“But you proposed—”
“Yes. Because you kept pointing out wedding bands you liked.”
My mouth falls open, but no words come out. “I…pressured you into a wedding?”
“You want to be married. You didn’t get it and now…you’ve learned from it. It was a learning experience. For both of us.”
A learning experience. The way he says it, it’s like he did me a favor leaving me at the altar, only to come racing back into my life a year later.
Ace reaches out and takes my hand. A smile cuts across his mouth. “Come on. What do you say? Perhaps the second time is the charm…”
Ace is close suddenly, very close, his lips only inches away from mine. Startled, I jump back. I upset my coffee mug, and it jumps out of the saucer, spilling out on the table.
Ace gets to his feet quickly. God help anyone if his slacks get coffee stains on them, after all. I try to clean it up, and he grabs a handful of napkins, shoving them at me.
“Do you need any help?” he asks, only after I’ve cleaned most of it up.
“No, I’ve got it.” I mop any residual coffee and toss the soiled napkins in the trash can.
“Maybe you should think about this,” Ace says as he lingers near me. “I’ve booked a hotel room. You can come over tonight, and we can talk…”
“No,” I say abruptly. “There’s nothing to discuss.” I sigh and rake my fingers through my frizzy hair. “Look…I’ve got a wedding tomorrow morning I need to prepare for.”
His eyebrows knit. “Yours?”
“No! Not mine…a wedding I’m planning. It’s not important—it’s over. You and me.” I gesture between the two of us. “I don’t love you. And maybe you’re right, maybe I never did…maybe I just liked the idea of being married. And that’s on me. But I’ll never be someone’s second choice. So.” I extend a hand. “Good luck on your acting career.”
He looks at my hand and looks utterly confused, as though it’s a foreign object. Finally, he smiles, as though this is all hilarious, and takes my hand and gives it a shake. “Good luck on your wedding. I’d love to see you in action.”
“I’m sure as soon as the wedding march begins, there’ll be an Ace Soren–shaped hole in the side of the barn.” I pull my hand back and dust the feeling of his palm off on the side of my pants. “Now. You have my phone.”
“Oh, right.” Ace retrieves my phone from his back pocket and holds it out for me to take. “Take care of yourself, Susie,” he adds.
“That’s exactly what I’m doing,” I tell him.
I turn and I walk away. I don’t look back, not even once I’ve pushed through the café doors and stepped outside. Admittedly, there is something satisfying about walking away from him for once.
Still, the conversation weighs on me. Maybe I should feel lighter, like a weight is lifted off my chest, but instead I feel like my feet are made of lead. I can only walk a couple of feet before I feel like I have to sit down. There’s a white painted bench outside of the restaurant where everyone is still brunching, and I plop down on it.
I can’t tell if I want to cry, laugh, or scream. So I just stare at the pavement for a second and wait to see what comes out first.
As I’m sitting there, a shadow comes over me. “Room for one more?”
I glance up and I see Ray standing there, his signature cowboy hat crooked on his head. I draw a light smile at the familiar face. “Yeah…of course.”
I scoot over and make room for him to sit down.
Ray shares the bench with me and stretches back against it. “So I hear you all had quite a wild night last night.”
“Yeah, the girls had fun.”
“Too much fun, apparently. Cora wouldn’t get out of bed this morning. I let her sleep through the brunch.”
I guess I’m not surprised we had one casualty. Still, of all people, the bride shouldn’t be the one stuck in bed all day. I feel my mouth screw downward, and then I say, “I’m sorry. I should’ve been watching her.”
Ray just scrunches his eyebrows at me. “Don’t be sorry. I’m glad she had a fun time of it.” He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a cigarette. No, not quite—it’s an electric cigarette. When he takes a puff of it, a small cloud of vapor escapes the tip, which burns neon blue.
“It’s a crazy thing, huh?” he says and motions to the e-cig. “I used to smoke the real thing, but it turns out that’s just one vice too many. I told Cora I’d cut it out, so she got me one of these things.” He balances it between his fingers and flicks the end habitually as though knocking off ash from the tip. “It’s not half-bad if you ask me.”
I smile lightly at that. “You must really love Cora,” I tell him.
“Oh, yeah,” he agrees and nods. “I’d do anything for that little lady.”
“Tell me about it,” I say and curl my knees up to my chest. My heart aches for a happy story right now. “When did you know it was the real thing?”
“That first day.” He must see me screw up my face, because he holds up a hand and says, “Hear me out. You don’t know the whole story.”
“I want to know it. All of it. Spare no details.” Right now, Ray and Cora are my only champions for Real True Love left in this world, and I’m clinging onto them by my nails.
“I met her at a party…we both had this mutual friend. The truth of it was, she wasn’t there for me.”
“Wasn’t she?”
“Hell no. You keep that detail to yourself—she’d die if she knew I told you.” He takes another blue-tipped suck of vapor. “She was trying to make it with the host of the party. He’s this real handsome, socialite kind of guy. Can’t say I really blame her—I’d probably go for him if I swung that way myself. Anyhow, this fella knows how to party, so she spent the whole night trying to impress him, knocking back shots, drinking all this expensive liquor. And I’m watching the whole thing, right? Cora and I, we talk a little, but not much more. I don’t think she was real interested in me, not right away.”
I rest my head in the palm of my hand as I listen to his story. “How did you convince her?”
“Blueberry pancakes.”
I let out a laugh. “What does that mean?”
“She got real drunk by the end of the party. I mean, sweet Cora was a hit. So me, being a gentleman, escorted her home. I made sure she was all tucked away. And then I spent the night on the couch…you know. Just in case she needed anything.”
“Did she?”
“No. She was out like a light. The next morning, though, I figured I’d make her something to settle her stomach. Blueberry pancakes. I used whipped cream to make a little smiley face on it and everything. That was the first thing we bonded over, those pancakes.”
“And what did she do?”
“She cried. Big, dopey tears. Not the pretty cry either. Said it was the nicest thing anyone’d ever done for her.” He shakes his head at the recollection and laughs. “I fell in love with her. Right then and there. Never looked back.”