Page 25 of Slow Hands Cowboy

Better that the guy run away at the altar than force her to divorce him.

He just couldn’t respect a man that he had hogtied, couldn’t take him seriously, couldn’t believe that Addison would be better off if he’d stood there and said his vows.

Bottom line.

“Here’s the thing,” Walker said. “You have a whole life ahead of you. He’s the one that looks like an idiot. I know that it’s terrible that the video has gone viral –”

“It went viral?”

“Were you not listening to me?”

“I was. Kind of. I just… I feel like I’m underwater.”

“You’re not underwater, you’re on my couch. The video has gone viral. Millions of people have seen it, hell, probably millions more since I’ve checked.”

She scrambled toward him, reaching for her purse.

“No,” he said. “Under no circumstances are you to doom-scroll the Internet looking for comments about your wedding. Absolutely not. It’s too fresh.”

“What do you mean? How am I supposed to not do that? What are people saying?”

“Who gives a fuck? They’re not the ones that have to deal with this, you are. And it isn’t going to help you deal with it better to have 1 million voices chattering in your ear while you’re trying to deal with the fallout in your own life. People on the Internet are terrible.”

“I’m aware,” she said. “I’ve gone viral before.”

“How many views?”

“Three million,” she said.

“Yeah, this was at five almost an hour ago.”

“No,” she said.

“Yeah.”

“Why are you… Why are you doing this?”

“Doing what?”

“Being… nice to me.”

“Is this nice?”

“You could’ve left me there.”

“I could have. And you know, the video might’ve been less interesting in that case. But no, I couldn’t have. This wedding was my responsibility, and this whole thing affects my business too. I’m just as invested in you coming out of this unscathed as you are. I promise.”

“I can’t even think about all that right now.”

“Oh, I know. And you don’t have to. Anna is thinking about it for you. And I’m thinking about my side of things. You can sit here and be catatonic as long as you want. I promise. I’m not home very much. I’ll barely even notice you. I can sit over there on the chair. And if I have company over I’ll just cover you with a blanket.”

“Hey,” she said, frowning deeply.

“I’m just saying. Hide out as long as you want. It’s no skin off my nose. You don’t have to tell anybody where you are.” He started to hand her purse to her. “Promise me that you’re not going to be…”

She grabbed the purse, unzipped it, and pulled her phone out. “I have a thousand new messages.”

“Nuke them.”