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“That’s understandable.”
“Is it?” She looked so small. “It feels like I don’t want to look at what’s happening. I don’t even want to talk to my parents. I don’t want to find out what’s going on. There’s no way for me to fix it. Even if I’d gone into the right medical field.”
“Where you’d have been miserable,” I reminded her.
Her eyes met mine again, and she softened. “That’s true. I chose what I liked, but there’s so much what-if.”
“You can’t live in a what-if world. You can only live in reality.”
“That’s no fun. I want to be a fairy princess and use magic to make all my problems go away.”
“Does that make me your dark fairy prince?”
She rolled her eyes. “No. You’re a King, obviously.”
Then, we both burst into laughter. The mood lightened considerably. Whatever lingering weirdness that had clouded our interactions was dispelled. I didn’t know what had happened at the gala tonight, but my Whitley was back.
As I leaned her back into the sand, kissing her breathless, I was glad for whatever had brought her into my life again.
25
WHITLEY
Good news and bad news.
Good news: Margaret told Locke. So, I didn’t have to.
Bad news: That meant I couldn’t tell Gavin.
I had never been a good secret keeper. Especially not from someone I was actively sleeping with and spending almost all of my waking moments with. I’d gotten away with talking about my dad in the Hamptons to cover my unease about his cheating scumbag of a cousin, but I wasn’t going to lie to him either. No matter what I’d promised Margaret.
Luck won out though. I wasn’t sure if Margaret was too embarrassed by what had happened or worried that her family would find out, but she backed out of my bridal shower. Gavin thought I’d be sad when he told me the news, but I could barely hide my relief.
“She said she wanted to hang out with Locke this weekend instead,” he said with a shrug. “Newlyweds, you know?”
“Good,” I said automatically. “She should.”
She needed to do a lot more to repair her marriage than stay home one weekend, but it wasn’t my marriage to deal with. I would have left her ass so fast and blown up her entire life on the way out.
But that was the old Whitley. I was trying for something new here. And it was fucking hard to keep my mouth shut and let people deal with their own bullshit.
With Margaret’s absence, the flight to Midland was bliss. I’d been dreading being in her uninterrupted presence for four hours. I wasn’t sure I would have been able to keep it together on that flight if she’d been there. He’d already suspected something was wrong anyway. And now, I got Gavin all to myself.
When we landed on the tarmac, it was a boiling hundred degrees. Gavin insisted on wheeling both of our bags toward the awaiting black car. He’d gotten us a room at the same hotel we’d stayed in for the wedding.
I changed into a white tulle dress, going full tilt for the theme, and did a twirl for him. “Well?”
He rose from the chair he’d sunk into earlier to answer an email. “Is this anything like your dress?”
“I have no idea. I haven’t seen it yet.”
He laughed. “What? How is that possible?”
“Katherine and Harmony are working together. Harmony designing and Katherine … giving her input.”
“That’s the most Katherine thing I’ve ever heard.”
“I did give them all permission to take over. I have a fitting sometime after we get back. So, I’ll see it then.”
