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Oh god, no. The last thing I need is to talk to the asshole who ripped my heart out. “I’m busy,” I tell him, pulling my arm away.

“Just for a minute. I’m sorry about this. It’s not what I wanted.”

I have no idea if he’s apologizing for the staff reductions or the fact he met somebody new two months before we were supposed to walk down the aisle. Either way, I’m not accepting it.

“I can’t talk right now,” I tell him, keeping my voice light, because I’m not going to let him see me rattled. “Like I said, I have a lot to do.”

“She’s leaving for London in a couple of days,” Beth adds, ignoring my wide eyes because I do not want him to know where I’ll be for the next two weeks. “For the holiday of a lifetime. So yeah, she’s real busy.” Beth shoots him a sickly smile, before she adds, “I hear London is full of hot guys.”

Patrick ignores her, his eyes on me. “You’re leaving?”

“Just for a couple of weeks.” I shrug like he’s just an acquaintance and this conversation means nothing.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asks, looking wounded.

“Because it’s none of your business, assjack,” Beth shoots out. Then she grabs my hand and pulls me away, leaving him standing there, staring at our departing bodies.

“What a dick,” she mutters as we walk away.

“Right?” I shake my head, and don’t look back.

Two months ago, I would have stayed. Listened to his bullshit. Hoped that maybe, just maybe, I’d gotten everything wrong.

But now I know better. And that feels like personal growth.

“Of course you’re still going,” my best friend, Jennifer says later that night as I try to fit all of the clothes into the suitcase that’s open on my bed, even though it’s futile. Which is partly Jennifer’s fault because she made me buy a whole new wardrobe for this trip last time we went shopping together.

“Maybe it’s a sign,” I say, walking over to take a second case from my closet. I glance over at my phone, where she’s watching me over our video call. “Seriously, I’m going to come back to New York and have no job. I should stay here and look for one.”

Jennifer lets out a sigh. She has the phone propped on her leg, which is currently wrapped in a bright pink cast. She slipped on her front doorstep two weeks ago and broke her ankle, which should have been another sign.

Because we were supposed to be taking this trip together. It was her suggestion, after all, cooked up when she came for a visit after I found out about Patrick and our December wedding suddenly became a December cancellation.

I blame the cocktails we were drinking when I mentioned that the thought of the holidays was making me feel sick.

Somehow, that conversation turned into a bucket list of places to visit, and booking flights to London, along with a shopping trip around NYC where Jennifer insisted I needed to channel my inner Cameron Diaz from The Holiday. And then she went home and broke her ankle, leaving me to go to the U.K. alone.

Great.

“If you cancel I’m going to blame myself,” Jennifer tells me. “If I hadn’t slipped down the damn steps you wouldn’t even be questioning this.”

“Bad things come in threes,” I point out. “Your ankle, the magazine job losses, and next…” I trail off. “What if the plane crashes?”

“It won’t.” She sounds way too sure of herself. “And anyway, how else are you going to meet a sexy Englishman and get swept off your feet?”

“She’s right.” A deeper voice joins the conversation. I smile at the sound of Derrick’s voice. He’s Jennifer’s husband of five years. The two of them live in Chicago, where we all went to college.

Technically, Derrick was my friend first, as we shared multiple classes together. But after I introduced him to Jennifer, the three of us became inseparable. By our second year we were renting an apartment together on the outskirts of campus. A month before graduation the two of them called me in for a house meeting, and with grave expressions they admitted they’d fallen in love and were planning to marry as soon as they both got jobs.

They thought I’d be furious. That I’d feel left out. But I was delighted for them. I’ve never met a couple more meant to be than Jennifer and Derrick. And now, after all these years, they’re still sickeningly in love.

“You need to go,” Derrick tells me. “Otherwise, this one will throw a fit of massive proportions and I’ll have to live with it.”

I laugh softly. “You’ve been living with it for years.”

“Hey!” Jennifer shouts, though she’s looking at him with soft eyes. “I don’t throw fits. I just get a little heated sometimes.”

“Don’t I know it,” Derrick says.