The higher ground – I would take it – not for Jenna’s sake, and certainly not for Brandon’s, but for the sake of their little girl who was the innocent handiwork of two backstabbing cheats.
“Brandon.” I nodded my uncomfortable greeting.
“Breeze.” He nodded back.
Continuing the pathetic pattern, I turned my attention to my cousin. “Jenna.”
“Breeze.”
We stood there shifting our feet, the awkwardness on par with seeing someone you know in a grocery store and then running into them again in the next aisle. And the next aisle. And the next.
Perhaps not knowing what else to do, Jenna pulled her daughter in tighter, a fiercely protective gleam in her eye.
What did she think I would do, grab the child and toss her out the window?
What had happened to us? How could a loser like Brandon tear us apart so thoroughly that we couldn’t be in the same room together without referees?
It hit me then that losing Brandon wasn’t what hurt most. I could replace a man. Hell, I could even upgrade to a luxury model like Bodhi-frickin’-Beckett. But in Jenna I hadn’t just lost my cousin, I’d lost my friend, my confidant, and my very own flesh and blood.
In a perfect world, I would have wowed the crowd with a witty catchphrase or even a snappy dance number but, sadly, that wasn’t me. I was just Breeze, the girl who’d spent way too long beating herself up over a relationship that was never meant to be.
I shifted my gaze back to Brandon. He wasn’t my fate.
Bodhi’s my fate.
What had I been thinking? Life with Bodhi’s fans might be hard but life without him all together would be excruciating. It took these two cheats to finally wake me up to what had been in front of me all along. Bodhi wasn’t just any guy. He was my guy. My destiny.
Cementing on a smile, I turned to my cousin. “You look like you have it all figured out. I’m happy for you. Congratulations on the new baby.”
And then I walked away, determined never to allow those two to drag me down again.
* * *
Interestingly enough, it wasn’t the awkward interaction with Brandon and Jenna that nabbed the top spot on reunion gossip. Our old drama was but a spark in a firestorm compared to my news-making brush with fame. Word of my connection with Bodhi had not only spread through social media but also through the ranks of my increasingly internet-savvy family. Even the relatives with ‘great’ before their names seemed to be dialed in.
Suddenly, I wasn’t the girl with egg on her face, but the dazzling star of the party. Instead of dwelling on the past, my relatives welcomed me back with open arms, inspired and encouraged by my tale of survival. I realized that it had been me who’d cast myself out of the inner circle. My shame at being cheated on had kept me from moving forward.
No more.
* * *
After telling and retelling my story a dozen times, I managed to slip away from my table full of admirers. My stomach had started to let out the most unladylike growls, so I headed straight for the buffet line.
I’d barely managed to scoop a helping of potato salad onto my plate when I heard a frustrated little sigh. And when I turned, I found Brandon and Jenna’s little girl, levered up on her tiptoes, reaching for a brownie on an elevated tray.
“Do you need help?” I asked, smiling down at her cherubic face.
She blinked, and then slowly lifted her toy for me to see.
I bent down to her level examining the tiny stuffed Chihuahua in her chubby hand. “Look at that.” Envisioning Bodhi in my kitchen fending off Sweetpea with a pink spatula, I smiled. “I know someone who loves these little guys.”
“Oh yeah, who?” My smile melted, and I slanted my gaze upward—to Brandon, eyeing me with a wicked grin. He crossed his arms over his chest when I straightened, then tipped forward into my space. “Because you know I only like my dogs big—like me.”
I snorted a laugh. “In your dreams.”
“You never had any complaints before.” His eyes danced with mischief.
Was he… flirting with me?
