Page 73 of Beached Wedding

“Ash. Babe...” I don’t know where the endearment came from, but she was sad and I couldn’t stand it. “Show me. What’s going on?”

“It’s Shane’s love letter. Andyours.”

“My— What?” My heart nearly lurched out of my throat. My whole face instantly hurt with a hard blush.

I caught the flash of a yellow sticky note and recalled adding it to Shane’s Letter from the Groom. I tried to remember what I’d said, but all I could really remember was that the first barbs of real doubt had sunk into me when Shane didn’t even want to write a freaking letter to the woman he was planning to marry. And I remember being worried he would hurt Ashley if he refused something so small. What did it mean for their future if he couldn’t do that one little thing?

“What did I say?” I asked.

“That you love us both.” She shook the page again.

Fuck. I was suddenly freefalling from yesterday’s helicopter straight into the crater of a volcano. I couldn’t breathe.

“I do.” I had to clear my through. “As a friend. I didn’t break you up forme.” Had I? I squeezed the back of my neck. “Is that what you think?”

“No. I don’t know.” She was searching my eyes.

I opened my mouth, but my voice was lost at sea. Wave after wave was swallowing and chundering me, throwing me around so all I could do was flail and gasp for breath.

“I wanted this for both of you.” That wasn’t a lie. “If Shane was the one for you, if you were both in love...” My throat was so dry, my voice turned to a rasp. “Then I wanted this day to be everything you wanted it to be.”

“Then you don’t love me. Like that.” Her shoulder hitched and her mouth trembled.

I tried to shake my head because Icouldn’tlove her as anything more than a friend. I couldn’t.

“I can’t,” I said. But I was starting to think I did.

ASHELY

Ican’t. Not,I don’t.

I felt dizzy and sucked in a breath because I’d forgotten to do that in the last few seconds.

I waited for him to say something that would further clarify how he felt, but all I saw was anguished conflict behind his eyes. He yanked his gaze from mine, but his expression was tortured. It held all the hunger and surrender and defensive wariness that was making my stomach clench.

The silence was spooling out, leaving nothing but the rush of my blood pounding in my ears.

Because we stood on a precipice. One where saying the wrong words, sayingthosewords, would change everything.

In that second, I achieved a type of clarity. Fox was my friend. He’d become my very best friend. He was my confidante. Maybe even a soul mate.

He was everything I wanted in a partner and I wanted to tell him that. I wanted to say the words I was longing to hear. They crowded in my throat with my heart, battling for space, but I swallowed all of it into a dull ache in the middle of my chest. It sat there like a dry wish bone, sharply pronged and piercing, strained apart and on the point of splintering.

Because I couldn’t ask him to destroy his own life by loving me. Love didn’t break things. Love protected and caught you when you were weak, the way Fox kept doing for me. Love sacrificed for the ones who held your heart.

Which meant that once again, I would have to lower my expectations, but this time it didn’t feel like settling. It hurt. It hurt so deeply I could hardly breathe, but I held that hurt inside me so I wouldn’t hurt him and something about doingthatfelt inordinately good.

“Thank you,” I said, looking to the flash of yellow. Reading again, ‘Love, Fox.’ “This would have been perfect, if Shane had been the man I loved.”

It was the closest I would come to telling him who I really did love. Because it was him. I was realizing that in real time, never expecting it to fill me with such an intense ache of longing and joy.

“Ash.” He closed his eyes and a spasm of pain flexed across his face.

“It’s okay.” I moved to hug him, one hand still clutching the note. I didn’t let the embrace turn into anything more than a hug, though. We were friends. That’sall.

I closed my eyes and accepted that. I let the side of my face rest on his bare chest and listened to his heart and told myself to be grateful for this much.

His arms closed around me, equally careful. Equally caring. I felt his chin rest on my hair. He released a shaky sigh that made my hair shift in a tickle against my scalp. It was the most beautifully imperfect moment of my life.

---