Page 50 of Jilted

I blinked at him. “I cannot believe you changed your flight to come with me to sell my wedding dress.”

He shrugged. “I figured Lucas could use some sleep. He was up chewing my ear off about Olivia for an hour once we got back to the hotel.”

I smiled. “Oh God. Olivia did the same. I think we might have a problem.”

Wilder turned the key to start the car. “Yeah, if my ball-busting little brother gets a Carrick for a girlfriend before I do, I’m never gonna hear the end of it.”

A loud chirp sounded from inside my purse.

“Is that your phone?” Wilder asked.

“No.” I rummaged through my purse for my cell. “It’s an alarm for my insulin pump.”

“You okay?”

“I’m sure it’s nothing. It usually is.” I opened the pump app. My supposed blood-sugar reading flashed on the screen. If it was right, it would be a problem. But sometimes the reader just needed a reset. To be on the safe side, though, I needed to go back upstairs. “Can you just give me two minutes? I’m going to run back inside and double-check that this is a bad reading with an old-school finger prick.”

“Should I come?”

“No. I’m fine. I’ll just be two minutes, really.”

I huffed it up to my apartment, did a quick stick of my finger, and inserted the slip into the glucose monitor. Sure enough, my blood sugar was fine. I needed to talk to the doctor about the increase in alarms at my next appointment.

Back downstairs, I climbed into the passenger seat.

“Everything okay?” Wilder asked.

“Perfect. The machine just does that once in a while.”

“Okay.” He smiled. “You ready to get rid of that dress?”

I took a deep breath. “I am. And this was really so sweet of you, Wilder.”

He put the car in drive, but kept his foot on the brake, looking over at me. “Told you, Cupcake. Not sweet, just want to spend time with you.” He winked. “Plus, the sooner you put old dreams to bed, the better my chances of getting you to go out with me.”

I didn’t buy for a minute that he didn’t have a sweet side, but I also didn’t call him out on it. The bridal shop was only a half mile away, so ten minutes later, we parked. I took a deep breath as he opened the door for me to walk through first.

“Hi,” I said to the woman at the counter. “I have an appointment to sell a wedding dress.”

“It is used?”

I frowned. “Yes, but I only wore it for an hour because… Well, I only wore it for an hour.”

She pointed to a hook on the top of a tall silver pole next to the register. “You can hang it there. It’ll take me a while to inspect the dress and research the value. If you want, take a look around a bit. There’s a section of cocktail dresses in the back. Most people check that out, since we only give store credit.”

“You only give store credit?”

The woman nodded.

“Is that a new policy?”

“Been that way as long as I’ve worked here. So at least two years.”

I sighed. How the heck did I not know that? “Maybe I should…”

Wilder looked at me. “Are there other places that give cash?”

I shrugged. “I think so?” I chewed on my fingernail, debating.

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