down to lunch with Gavin and listening to his latest dating troubles, not now that I know what he looks like naked.
“Oh, honey, I’m sorry.”
The sympathy in her tone feels genuine. I cling to it, murmuring, “Thanks, mom.”
“Did you call off the wedding?” my mother asks. She has moved into a quiet room or hallway, somewhere apart from sound of carts and clubs smacking into little balls.
There was never going to be a wedding. Or at least that wasn’t part of the plan, not until we made love, then I fell in love, and Gavin proposed.
“Yes. I called it off.”
“I thought as much. Why?”
I close my eyes. My mother, the former accountant, lives for reason. She’s never been the type to pop open a bottle of wine and call my ex names.
That’s what best friends are for, I realize. After Gavin helped me leave Jason, we split a hundred dollar bottle of champagne and created the nickname Mr. Mistake. He stayed with me, letting me laugh and cry, sometimes both at the same time, until he knew I could handle the heartbreak on my own.
“Why did you call off your engagement?” My mother asks again.
“Mom, he is so wrapped up in being Gavin Black Billionaire that I’m afraid I don’t fit in. And I can’t change—”
“Did he ask you to?”
“No.” But he proposed out of desperation, not love.
“And yet, you expect him to change for you,” my mother says evenly. “Kayla, he is Gavin Black Billionaire.”
“That’s not all he is,” I say. “Yet he’s consumed with protecting his image.”
“He’s worked hard to make something of his life. After everything that boy went through, he deserves a fresh start. You know that.”
“Mom, you don’t understand.”
“Try me.”
So I tell her everything. I explain about the blackmail, the fake engagement, and the proposal. I leave out the teensy, tiny detail that I slept with him. I’m hoping she can figure that out on her own because I suspect my throat with close up if I try to say “sex” and “Gavin” to my mother.
“That poor boy,” my mother says when I finally stop talking.
“Mom,” I protest. “You’re supposed to take my side.” Luna walks over to my side and rests her head in my lap as if she senses my distress. The other dogs glance over at me but continue sniffing around the clearing.
