Because I didn’t have anyone else? Because I didn’t want to be alone? Because Patrick didn’t love me back?
“Did I jilt Lennox, or did he jilt me? And is it really jilting each other if we never made it in front of the offish—offisha—person at the front?” The words tumbled out, and Bryan stared and frowned as if it were super hard to understand me. I wasn’t really asking him; it was just where my scattered brain decided to focus.
“I’m not sure, sir,” Bryan said after a considered pause, as if I’d asked a very important question.
I glanced at my watch, blinked at the blurry numbers.
“Wha’time’sit?” There we go, the latest swallow of champagne was softening my words again, making them run together and slur. It was a blissful numb feeling I wanted to keep forever.
“Eleven-twenty.”
“Huh.” I hadn’t eaten breakfast, too nervous to enjoy the tray delivered to my room, and now I was drinking early in the day as if it was going out of fashion. The time of my wedding—eleven a.m.—had been and gone without me marking the moment in any way. In another reality, on another world, maybe Lennox and I’d be on our way to getting married, eating cake—being happy.
Oh god, there was an entire cake I needed to think about. And more champagne. I really needed to drink more champagne. All the champagne.
“Mr. Grady? Declan? Can I do anything to help?”
I wish I had an answer that would make Bryan leave, and not sit next to me in that cautious way where he expected me to crumble.
“Undo my life?” I muttered, and he frowned again at what was probably blurred nonsense. I attempted to enunciate my words. “Patrick always said… shit.” I scrubbed at my eyes and considered how many bottles of champagne I could carry at one time. My best friend ever, like… my only friend… ever. “Pads was supposed to be my best man, but he said… stuff…” So much about what the hell did I think I was doing. I’d been so angry that he even got to say I was messing things up—what did he know? “I loved him, s’my’bestest’fren.” Tears pricked my eyes and emotion choked me. Shit. Patrick had been my best friend, then I’d gone along with this stupid wedding and, somewhere in all of that, I’d lost him.
“Pads didn’t want me. Fuck!” I couldn’t believe I was spilling my guts to a near stranger, but the champagne had to have been laced with truth serum. “But he’d hold… my hand and tell me…” I raised a hand in front of me, imagining Patrick’s touch as he explained in a very calm manner how I was drunk and spinning out, feeling the ghost of warmth that fizzled and died. He wasn’t here.
“I'm fine," I think I said, but the words weren’t matching the way my mouth was moving, and I hoped that I wasn’t saying blah blah blah, which I might well have been doing. “Need. To. Go. Home,” I said with deliberation, but even as I said this, I knew I didn’t have anywhere to go. There was no way I was going back to the apartment I shared with Lennox, but that was okay with me. It was a good job I had a cot at my art studio, where I’d spent a lot of nights, working on my art in blissful silence. I liked the solitude, and the escape from wedding plans, but maybe me avoiding everything should have been a warning sign that I was meant to call everything off before it imploded.
“All my fault,” I blurted in misery, swigged some more champagne and wished it would hurry up and re-soften all of the hard edges.
Bryan patted my arm. “That’s not true.”
“I never knew,” I hiccupped. Then I shot him a glance and my head took a while to catch up with my eyes, dizziness making my vision blur. “I loved Patrick. He was everything and my heart hurts.” Bryan didn’t need to hear the sad, sorry tale of the unrequited crush I had on my best friend, or about the rift that had opened between Patrick and me after he’d left me. Oh god, what have I done?
“Would you like us to take your bags back to your original room? What would be easier for you?”
Nothing made sense right now. I hadn’t thought about what room I’d be sleeping in. Hell, I didn’t want to think about it. Everything was waiting for the start of my new life.
In the freaking honeymoon suite.
How did I get to this point?
I cast Bryan a doubtful glance over the concept of staying in the honeymoon suite. “Can’t think.”
He opened his palm, a keycard sitting right there. “Stay tonight and when you wake up, well, it’ll be a new day.”
I wanted to take the card, but I couldn’t get my hands to unknot in my lap, so he placed it on the chair between us. There was no way I was stepping into the honeymoon suite on my own—that had to be the most stupid option that I had going right now. Still, I didn’t want to hurt Bryan’s feelings.
“Thank you,” I murmured.
“Get some sleep, okay?”
“Uh huh.”
He put something else down by me, and my world was spinning. “Drink some water please.”
I side-eyed the bottle of water and nodded, and I must have reassured him because he left then with one worried glance back at me. I should probably leave this storage space, so I picked up another bottle of bubbles, shook it and pulled the cork at the same time. I snorted a laugh, because the champagne all over me was good and weird all at the same time. I needed my music, and fuck, I felt so cold.
I grabbed the key card, headed up to the honeymoon suite, ignoring anything inside, then rooting in my case for my old paint-splattered Bose headphones, and grabbing my worn NYU sweatshirt to cover my wedding clothes.
Not wanting to stay in the room, I didn’t have much choice as to where else to go, so I headed back to the storeroom, only I couldn’t get the door to open. So, my next stop was the main wedding place, with its flowers and its balloons, for one last look. Heavy feet made me stumble, but the closer I got, the nearer me, champagne, and Imagine Dragons were becoming the very best of friends.
Chapter Three
PATRICK
Did I have the wrong date? Worse, was I just too late and Declan was already married? Pushing through the sudden sick feeling I’d fucked everything up, I fished the engraved invitation from my wallet, smoothing out the torn parts I’d taped together. Nope, the date was right, the twenty-second—the day after winter solstice, which was why I remembered it—and it was definitely supposed to have started in the last twenty minutes. Weddings would take longer than that, right? It wouldn’t already be over, surely? I dropped my duffel to the floor and pulled out my cell phone to check if I had messages. I'd tried so many times to contact Declan since I left to get here, but he’d never called me back.
And why would he? My thumb hovered over his number, but before I connected, a movement caught my eye, someone shuffling to sit in the front row of the arranged chairs, their back to me.
Declan.
I recognized his dark hair, and the fuchsia-pink Bose headphones he’d had in college, already second-hand when he’d gotten them. He’d always said they were the only thing that blocked out the world enough for him to paint.
I left my bag where it had slid down the wall, and made my way to the front, approaching Declan from a wide angle so I didn't scare the shit out of him. Why was he sitting alone at the front of the room clutching a half empty bottle of champagne? Lennox the bridegroom-douche should be here with him. Right? I glanced around just to check, but no one was hiding ready to jump out.