What he’d gotten instead was a text from Rose.
A text which contained a picture of her and Tom holding hands, wedding bands on both of their ring fingers.
Riley’s stomach turned over. He skimmed what she had to say for herself—which was long for a text, but not nearly enough explanation for what she’d done—and tried to figure out how to break this to Brent.
Justas he’d really started to seem happier, too.
Rose had married Tom. Instead of Brent.
Riley couldn’t see how anyone would make that choice.
“Anything important?” Brent asked.
“Uhh.” Riley looked up at him, panic making his throat close. He didn’t have time to come up with a convincing lie. “It’s, umm. It’s from Rose.”
He watched all of the progress they’d made over the last twenty-four hours drain out of Brent, leaving him tired and sad all over again.
A lie would have been kinder.
“What does it say?”
Riley swallowed. “Are you sure you wanna hear this?”
Brent sat up straight, giving a single, firm nod. “I’m sure.”
“Okay. Well… she got married to Tom. She says she’s sorry for leaving you and not telling you ahead of time, but she, umm… never really wanted to marry you in the first place, you just… seemed like a solid choice. She’s sorry. There’s a lot of sorry. Do you maybe want to read it?” Riley offered Brent the phone.
“No, I don’t… I believe what you’re telling me,” Brent said. “I’d rather hear it from you, if that makes sense?”
“I understand,” Riley said. He did understand. It had to be more comfortable to hear from a friend that your fiancée never loved you than it did to hear it from them directly.
Even if it was a text message.
Riley was mad about that. If ever anything warranted at least a phone call, this was it. No matter how much he hated taking calls, it seemed like the right thing to do.
Brent also didn’t hate taking calls as much as he did. The way he just answered the phone when he was at work, like it was no big deal, had always been a source of awe for Riley.
The point was, Rose should have called Brent to explain herself. Not texted Riley. Or any other third party.
It did make him feel a little better that at least someone thought he would have stayed with Brent, though. He was still thinking about Marcus’ assumption that he would have left.
“Be honest with me, here. Did you like Rose?” Brent asked.
Riley shrugged. “She seemed nice, but if I’m being totally honest, she didn’t seem veryyou. I dismissed that feeling as… hating change, I guess, but now I’m thinking maybe I shouldn’t have.”
“You don’t hate change,” Brent said. “I mean, everyone hates change, but of everyone I’ve ever met, you’re the most comfortable with it.”
Riley wet his lips. He couldn’t tell Brent the truth. Not now. Brent had enough to deal with, he didn’t need Riley’s jealousy on top of that.
“Some things in my life are fixed. Or at leastfeelfixed. You’re one of them. I was scared that you weren’t going to be anymore.”
“Hey, I could have a wife and six kids and ten assorted pets running around my feet, and you’d still be my best friend.”
“You’d have your wife running around your feet?” Riley raised an eyebrow, barely stopping himself from laughing at his own joke.
“You know what I mean. The point is… I’m not shutting you out of my life anytime soon. You mean too much to me for that.”
Riley set his phone aside, not wanting to dwell on Rose anymore.
