AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I smiled at Lainey. “Can you give us a moment?”
“Absolutely. I’ll bring out more cake samples. It seems like you’re going to need them.”
“You’re a doll.”
Lainey gave an adorable smile and hurried to the kitchen.
“Parker, sweetie, not every love story is the same.”
“No, but everyone has the chance at an epic love if they’re unwilling to settle. You happened to have met yours young, and even still, you’re not getting your happy ending until two decades later. Because you didn’t settle.”
It had nothing to do with not settling. It had to do with me running away. Love wasn’t this beautiful, heartwarming thing for me. It was ugly and scary.
Bringing Laurent back into my life was a constant reminder of all the years I missed out on. But it also made me wonder, if I didn’t run then, if we’d even still be together today.
I didn’t have the answer, but the broken, bitter girl whose dad left her didn’t think we had a chance in hell. That was not the advice Parker needed, though. She needed me to be a voice of reason. Someone who could see both sides.
“You had to have loved him at some point, no? You did agree to marry him,” I said.
“I thought marriage was the next step for me. Mom told me it was. Insisted really. I was so worried about making my mom happy I never stopped to think about my own happiness. I’m not happy.”
She pinned me with big, sad eyes, and it was hard to argue with her. Hard to tell her to look past her feelings and try to see reason. My feelings made me run, but Parker wasn’t me, and her feelings for Garrett were nothing like those I had for Laurent.
“You really don’t love him?”
“I don’t.”
“Can you grow to love him?”
“I don’t think so.”
I released a breath and gave Parker a half-hearted smile. “Then don’t marry him.”
“My mom is going to kill me,” Parker said, her eyes fixated on some random spot in the bakery. She didn’t blink, didn’t move, just stared.
“Talk to her,” I said.
She let out a laugh that bordered on manic. “I went through with this whole thing because of her. The engagement party, the upcoming bridal shower that is so over the top it gives me anxiety thinking about how I’m going to compete with all the flowers, balloons, and the rest of the tacky décor.” Parker rested her face in her hands, shaking her head. “She puts so much pressure on me so she can make herself look good with her friends. So she can post pictures on the internet and get praised for all the materialistic shit I hate.”
My head whipped back so fast and hard I nearly fell off the chair and gave myself whiplash simultaneously.
“I thought you loved all that stuff.”
“Are you kidding me? I’d rather have taken half of what Mom spent on the engagement party and traveled. Mom makes it like I’m this perfect daughter, but the truth is, I live in a bubble, never having left my home state and always being close to her. Do you know coming here to see you is my first trip out of Massachusetts?”
“No wonder Marion’s called me nine hundred times.” I’d stopped answering after the first phone call, but that hadn’t stopped her.
“Garrett is a nice guy, but he’s not for me. He’s so career oriented and sometimes I feel like I have to paint a giant dollar sign on my chest for him to even notice me. I’m twenty-three. Some would say I’m in my prime. I should be having sex all the time.”
“You don’t have to measure your life by sex.” I opened my mouth, and I swore my mom came out. And I swore it was directed at me.
“Isn’t that what you did? You and Laurent broke up in college, then you slept your way around the world.”
“Why in the hell would you think that?” I exclaimed.
She shrugged. “Mom might have made a comment or three.”
I rolled my eyes at Marion and her never-ending journey to smear my name. “That’s the last thing I did. Honestly, after Laurent and I went our separate ways, I was devastated. My mom had just died, and I didn’t have the one person who I could always rely on. Guys were the last thing on my mind. Even when I was ready to try dating again, I always compared every guy I met to the one I left behind.”
