“Cancelled?” I taste metal. Alarm digs its nails into the back of my neck. “Where is Cora?”
“She took the car…said she was going to pick up a couple things for the wedding.” She looks back at me and must see the look on my face because her expression scrunches up. “Why? Is something wrong?”
“No.” I smile politely. “I’ll be back.”
I scale the stairs two at a time. When I get to Cora’s room, I throw the door open. Her bed is made. Her luggage is gone. On the bedspread sits a single sheet of paper, folded over to make a tent.
Cora is gone, but she’s left behind two words.
Ray,
I’m sorry.
-C
I dash out of her room, down the stairs, and out the door. I ignore Roxanne calling my name. I leap off the porch and run. I kick up dirt as I race through the grass, up the hill. I run until I get to the top and, there, I check my phone.
The reception is bleak, but it’s there. I call Cora. Once. Twice. Nothing but her voicemail. You just missed Cora West, sorry about your luck. Leave a message—
My heart is pounding out of my chest. I try to catch my breath. I call the only other person I can think to call and put the phone to my ear.
The dial tone chirrs. And chirrs.
“Dammit, Susie, pick up!”
26
Susie
My phone buzzes on the table. I reach over to pick it up, but I’m too slow.
Ace swipes it first, and he pulls it to his side of the table. He checks the contact. “Braxton,” he recites. “A new boyfriend?”
“That’s none of your business.” I hold my palm open for him. “Phone.”
He tucks it into his slacks. “Whatever it is, it’ll be there when we’re done here.”
I let out a short breath. “And what exactly are we doing here again?”
After running into him on the sidewalk, Ace managed to—somehow—drag me into the small local café right next door. So we sit across from each other, sipping coffee, while Thom hosts my wedding brunch.
None of this feels right. I feel like a ghost in my own body as I stare across the table at Ace. Ace has always been easy on the eyes. He’s tall enough to be a basketball player, with sky-blue eyes and coiffed blond hair. He’s wearing a navy blue turtleneck and suede jacket. I don’t know how he pulls these things off—he just does. And that’s the beauty of being Ace Soren. Life just falls into his lap.
But there are things I notice now that I think, maybe, I didn’t notice before. There’s a fault in his smile, a crooked edge that tapers off into a frown. The edges of his eyes are glass sharp. There are no creases in his face, as though he’s never spent a night in his life worrying about the consequences of his actions.
Or maybe I’m just seeing what I want to see. It wouldn’t be the first time. I set my fingers around the ceramic coffee cup and twist it back and forth.
Ace sighs and reaches across the table. His fingertips linger on my wrist, stopping me from fidgeting. “Susie…I had to see you. I couldn’t let that be the last time we saw each other.”
“How did you even find me?” I ask.
“Thom told me.”
Of course he did. Apparently, he’s making it a habit now to stab me in the back.
“Don’t take it out on him, buttercup. I forced it out of him. Besides…I think he knew that you deserved closure.”
“Why now?” I pull back from his touch and set my hands in my lap instead. “I cried about you. For a year. You didn’t think to pick up the phone then?”
He sighs deeply and his eyes avert, hitting the table. At least it’s good to know he can feel even a little shame. “I’m not proud of it. Any of it.”
“Good. Because it was mean. You left me at the altar. It’s…very, very mean.”
I can’t think of a more perfect word than mean. I want to say it over and over until he gets it. Mean, mean, mean.
He broke my heart and ran. Who does that?
Ace tilts forward and shifts his chair over so he’s sitting beside me instead of across from me. This close, it’s hard to avoid eye contact, so I don’t. Not even when his hand reaches out and touches my shoulder. “It was a strange time for me. I admit that. They’d just cast me in Kiss of the Vampire II; there was a lot of fanfare around it, and I got caught up in it. The thought of getting married and locked into New York…well. I couldn’t do it.”
“So you should’ve said that,” I counter. “I could have handled it.”
Ace lets out a breathy laugh. “Right.”
“I could!” His skepticism makes me stubborn. “I would’ve taken that over standing at the altar waiting for someone who never showed up—!”
“Settle down,” Ace murmurs.
I realize then that people are looking at us. I’m making a scene. Again.
Crazy lady in aisle two. I should have never taken this assignment. I should have never left my bed. At least then I wouldn’t be sitting side by side with Ace, having this conversation.
“Look,” Ace sighs. “After I left you…I went to LA.”
“Good for you,” I say blandly. I don’t want to hear this story. I don’t care. Still, maybe out of habit or politeness, I ask, “How’d that go?”
“Terrible. I couldn’t land a single audition.”
“Sounds like life was really hard for you after you left me.” Not that I’m preening or anything. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
“The truth is…I didn’t belong there.” Oh no. His hand is on my thigh now. Those blue eyes look into mine intensely, and I feel that fluttering sensation in my chest. “I belong right here. With you, Susie.”
Cue dry lips, tight throat. I take a sip from my coffee to distract myself, but my hands are shaking, and a little a bit of the liquid dribbles over the side of the cup and onto the saucer.
“You can’t just…say that,” I tell him.
“I can. And I did.”
“No, I mean…” I lift my hand. “You can’t come crawling back to me just because your first plan didn’t work the way you wanted it to. I’m not plan B. I don’t want to be the woman you settle for.”
The edge of his mouth tucks away into the corner. “Please. We were both settling.”
Now my mouth is agape. “Excuse me?”
“Susie. Don’t pretend this is all my fault. You were so in love with the idea of being married, you would’ve said yes to the first guy who got on a knee.”
“That’s not true!”
Ace sighs and leans back in his chair, as though my inability to see things his way is positively exhausting. “You were obsessed with the idea of having a perfect wedding. You showed me your wedding dream book on our third date.”
“I’m a wedding planner. Of course I have a dream book. You said you thought it was creative.”
“Yes. A creative way to rearrange your mania. Face it, buttercup. You were never in love with me. You were in love with the idea of getting married. And I was just the right pretty face at the right time.”