Page 81 of Miss Understood

“Uh, okay.” Penny steps backward and almost trips over a chair as she makes her way to the door. “I’ll get your coffee, and then we can go through today’s calendar.”

I give her a tight nod as she disappears, hoping that even if she’s misguided she still heard a fraction of what I was saying to her. There’s enough timid to go around. We need a little more unapologetic badassery in this world.

I settle into my new office, which is almost twice the size of the one I had at Price & Davis, even if my title is technically the same. This building is newer, but it has a warm charm that the last one didn’t. But even with my own wall of windows—the first one I’ve ever had—it feels empty.

Because outside that door and in the walls that surround me, I don’t feelhisheartbeat.

My phone pings, and I reach for it. There’s a calendar invite for a meeting with Troy this afternoon to get to know the rest of the team. As I accept it, I remember Mateo’s text from earlier. It’s a video, and when I hit play, it takes me less than a second to realize what I’m looking at.

The wedding.

How is this even possible? Mateo had a video of that night the whole time, and he kept it a secret. And he decided now would be the perfect time to drop this bomb on me. Some friend. He’s in for a rude awakening at lunch.

The wedding has come back in bits and pieces over the last couple of months. Blurry memories would slowly make their way through. But looking at the video now, every detail floods back clearly.

Jesse and I stand under an arc of flowers, me in jeans and my long-sleeved top, him in slacks with the sleeves of his shirt rolled up his forearms. I’ve got a veil on my head. One of those short ones with roses on the headband that looks cheap and ridiculous.

I’m not sure why the officiant didn’t stop us. We look drunk. Jesse leans in my ear every couple of minutes and whispers something that makes me giggle. And when he leans back, I see that same relaxed smile I fell for many times over these past couple of months. The one I didn’t think he was capable of under his hard exterior.

We look relaxed.

We look…happy.

Drunk, yes. But the longer I stare at the image on my phone, it’s something else drawing my attention.

Mateo is too far away to hear what Jesse and I are saying, but I clearly hear Nate when he drunkenly slurs, “Can’t believe she’s going through with this dare.”

As the ceremony nears its end, Jesse and I stop whispering, talking, and laughing. We just stand there, hand in hand, facing each other. Listening to whatever the officiant is saying. And I now know why my clearest memory from that night is staring into Jesse’s eyes. Because I didn’t imagine it.

I remembered the look on his face clearly.

And when we lean in and kiss, it isn’t quick and sloppy. Jesse wraps one arm around my back and the other hand in my hair and tips my chin to take my mouth slowly.

We don’t look like drunk coworkers acting on a dare.

We look like us.

And I can’t help but wonder how far back it went. When did I notice Jesse for the first time as something more? Did my heart see it long before my head allowed my body to catch up?

Our lips pull apart, and the look in his eyes is the same one I saw when we danced at our party. A look that makes my heart break all over again. On the edge of passion and something I’d dare to call love.

I picture Mateo right now, handing Jesse that envelope. Part of me wonders if I’ve just made the biggest mistake; the rest of me knows that I haven’t. If this was anything more than a fake marriage, he would have shown up by now. Laid his cards on the table.

I feel a little sick that I’m even thinking like that. Luce Stevens does not believe in the pathetic happily ever afters of romance novels. She is smarter.

Then again, if these walls had ears, and those ears could hear the truth beating deep inside me, would they know that I’m a big fat liar?

A sheep parading around in a lion’s wardrobe.

Maybe the wedding wasn’t real. Maybe the relationship wasn’t either. Maybe it was all a drunken dare gone wrong. But, even if all that is true, what feels the fakest right now are the words that come out of my mouth every time I say I’m over it.

29

Jesse

There’sacertaintypeof loneliness that goes beyond missing someone’s physical presence. It’s deafening. And I didn’t know it existed until two weeks ago, when I came home to an empty apartment.

Not that I’d expected Luce to be there.

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