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“She left me at the altar.”
My breath whooshes out of me. “Oh. You never told me.”
“Yeah, because it’s pretty fucking humiliating.”
I chuckle. It’s half astonishment, half shock. “Phillip, my fiancécheatedon me for months with one of my best friends. That’s embarrassing as hell, too.”
“No,” he says. “That just proves he’s a dipshit.”
“I’m sorry,” I say. “That… I’m sorry. It must have sucked.”
Because despite it all, I’m glad I found out before I ever had to put on my wedding dress, and before the venue filled with all of our relatives.
He hadn’t gotten that courtesy.
Phillip looks over my shoulder, at some spot in the distance. “It is what it is. Honestly, I’m… relieved.”
“Relieved?”
“Yeah. I was pissed off at first, but now I’m pretty sure it was for the best. She and I are better off apart.”
“Why did she call herself your fiancée?”
“Probably because you picked up, and she wanted to stir up shit,” he says, voice dripping with annoyance. “In her last phone call, she hinted that we could continue as before, too.”
“Oh.”
“Which just means she probably realized how expensive rent is in the area where she wants to live. Eden, none of this has anything to do with you. Or with what just happened.” He inclines his head toward the lounge chair like it’s the scene of a crime.
“No, I know.”
“You do? Then why do you look like you’re about to race out of here like you just found out I’m a convicted mass murderer?”
I laugh, but it’s a bit strained. “It’s just a lot. All of it. Your past, and my own, and what just happened…”
It sinks in, as I look at him, that we’re each other’s rebounds. That this ends in a few short days, and I’ll never see him again, and that probably doesn’t bother him at all. This trulyisa vacation fling for him, but it’s starting to feel like something else for me, and I can’t have that. Not again.
“Okay,” he says. “I get it.”
I shift back on my heels and take a step toward the gate. “Thanks for today. Sorry again for the… well. Is it okay if I take a rain check on dinner tonight? I just need some time to think.”
He nods, but his blue eyes are troubled. “You’ve got nothing to apologize for.”
As I close the gate softly behind me, all I can hear is the sound of crashing waves and the rapid beating of my heart.
“Oh my God,” Becky says on the phone. “If you’re making this up, please keep going. I want to live in this fantasy forever.”
I chuckle. “You’re the one living the fantasy.”
“I can’t see my feet anymore,” she says. “I’ve officiallylostmy feet, Eden, and I won’t find them for another month. If that’s anyone’s fantasy, they’re absolutely off their socks.”
“I mean, they could be,” I say. “How would they be able to tell?”
She giggles. “Tell me again. What did he say when you asked him about it? The fiancée?”
“He said they’re definitely broken up. Like, one hundred percent.”
“Isn’t that great news?”
