Page 149 of Slapshot Bride

Thank you. For everything.

R.

I read it again.

I read it four times, looking for a second sentence hiding inside the first, because this isn't her. This isn't the woman who got on a plane to Chicago because she wanted to see my face. This isn't the woman who said ‘I’m yours, I’ll stay, I promise’ three nights ago with my mouth on her throat.

But it’s her handwriting. It’s her name at the bottom. One letter, R, the way she signs the backs of the prints.

I look around the kitchen.

Her notebook. Her mug. Her camera. Upstairs, her books, her sweater, the clothes.

She didn’t take one thing.

She walked out of this house and left every single piece of the life she built in it, and somehow that’s worse than an empty closet. The words from the note echo in my head again.

It was never going to be real, and we both knew it.

My heart sinks. A sudden pain hits my chest that sends me almost doubling over.

It’s like my life is crashing before my eyes, and there’s nothing I can do about it.

Riley is gone.

Just like she told Mason. It’s fake.

It was never meant to be real.

And she’s right. I’m the one who agreed to that on a couch. I’m the one who said it doesn’t have to mean anything.

And she wouldn’t choose a fake relationship over her brother.

Fuck!

My palms ball into fists. My eyes twitch as I stare at the door, as if she’d walk in any minute and say it’s a prank, but deep down, I know it’s over.

And it hurts. It hurts like hell.

***

The night drags on mercilessly. I lie in bed, with not a wink of sleep coming my way. Whenever I close my eyes, all I see is Riley Brooks.

The woman who waltzed into my life one morning, three months ago, and has now left with my heart, without a goodbye.

I pull the sheets over my head and inhale deeply, greedily breathing in her sweet scent. The one I’ve gotten accustomed to. With each breath, my heart squeezes painfully.

I should have held her a little longer in Chicago. Should have confessed the truth to her, that I loved her. That it was never fake.

Maybe it would've changed something? Maybe she would've believed me, and we could've faced Mason together?

I make my way back to the kitchen, already knowing I won't be getting any sleep in my bed tonight. It won't ever feel the same again.

Not without Riley.

There's a bottle in the cabinet above the fridge, left over from the liquor the guys brought for my birthday.

I pour it into a coffee mug and make it about a third of the way through the bottle, standing alone at the kitchen counter.