“Yeah. Did she have another closet maybe? Or somewhere she stashed shoes?”
“Nah. As far as I know, everything was in here.”
“Oh. Okay.”
“Why? What’ve you lost?”
“There’s just a pair of shoes I was looking for but they’re not here,” I told him trying not to sound dumb. I mean, in the scheme of things, it was just a pair of shoes, but yet it wasn’t. It was so much more. At least it was to me.
“Would they be in her bags she had on tour with her?”
“Maybe?”
I tried to remember the last time I’d seen them, but was coming up blank. I knew she loved them but had she taken them with her, I wasn’t sure.
“Her bags are in the guest room if you want to look. I haven’t… I didn’t…”
Pushing up, I stood up straight and put my hand on his shoulder.
“All good. I got it.” Giving his shoulder a squeeze as I passed, heading to the guest bedroom.
Opening the door, I stepped in to find Cassidy’s battered blue suitcases sitting in the corner, the tags from their last flight still wrapped around the handle. Sucking in a deep breath, I swallowed down the unexpected emotion. They’d been left sitting there like they were waiting for her to come and unpack them. But that wouldn’t happen.
Lifting one up, I set it down on the bed and unlocked it. Good thing I’d been doing this for years and knew the combination. Flicking the top open, I let it fall back on the bed and burst into tears. There was nothing that should’ve set me off, but it did. It was packed up, exactly as I’d left it. Folded perfectly. Everything neat and tucked away in its place.
Wiping away the tears I started methodically unpacking it, ignoring the memories consuming me. I emptied the case before moving onto the next one. Two empty cases later, but there was no sign of the shoes.
I don’t know how long I’d been tucked away in there, talking to myself as I worked through it. Behind me, a knock on the door startled me.
“Find them?”
“Nah. They’re not here. I must’ve missed them.”
Hayden reached down and picked up one of the t-shirts I’d unpacked. “This is where my shirt ended up?” he chuckled, fingering the soft material.
“Your shirt?”
“Yeah. Cass claimed it the first time she stayed with me. She wore it to bed that night—”
“I really don't need to know about yours and Cass’s bedroom antics. I’m pretty sure I already know enough,” I assured him with a smile.
“Nah, it wasn’t like that. She wore it a couple of times and then it vanished.”
“It didn’t vanish, Hayden. Cass wore this to bed every night while she was on tour,” I told him, letting him in on her secret. There were some secrets we’d shared that I promised her I’d take to my grave, but this one, seeing the way it softened Hayden, I knew it was worth telling. When he lifted it to his nose and sniffed it, I almost burst into tears. One day, I wanted someone who loved me as deeply, as passionately, as completely as Hayden loved Cassidy.
Needing a moment, I excused myself, ducked into the bathroom, and splashed some cold water on my face. I needed to pull myself together and get this done. Dragging it out, obsessing over a pair of shoes wasn’t getting this finished and it wasn’t helping either of us. After a quick pep talk to the woman staring back at me in the mirror, I was back in the bedroom sorting everything into piles like I was on a mission.
An hour later and the closet was empty. Except for one thing. A long white suit bag.
I didn’t know what to do with it.
I didn’t want to touch it.
But most of all, I didn’t want Hayden to see it.
Cassidy’s wedding dress hung there, ready and waiting for her to pull it on and walk down the aisle to marry the man of her dreams.
I’d lost count of how many dress shops in how many cities she’d dragged me into looking for the perfect dress. I’d never known Cassidy to be a diva. In all those years working alongside her, she’d never once pulled a diva act, thrown tantrums or acted like a self-entitled, self-important twat. But shopping for her wedding dress had transformed her. She’d morphed into the worst form of bridezilla you could imagine. She refused to settle for anything less than the perfect dress for her fairy-tale wedding and money was no object. I was just grateful I wasn’t her friend Harper. The poor girl, Cass’s childhood friend, who’d taken on the role of wedding planner. It was almost funny in a way. Hayden didn’t care if they got married on a Wednesday in a carpark wearing a pair of jeans. As long as he made Cassidy his wife, nothing else mattered. She, on the other hand, was determined to have the perfect day and be the perfect bride and I’d given up trying to convince her of anything different.
