So no, it’s not simply that I don’t want to see Miller tonight.
It’s that I don’t want to see Miller still with Stefanie, reaping the rewards of sleeping with my former best friend.
It’s that I don’t want him to talk to me like I was a problem then and that I’m a problem now.
It’s that most of the women on the team who’ve been on the team for more than two years haven’t said hi, even if their coach did. It’s that this is a place whereIdon’t fit. Where I don’t belong. But where I wanted to have one last chance to celebrate something with a woman who’s meant the world to me and her daughter before I leave Copper Valley and never come back.
“You said your job was the problem,” he says.
“That was his excuse. That if I paid as much attention to him as I paid to my career, then we would’ve been okay.”
“He’s still dating a bloody soccer player that he was sleeping with while dating you andyour careerwas a problem?”
Fletcher Huxley is a thousand times more perceptive than I gave him credit for. “He’s in corporate coaching,” I whisper.
Translation: he didn’t like that I was more successful as a younger, self-employed life coach than he was.
He didn’t have book deals. He didn’t get speaking gigs. He didn’t have a hundred thousand followers on social media.
And why does it still fuckinghurt?
I’m better off without a man like that. But he was good to me while we were together in a way that I hadn’t had before or since.
“Fuck,” Fletcher mutters, but it’s not afuck, you got the short end of the stick on friendskind offuck.
It’s athere’s one solution to this and I don’t like itfuck.
“We should kiss,” he says.
My belly drops to my toes and my head goes light as a feather. “That’s a very kind offer, but completely unnecessary.”
“You have the hottest date here. You’re obviously enjoying yourself with me. He’s plotting how to slash my tires. Let’s give him more motivation.”
“He doesn’t care what I do.”
“If he didn’t care, he wouldn’t be watching us.”
“Maybe he’s watching us because you’re watching him.”
“He can’t tell I’m watching him. I’msubtle.”
I laugh again.
The last thing I ever expected was for Fletcher Huxley to be this fun.
Especially at a wedding.
Especially atthiswedding.
He’s not wrong. I asked him because he’s easily the hottest man here.
“Do you have a photographer hiding in the wings waiting to snap a picture of us kissing to send directly to Silas?” I ask.
“Yes.”
I veer back and look around.
He cracks a grin and lets out a singleheh.
