Page 99 of How to Ruin Your Ex's Wedding
He left me.
Hunter left me.
“He left me,” I whisper.
“I know, I’m so sorry, babe,” Crystal says, hugging me from the other side, sandwiching me between them. They lead me to lean against the wall between two large potted plants. I hang my head and try to get a grip on the emotions I’m feeling.
I wait to feel heartbreak, but it doesn’t come.
I’m not sad.
I feel, I don’t know, almost lighter maybe? Is that relief? Am I relieved Hunter called it off? I think I am. As long as he did it, I don’t have to. It’s the coward’s way out, that I know. But it allows me to continue to avoid it. I feel like a fifty-pound weight has been lifted off my shoulders, I could float through the rest of the day with no problem.
“I’ll give you a minute,” Liza says, heading for the ballroom and pulling the door open slowly. I want to tell her that it’s okay. That I’m okay.
“Stop!” Heavy footsteps echo down the hall.
I look up, not able to see beyond the plant. Pax races into view, stopping himself with the handle of the closing door, his body swinging just past it, feet skidding on the floor.
“Pax?”
He turns to face me. “Tabs, oh thank god, don’t go in there, please.” He walks toward me, breathing heavily. “Shit. Give me a second to catch my breath.” He hunches over, hands on his knees, gasping for air. “Pax?” I ask again.
He holds one finger up. “Eight flights of stairs,” he wheezes.
I look at Crystal. She shrugs, then takes Angela’s hand and the two step away to give us privacy. Pax straightens and comes to stand in front of me, taking each of my hands in his.
“I’ve been thinking about us,” he starts.
“Us?”
He nods, then looks me up and down. “Wow. You are stunning. This dress . . . your hair . . . honest to god, Tabs, you take my breath away.”
The walls around my heart, constructed to protect me from Pax, begin to crumble.
“He doesn’t deserve you.”
“He—”
“Hell, Tabs, I don’t think I deserve you either, but I woke up this morning knowing that I had to give it one more shot. I had to see if I could convince you not to marry this guy. I want us to try again. You and me, we belong together. I know that deep in my soul. We fit, Tabs. And before, with the divorce, that never should have happened. We were just young and stupid.”
I raise my eyebrows at him.
“Okay, I was young and stupid.” I smile. He continues, “I should have tried harder to talk to you, to find out what you were feeling, and I should have admitted I let myself get manipulated. And I don’t know if it was seeing you again, when you’re planning a wedding to someone else, that stirred up long buried emotions and something clicked. But it did, so here I am, asking you to take a chance with me. I think if you open your mind and let the past go for just a minute, you’ll realize that you and me, we’re right. We’regood.”
I remain silent, waiting to see if he’ll continue.
“Here, wait, I made a list.” He pats his front pants pockets, then digs in the interior pockets of his suit coat before pulling out a folded piece of paper that looks a lot like a torn piece from a tourism flyer and hands it to me.
I open it.
Reasons Tabs and I are a great match.
1. The sex is fucking fantastic.
2. We get along.
2. Compatibility
