Page 82 of Kiss the Bride

As much as I want to hear her declarations unless they involve love and forever attached to my name, they can wait.

I peck her lips in a short kiss, before reaching in and turning the hot water on. “Shower, fun, and I’ll see you at breakfast tomorrow.”

I don’t walk back to the bar or restaurant. The last thing I need is for Tash to make things more difficult by flirting. Instead, I download some crap shows onto my phone, and pretend to watch them until the sounds of an island partying dim, and sleep finally overtakes me.

“Fuck!” I awake with a start. Pushing the uninvited body off the bed, not caring about the crash to the floor. It’s only when I turn on the light, expecting to see Tash, that I realize my mistake.

“Liv?” My phone says two am, but my heart wants to believe her eyes say,forever.

It’s Only the Rest Of My Life

Olivia

Nothing makes sense.

Listening to Mitchel talk through dinner feels surreal. He’s a stranger now, not the man I used to share a house with. Tash tries to downplay any romantic notions of me getting back together with Hunter, and I feel a pang of betrayal. She’s supposed to be my friend. Sure, I intended to set them up at the wedding reception, but things have changed.

Hunter is mine.

Or not. Every time I want to tell these three people—who’ve traveled halfway across the country to help me decide my future—that Hunter is waiting for me, I can’t. Mitchel throws me a gentle look, the same one he used when we went grocery shopping, and he was about to make one of his five-course tasting menus. Or before he planned a night of romanticcomedies—the movies I loved, and he hated but would organize to make up for the late nights at work.

It’s not as if I’m falling back in love with him, but I remember that once upon a time, I had. We had been crazy, madly, deeply in love. And I’m not the kind of girl to throw a relationship away just because it’s hard.

“Why’d you do it?” Jess asks once the dessert plates are cleared, and another round of cocktails arrive at our table.

“Come here?” Mitch slurs. I haven’t counted his drinks, but he’s matching my one for his two.

“Sleep with your friend’s girlfriend and your fiancée’s bridesmaid?”

“Oh, that.” Mitch ignores Jess and looks at me. “Something I’m happy to discuss with my fiancée in private, and if she wants to share with you, then we’ll invite you over for dinner.”

He talks as if he’s assuming I still wear his ring and we share a home. I don’t, and we don’t. Still, I fell for his cocky lines before, so why wouldn’t he try them again?

“How about you give me the headlines here and now? While I have my friends to dry my tears.”

“Babe, babe, babe,” he soothes as if I’m an errant child and he the patient adult. Not me, the innocent victim to his whoring around. “You don’t have to worry your gorgeous head about other women. It’s you and me now, baby. You and me.”

Strange, I thought that’s what we’d been years ago, months ago, even a week ago. How silly of me not to have organized regular check-ins.

“Olivia, give me this week. Let me remind you of why this was supposed to be our honeymoon. You love me, I know I still love you, and all we need is to forgive us our sins.”

“I’ve done nothing to be forgiven.” I hate the need to defend myself, so I don’t. Hunter and I did nothing wrong—and he didn’t take advantage of me. If anything, I tried to take advantage of him by kissing him in his sleep.

“Semantics. I fucked Lina. You fucked my best man. Give me a week to put us back together.”

“Why would you need a week?” There’s no way I’ll agree to a week.

“I don’t, but you deserve that and more.”

“One day. Like we discussed.”

“A full day.”

“Like we discussed. We meet up for breakfast, with the girls and Hunter. Once we leave the table, the clock starts.”

“A full service twenty-four hours?” His drunken flirting used to be cute, but now it’s cringeworthy.

“I’m not sleeping with you,” I assure him and try not to look towards Jess or think of how I left Hunter.

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