Page 39 of Slapshot Bride

The first message is from twenty-two minutes after I ran. I must have missed this when Mason’s text came in that night.

Preston:

My love, I don't know where you went, but I'm terrified for you. The wedding is on hold. Everyone here loves you and just wants you home safely.

I read it in the exact tone I’ve heard for the past six years. The sweetness of a man who portrays affection as a show for the world, not out of care or empathy for this partner.

My eyes skip to the third one, dated yesterday evening.

Preston:

Riley. I have been very patient. I think you owe me a conversation. Whoever the man is, he's using you. The photos are out and the family is humiliated. End this and come home, or I will have to make decisions for both of us that we'll both regret.

There it is. The bottom of the velvet.

I sit on Easton’s couch, still in Easton’s t-shirt that I’d mindlessly pulled on last night after a bath, with my phone in my hand and I think, very clearly, that is the man my family wants me to come home to.

One more notification chimes. Mason.

His thread sits at the bottom because he has not flooded it. Three texts in two days.

Mason:

Hey. Whatever you're doing, I'm glad you did it. Call me when you can. I'm not telling Mom or Dad anything until I hear from you. You owe me nothing. Just stay safe. I love you. I'm here. Whenever. However. No questions.

My heart warms. It's the same sentence Easton used in my guest room the first night.

I am crying before I notice I am. It's the bad kind, the kind that comes out of you when something you have been holding has shifted. I curl my knees up and press the phone to my forehead.

I have to leave.

It's the only clean thought. I can't stay here. I dragged a stranger into this.

A stranger with a career, a reputation, and already three photos circulating online of us leaving a boutique together. Three photos linking him to me, the runaway bride currently fueling half the internet.

Easton has no idea what kind of man Preston Sinclair becomes when he decides he's been patient long enough.

I'm still on the couch, phone clutched in my hand, when I hear the door.

I freeze.

His keys hit the tray in the entryway. Footsteps into the kitchen, a pause, then toward the living room. There is no version of this where he doesn't read everything on my face the second he sees me.

He stops in the doorway.

“Hey.”

I don't answer. Instead, I furiously wipe at my eyes, willing the evidence to disappear, while I keep my head down. I can’t stand his sympathy.

He drops his bag. Crosses to the couch in three steps and crouches in front of me. His fingers find my chin and he tilts it before I can object. Our eyes meet. He looks at the phone in my hand, then at me.

“Riley.”

“I have to leave.”

At first, he doesn’t answer, but I see it. The words caught somewhere in his throat. His Adam's apple bobs. His eyes tighten at the corners. A muscle jumps in his jaw.

For a moment, he looks like he's fighting with himself.