Page 51 of The Trouble with Runaway Brides

“We are?”

He nods. “There has to be some cute place around here that serves it in actual ceramic mugs.”

I laugh. “You a fan of Gilmore Girls?”

His head whips toward mine, his mouth dropping open. “How did you guess?”

“Just a feeling.”

I take him to Brewed Awakenings and order a black coffee for myself while he orders a latte with skim milk and a muffin. We sit by the window and wait for our names to be called, and I keep my jacket on because it’s drafty.

“So, what happened between you two?” Geoff asks as soon as we’re seated.

“Man, you don’t beat around the bush, do you?”

He shrugs. “Well, I’ve only been around the two of you for an hour or so, and if you guys think you’re fooling anyone, you’re not.”

Geoff seems like a romantic to me, so I don’t put a lot of weight on his words.

“There isn’t anything between us. Not anymore. She’s marrying Will. We were friends before anything else. Maybe that’s what you’re picking up.”

Which isn’t really true. We were friends through Brinley, but Brinley mostly kept Kenzie to herself until we started dating. She always had a big problem with Kenzie wanting to date Easton or me. I’m not blind, I knew Kenzie was into Easton until the night of my great-grandma’s party. If I hadn’t had the balls to ask her to dance, we probably wouldn’t have ever gotten together. I’ve questioned that more times than I probably should.

“It’s not friendship I see. Blake said the two of you argue like a married couple.”

Our names get called and we stand to get our orders. When we sit back down, I find myself telling him the story even though it’s the last thing I want to relive.

“We’d decided to break up right before we left for college. We knew enough people who’d ended up hating one another after trying to make the long-distance thing work. I couldn’t stand the idea of that ever happening to us. Even though I knew I’d hate it if she met someone else, I figured the connection wouldn’t be the same as what we had and it wouldn’t last. I was confident that after we graduated, we’d find one another again, reconnect, and hopefully get back together to start our adult lives together.”

I sip my coffee, but it’s too hot, so I lean back in the chair, waiting for it to cool.

“You didn’t want to take your chances?”

I shake my head. “No.”

He tears off the top of his muffin and devours it, moaning over the goodness. “Sorry, this is the best muffin I’ve ever had. You gotta try some.”

I raise my hand. “I’ve had it before.”

“Your loss. Okay, keep going.”

I shrug. “We were probably two months into our freshman year, and I had to go to this formal gala thing for my fraternity, so I brought this girl my grandparents had tried to fix me up with. It meant nothing and I dropped her off at her sorority that night and went home alone.”

I make a point to say that, so he knows I wasn’t doing anything with anyone, even though it would’ve been okay if I had. I ached for Kenzie every day but convinced myself I’d made the right decision.

“I might have to get a second one of these.” Geoff unwraps the bottom portion of the muffin and pulls off a huge chunk before placing it in his mouth. “So, the girl meant nothing…”

I take off my jacket because I’m definitely warm enough now. “I got a call early the next morning from Easton, my cousin, who went to school with Kenzie at Mississippi State.”

I pause because I’m taken back to that moment and the crushing feeling in my chest when I found out what had happened. It was one of the first times I realized how your life’s axis can shift in a millisecond. Before that call, I was hanging on, hopeful for a future with Kenzie, even if it was years away. I was always good at delayed gratification—putting in the work to see the eventual payoff down the road.

Seeing Easton’s name on the screen, I grabbed the phone from my nightstand and slid my thumb over to answer. “Hey.”

“Hi. Sorry it’s so early.”

“It’s okay. What’s up?” I sat up and noticed my roommate was either already gone or had never returned the night before.

“There’s no way to beat around the bush about it, so I’m just gonna tell you, but I want you to hear me out.”

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