“Shit. I heard about that.”
“From Easton?”
“Ahh, yeah. Probably. Or maybe Mom.” Definitely not your dad getting hounded about it in a press conference. “How are you feeling?”
“Nauseous. I’m going to be a witness during the trial.”
“What?” My eyes grow wide as our server arrives. “She’ll have the cake of the day, please. Actually, make that two.” I order for myself and Paige before my focus is back on her.
“Does your dad know?”
Dammit. Why the hell would I ask that?
Paige shakes her head. “Not yet. But I promise to tell him soon.” She stares at me pointedly, silently asking me to be her friend instead of her dad’s, and I nod in return.
I’m not going to tell him. But it’s going to break him when he finds out. He wants her as far away from that family as possible. They almost broke her once; he won’t let them do it again.
I have a million questions, but I don’t get to ask a single one before Paige moves the topic back to her mom, filling me in on the many over-the-top things she’s done since finding out Paige was engaged. I laugh along with her, but the moment she’s gone, my happiness fades.
What’s going to happen when she finds out about me and her dad? Will I still be the friend she confides in?
You’d think all this talk of brothers and dads, ex-wives and family connections would have squashed any ideas I had for continuing to sneak around with Sal.
Yet, after spending the rest of my day racked with guilt, I’m right back where I started, wishing he was here to help me through it. A little part of me wonders if he’s wishing he was here too. Or at least, hoping he’s thinking about me.Onlyme. Not a past relationship that he never chose to leave.
I don’t recognize the person I’ve become, but I can’t stop myself from spiraling, and by the time I fall asleep, I’m struggling over what I’m going to do.
One thing is for sure though… I’m in this deeper than I thought.
Chapter Thirty
KEELEY
When the sun rises after my night of panic, I wake up feeling almost back to my normal self—the workaholic version of me. The girl who doesn’t get caught up in her love life.
The person I became last week was someone reacting from a place of fantasy and delusion. The real me makes decisions based on practicality, and lusting after a man twenty-four seven is not that.
I’m not saying I won’t end up locked in another shower with my lips wrapped around Sal’s cock; I’m just saying I’m not going to let it affect me day-to-day. I need to look at it like a yoga session—something that gets me out of my head in the moment, and nothing more. Somedays I have time for a class, some days I don’t. Hell, someweeksI don’t and that’s okay. Life goes on like always.
Preseason keeps me busy for the next two weeks, and before I know it, the rehearsal dinner has arrived.
I’ll never claim to be an event planner—that job is way beyond my skill set—but when someone assigns me a task, I am all in, even if that task is something out of my comfort zone.
With an hour to go before the guests arrive, I’m buzzing around the hotel ballroom as though I’m high on sugar—straightening this, double-checking that. And by the time the guests start making their way inside, I’m a chaotic mess. But a mess who’s dressed to perfection.
While Sal and I haven’t found another moment alone since the shower, he did take the time to “casually” slip in the fact that he’d offered for Camilla to stay at his place. He worded it as though it would have been the biggest drag since he’d have to move into a hotel, easing my mind without me having to ask the question. If I didn’t know Sal as well as I do, I may have wondered if Paige had noticed my reaction and told him to say something. But I’m confident in saying it wasn’t her. That’s Sal. It’s like he knows what I’m thinking without me ever having to voice it.
As the guests file in, I’m tapped on the shoulder by the hotel manager, pulling me from my thoughts and back into organization mode, when I finally thought I was done.
How could anyone do this for a living? How could Paige put that much pressure on herself multiple times a year planning the fundraisers for the D’Angelo Foundation? I couldn’t do it. I’m exhausted and the dinner hasn’t started yet.
Paige, Easton, and Isaac arrive shortly after I’ve spoken with the catering manager about dessert, and when Paige walks under the floral archway and into the elegantly decorated ballroom, her glistening eyes make it all okay.
I did good.
Thank fuck.
At Paige’s request, we don’t have a seating plan, and since I’m still working until the very last second, I take the only empty seat available, which is thankfully next to my mom.
