"I'll be right behind you." I tapped a hand on the roof of the car and stepped back to let her pull away. For now.
If I could, I'd make sure that was the last time she left me behind.
5
PAISLEY
"I don't knowif any of this is your style, but you're welcome to anything you like." Ryan's friend, Whitney Ferguson, carried a huge, plastic bag in front of her as she stepped through the door and into my tiny hotel room. She plopped it down on the bed, and straightened up, wriggling her fingers in front of her.
"Before you ask, I didn't rob a store," she said with a laugh. "Once word got around, everyone had things they wanted to donate."
I rubbed at the corner of my eye. Totally not wiping away a tear. No way.
"This is so nice of you." I teased open the neck of the bag and peeked inside.
"It's nothing." She took the side of the bag and upended it, dumping all of the contents onto the bed.
Skirts, jeans, pants, shirts and sweaters. Even a few pairs of socks. Some things still had tags on them.
"Are you kidding me?" I picked up a pair of skinny jeans and held them in front of me. "It'severything. I don't know anywhere else in the world where anyone would do this for me."
She flapped a hand dismissively. "Plenty of places would. Did you really run away from your wedding?"
As I sifted through the clothes, I found myself telling her about Kevin and the video. I even pulled out my phone to show her.
Eyes wide, she covered a laugh with her hand. "Is it wrong that I'd laugh if that went viral? I mean, because he'd be embarrassed. Not because of how it would make you feel."
I tossed my phone down on the bed. "He deserves it, but the Internet has a way of finding everyone involved and putting them under a microscope. I don't want to become a meme."
"You have no idea who sent that to you?" She tugged the tag off a sweater before tossing it onto the pile of clothes I thought I would keep.
"None." I picked up a pair of socks with ducks on them and added them to the pile beside the pair with white cats. What can I say, I'm a sucker for cute socks.
"It must be someone who knows both of us, but they're keeping a low profile. I don't know if they were wedding guests or not."
"If it was some random stranger, that would have gone viral," Whitney pointed out. "Instead, they decided to send it to you. Unless they sent it to him first in the hope he'd pay them out."
"Kevin would never…" I started.
"Pay money to avoid embarrassing you?" she guessed. "Baby, you dodged a bullet there. No guy who cheated, then knowingly let the evidence exist out there, is worth shit."
"You're right," I said with a sigh. "Kevin always put himself first. Now I think about it, this probably wasn't the first time he cheated. The signs were there, but I ignored them."
Along with the sixteen missed calls from him since I ran. And seventeen texts. I hadn't read a single one. Or any of the others from anyone else. No one except my sister, who I reassured that I was alive and would be back in the city at some point. She responded with a hug emoji and left it at that.
"The signs always are." Whitney grimaced. "When we look back, it seems really, I don't know, obvious. But at the time, we don't want to take a good, hard look. Which is exactly what you need. Something good and hard." She gave me a sly look while placing a few items back in the bag.
"I don't know if I'm ready for that yet," I said slowly. "I only walked away from my wedding five hours ago."
"There's no set amount of time between breaking up and having a good fuck," she said. "The way Ryan was so eager to help you out? I bet he'd be happy to help you out a little more. Or a lot more."
"You think he was helping me to get me into bed?" I wrinkled my nose.
"No," she said quickly. "He helped because that's what we do. Sex is an added bonus if you want it. If not him, I'm sure there's at least a dozen guys in town willing to give you what you need. Between you and me, I'm a big advocate for orgasms. As stress relief goes, there's nothing better. No one in town is going to judge you, no matter what you decide."
I might judge me, but I decided against mentioning that. Sex wasn't a thing I'd given that much thought to. It was something Kevin and I did when the mood took him. I could live without it either way.
Although now, I remembered all those romance books I read and wondered if they were right. There must be men out there who knew how to find a clit, right? Guys who actually wanted to bother. Hadn't Ryan said as much? That I deserved to be worshipped?
