Page 110 of Runaway Bride and Prejudice

Hopefully soon.

“Morgan, you’re supposed to be my best friend.”

“Yes, and best friends—real,truebest friends—want what’sbestfor the other person. It’s how you put the best in best friend.”

“Your point?”

“My point,” she says, “is that maybe this is best for you.”

“Being around a man I’d like to never see again?”

Even as I say it, I know it’s not true. I only wish it were true. I wish I could take a shovel and excavate all my feelings, leaving them in a heap somewhere outside of town.

There’s another noise, a heavy clank this time, and I frown. “What are you doing, by the way?”

“Trying to fix my car engine.”

“Is that something you know how to do?”

“YouTube,” she says, like this is the most obvious answer in the world. Or that having YouTube necessarily equates having the ability to fix whatever’s wrong with her car.

“That’s …”

…not a thing, I was going to say, but Morgan cuts me off. Clearly, my work-and-Van-related woes take precedence over whatever is wrong with her car.

“Look—your whole life was shaken up. Not by you. Not in a good way. Now, it’s being shaken in a new way. Adeliciousway,” she adds. “And it’s not happening to you. You’re in the driver’s seat.”

Am I, though?I wonder, watching a car pull through the gates and across the parking lot. I can’t help but also wonder if telling Morgan the whole truth might garner me some different advice. Though she is correct—I’ve been shaken up.

While all that freedom and letting loose felt great in Florida with Van, back in my normal Harvest Hollow life, it feels like a costume I tried on for a few days.

One I secretly wish I could put back on and make it my new daily norm.

I honestly have no idea what Morgan—or anyone else who knows me—would say about my impulsive decision to marry Van. My best friend might just as easily say this was the best decision I’ve made rather than the worst.

I know her better than anyone, but Morgan continues to surprise me. It’s her nature. She’s like a rare kind of butterfly, unable to be caught and pinned down to a board. This is one of the things I love about her.

But it also means I don’t feel like I can tell her this because I can’t anticipate her response.

Also, I’m still choosing to believe that the more time I think about marrying Van, the more times I say it out loud, the more I act like it actually happened, the more real and unavoidable it becomes.

I’m a kid with the boogeyman inches from my own nose, and if I don’t open my eyes,he isn’t there.

“I’ve got an idea,” she says. I hear the sound of her hood slamming followed, a moment later, by her engine starting. “Yahtzee! I love you, YouTube!”

“Idea?” I remind her.

“Right. My idea involves Van, a closet, and putting alllll that frustration to good use.” When I say nothing—mostly because my mouth has gone completely dry and my insides feel like they’re melting—she adds, “I’m talking about making out in acloset at work with the guy you say you can’t stand but actually seem to have very strong feelings for and?—”

“Hanging up now,” I tell her. “Glad you fixed your car. And also? Just letting you know that I’m officially in the market for a new bestie.”

I hang up, tracking the SUV that just pulled into the lot a row up and a few spaces over. My heart pounds as I wait for the door to open. When a man who looks like a Swedish assassin, with white blond hair and sharply cut features climbs out of the car, I expect to be relieved that it’s not Van.

Instead, the only thing I feel is disappointment.

An hour later, I’ve decided that Parker is on a personal mission to punish me. And also that maybe she and Morgan are conspiring together.

Despite Parker’s assurance yesterday—as in, twenty-four hours ago—that I wouldn’t be doing as much with the guys this week because of playoffs, she left me with a list of suggested questions and three of the Appies, one of whom I happen to be married to.

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