Page 44 of How to Ruin Your Ex's Wedding
“Well,” I start. “I feel left out.”
“Ah, there it is.” She sounds triumphant, as though she figured something out instead of me telling her something. Hence the love/hate.
I roll my eyes. “There what is?”
“The whole point is that you feel left out, and you don’t like it when you aren’t the center of attention.”
“That’s not true!”
“It’s not a bad thing. I’m not criticizing you. It’s just a facet of your personality. And, let’s face it, even though you kind of hate that Hunter literally worships the ground you walk on. I mean, he calls you ‘my queen,’ for god’s sake, and you count on it at the same time. You expect it. It’s a comfort for you.”
“It’s not a comfort for me,” I scoff.
“That’s not a bad thing either. None of this is negative, sweetie. I’m just trying to help you understand how you feel.”
“When did you become Dr. Phil?”
“Earlier today.” She giggles. I do too.
“Okay, in all seriousness,” she says. “If you aren’t going to fire him, how is this going to work? It’s Pax. You guys don’t exactly get along. Won’t Hunter or Liza wonder what’s going on if you’re being mean to each other?”
“I don’t know. I hadn’t really thought it through that far.” I refill my wine glass for a third time, glad I’d just brought the bottle out here with me. I’ll have to work out an extra hour tomorrow to rid myself of these extra empty calories.
“Clearly you just need to avoid him at all costs.”
“Not exactly easy to do when he’s constantly taking my picture,” I grumble.
“At least it explains some of those bad ones from the cake tasting. He probably did it on purpose.”
“Oh, he did. He all but admitted it. He said, and I quote, ‘You’d better be nice to me, I’m in control of how you’ll look on your big day.’ What a dick, right?”
“Wow,” Crystal says. “Do you think he’s doing this just to get back at you for something?”
“He said it’s revenge. But I can’t imagine over what.”
“Uh, the divorce?”
“That was ten years ago.”
“Yeah, but things got pretty ugly.”
“Not just on my part though. He did terrible things too.”
“Yeah, but . . . the camera,” she says.
Oh god, the camera. Not my finest moment.
“The camera,” I repeat, nodding.
“And the print,” she says.
I always forget about the print.
“I mean, no offense, but I can’t blame him if he’s still trying to get back at you for that, you know?”
“I paid him a lot of money for breaking that camera.”
“Yeah, but it was kind of irreplaceable, right? It being his grandpa’s and all. And then you never gave him back the print once you had it restored. He doesn’t even know it still exists.”
