Page 54 of Worth the Risk

“I have the final design,” I tell her as someone hands me my plate.

“Oh.” April doesn’t sound enthusiastic. “I hope they didn’t toast the bagel, they always do that even when I ask them not to.”

Huh, she’s diverting the conversation to bagels.

We walk to a table and sit down to inspect our sandwiches.

“It looks not toasted today. You’re in luck,” I add and know that I can only stall for so long.

“I guess,” she replies, slightly deflated.

It seems that now is as good a time as any.

I take a deep breath. “There is something I kind of wanted to talk to you about,” I begin.

April looks up from her basket plate and the potato chip she’s playing with. “You met someone.”

I’m surprised she guessed it; she’s making it easy for me. “Yeah. How did you know?”

“You’re never around anymore, as you always have some work trip.” She shrugs her shoulder. “Is it mystery guy?”

I swallow. “It is. I lied and it wasn’t a bust at all. I just wasn’t sure where it was going.”

“I get it, maybe.” April seems unusually calm, somber even.

“I really wanted to tell you, but I needed to wrap my head around it.”

She nods slowly in understanding.

“And the thing is, I need to tell you something else.” Nerves fill me, seeping through my veins, and I feel like I may throw up, but I need to do this. Hudson and I have become the worst-kept secret since so many people know. I hope April will be understanding and maybe we can even laugh about the coincidence that Hudson is the guy I met.

“Jeff and I ended our engagement last night,” April blurts out, and tears pool in her eyes.

Oh, shit.

“What?”

This wasn’t what I had planned for today, and concern for April overpowers anything I thought of saying.

I’m quick to slide off my chair and come to sit next to her. I touch her shoulder as she wipes away a tear. “What happened?”

“I’m just not good enough to be someone’s wife,” she cries.

“That’s not true,” I say, quick to assure her. “It’s his loss.”

She wipes her cheek with the back of her hand. “Oh, come on, Piper, you never really liked Jeff.”

I tip my head to the side in doubt of how honest I should be, because yes, I didn’t quite see them as forever, but when your friend seems happy then what are you to do? “It doesn’t mean that I would want you to feel like this.”

“I feel so numb,” she wails.

I hug her and rub circles on her back. “It’ll get better, I promise.”

“Easy for you to say when you’re in the lovey-dovey stage with some hot older man.”

There’s a twist in my gut, knowing that she may hate that she just said that when she discovers the truth. Maybe we should just lay everything on the table now. Yet when I look at April and she appears so sad, I feel like it isn’t the right moment. I was so in my element that I didn’t press her when we came into the bagel shop, even when I noticed she seemed off.

My friend is in pain, and I don’t want to take the chance that I add to her temporary misery. Today is not the right time to tell her who the mystery man really is.

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