Page 79 of The Grump I Loathe
“I don’t want to get back up!” she snapped. “I’m sick of getting back up and looking on the bright side and smiling when everything is falling apart! So if that’s what you’re here to tell me to do, you can just leave!”
The force of the outburst shocked me. Alannah had never yelled at me like this before. But when my surprise wore off, I realized she was right. It wasn’t helping her to tell her everything would be okay when I didn’t know if it would.
“I’m not gonna leave,” I said softly. “But if you want to sit here and be sad, we can do that.” I opened my hand, laying it next to her, palm up, and after a beat, Alannah took it, sobbing silently.
“I don’t know if I can go back out there,” she admitted after a while, wiping her nose on her arm. “Every time I close my eyes, all I hear is Mom and Dad fighting. It’s louder than the music.”
“Then we can leave,” I said. “We’ll find something else to do. Something fun.”
Alannah sighed. “Fun isn’t going to fix how I feel.”
I stared at her, blinking back the weight of my own tears. I related to that more than I wanted to admit. “You’re right, you know. Fun helpsfor a bit, but the pain is still there. Even this long after Dad and my mom got divorced, it still hurts.”
Alannah’s lips turned down.
“But,” I said, still scrounging for some bright side, “that doesn’t mean it was all bad. If my parents had stayed together, I never would have gotten to meet you. So I know you don’t want me to tell you to look on the bright side. And I totally get that. Butyouare a bright side for me.”
That got a small smile out of Alannah.
“But however you want to handle this,” I said, “I’ll support you. If you need me to sneak you out a side door, I’ll do that. If you want me to drive you back to the hotel, I can. If you want to keep sitting here, we can do that, too.”
Alannah caught her lip between her teeth, her shoulder lifting. “I guess I still have to do my beam routine.”
My eyes widened. “You want to go back out there?”
She ran her hands over her knees. “I think so. But maybe I want to change my music. The bouncy music doesn’t feel right. Not today.”
“Okay, music I can definitely help with,” I said, pulling out my phone to scroll through Spotify. When we’d narrowed down the song choice, we made our way back to her team, and I watched from the sidelines as Alannah climbed onto the balance beam.
I held my breath, hoping her earlier mistake wouldn’t affect her performance now. As I watched her move through position after position, I was caught by the emotion of the ballad she’d chosen.
She was right. Bouncy pop music didn’t match how I felt, either. My little sister was miserable. I was being forced to watch my dad torpedo another family he’d built. And maybe part of me wasdreading this wedding tomorrow. Not because I didn’t want to go, but because I wanted to be attendingwithConnor.
As his plus-one.
As the person he’d gaze at on the dance floor as the rest of the world fell away.
The music crescendoed, and a knot caught in my chest. I rubbed at the ache, a terrifying realization dawning. I’d fallen for Connor. I wasin lovewith him.
I’d promised to get out before I compromised myself, but it was too late. I was already compromised. And just like Alannah felt like she was losing everything with this divorce, I knew I could stand to lose just as much if my relationship with Connor fell apart.
24
CONNOR
“Whiskey on the rocks,” I said to the bartender at the wedding reception.
“Wanna make it a double?”
I shook my head. I was taking things slow. One, because it was my job to be Grace’s dance partner tonight. Two, because I’d rather not be hungover when I had to get us back to San Francisco tomorrow. And three, I needed to have my head in the game should any of Ali’s industry guests want to talk shop.
I took my glass and sipped the amber liquor, watching Leigh spin Grace around on the dance floor. I wasn’t having an awful time, but I certainly wasn’t enjoying spending my night at my ex’s wedding. Frankly, I’d rather be hanging out with Eddie and Grace in the hotel room, watching some crappy reality TV and eating our way through a king-sized bag of M&M’s.
Speaking of Eddie…I tried to find her in the crowd. I’d been as careful as I could not to let my gaze linger too long, not to give anyone reason to question what might be going on between us, but it hadn’t been easy to look away from her when she was so gorgeous.
The glittery, midnight-blue dress she wore clung to her hips in a way that demanded attention.Myattention. I wanted to run my hands over her curves and pull her close and inhale the sweetness of her skin as I twirled her around the dance floor.
I frowned. What the hell was I thinking? What the hell was I doing? Letting my eyes linger in the hopes of getting a glimpse of our secret little spy signal?
