Reality is slow to return, but when it does, it's brutal.
We just had sex in a bathroom at my sister's wedding rehearsal.
Desperate, fast, and so good that my legs are still shaking. I don't even think I can walk. Maybe not even tomorrow. I ache in the best places, but that monster inside my head just wouldn't shut up. It kept repeating everything Maura said, all my doubts and insecurities rushed to the surface.
You're not his type. He's just being nice. You're too available.
I can't let myself believe this means what I want it to mean.
Pulling down my dress and smoothing my hair, I smile tightly at him. Dean, God bless him, is so in tune to my moods that he immediately senses the shift. "Liz?—"
"See you at the wedding tomorrow."
A quick glance in the mirror, then I leave before he can respond, before I can see whatever expression is on his face. It's already there, at the tip of my tongue, the confession that I've been in love with him all this time.
That no other man has ever measured up to him. That I kept waiting and waiting for him to give me a sign.
But this … this is just sex, right? He's a man, and I'm available. Right?
The outside is blessedly empty. I smooth my dress, check my reflection in a decorative mirror, and force myself to breathe.
Tomorrow is the wedding.
Tomorrow, we play the perfect couple one more time. Just one more.
I either go back to being his best friend who's desperately in love with him, or we could end up being total strangers.
Guess we'll have to see.
===
5
DEAN
Last night, Liz walked away from me in that bathroom without looking back.
I'm getting dressed for Maura's wedding—suit pants, white shirt, fighting with the damn cufflinks my grandmother left me alongside that ring Liz is wearing—and all I can think about is how Liz said: "See you at the wedding tomorrow." So casual, and it drives me crazy.
Today's the wedding.
After today, this ends.
Fuck.
The fake engagement, the kissing, the touching, all of it goes back to being just friends, and I'm running out of time to tell her that nothing about this feels fake to me.
A cufflink slips through my fingers for the third time. I catch it before it hits the marble floor, cursing under my breath. My hands are steadier when I'm flying a commercial airlinerthrough turbulence than they are right now, trying to get dressed for my best friend's sister's wedding.
I should tell her.
Today. Before this ends.
Tell her I've been in love with her since college, that every woman I've dated was just me trying to get over her, that "just once" was never going to be enough because she's been it for me from the beginning.
But what if she doesn't feel the same?
What if bathroom sex was just sex to her?
