“Alex who?” she asked, forcing her so-called best friend to confirm her fears.
Bella gave her an exasperated look. “My brother, of course. Who else would I be talking about?”
“Alex has more sense than—”
Ah.
The pieces fell into place.
“What did you tell him?” Charley asked.
Bella shrugged. A sure sign that her best friend had told her brother all about the most humiliating thing that had ever happened to her. “I just said that your date fell through.”
“You go to hell for lying, Bells.”
“What does it matter what I told him. The fact is he wants to take you to the wedding.”
Want was definitely the wrong word.
If she knew Bella—and she did—she knew her friend wouldn’t take no for an answer. So what she’d set up for her was a pity date with a reluctant suitor.
“Call him back. Let him off the hook.”
Bella shook her head. “No.”
“There’s no way I’m going to the wedding with Alex. I know you forced him to take me.”
Bella crossed her arms, a sure indicator she wasn’t going to give in. “Charlotte,” she said in the same tone Charley’s mother used whenever she said or did something annoying.
“I’m going by Charley again.”
Bella smiled, as if she’d just turned some miraculous corner.
She hadn’t.
Charley just couldn’t stand to hear her own God-given name anymore because of…him.
Ben Jerome, the world’s biggest dickhead.
It had been Ben’s suggestion that everyone start calling her Charlotte, insisting Charley was a childish nickname and no one would view her as an adult if she kept answering to it.
She could see now it was just another quiet, insidious way he’d tried to mold her into what he wanted her to be rather than accepting her for who she was.
Bella had tried to point all those things out to her the last few months—from her new feminine attire to selling her beloved, beat-up pickup truck to dumping her nickname—but Charley had refused to acknowledge any of it, foolishly believing that true love took work and compromise.
What she’d failed to see until the veil was pulled away last night was that she was the one bending over backwards to accommodate him, while Ben hadn’t changed one single thing for her.
Cheating, son of a bitch, motherfucker.
Bella came over to the couch and sat down next to Charley. She reached for the wine bottle and took a big swig. “Welcome back, Charley.”
Charley leaned over and put her head on her best friend’s shoulder, fighting the urge to cry.
She never cried.
Like neeeeever, but there was a fat lump in her throat right now that told her she was in danger.
Bella wrapped her arm around her shoulders and squeezed comfortingly. Charley had always been more at home in a big group of guys than with girls.
Bella was the one exception. She always had been. She’d been her best friend forever—something Charley chalked up to an opposites-attract kind of thing. Bella was uber-girlie, while she was hardcore tomboy, and yet it worked.
“Vegas is going to suck.”
Bella sighed. “No, it’s not. You do realize people come here for more than just the tacky chapels and eloping.”
“I know, but…I really thought…”
“What are you most upset about, Charley? Losing Ben or finding out he was cheating on you?”
Until Bella asked the question, Charley had never considered that what she was calling a broken heart might actually be wounded pride and disappointment. Ben had made a fool of her, and feeling stupid pissed her off.
“He was my first boyfriend. My first…my only…”
Her confession explained nothing.
Or maybe everything.
“I know. And I know how much you always wanted to date—in high school and college.”
“Guys never looked at me like a girl they’d ask out. I was always the confidante or another freaking buddy. Ben…liked me. At least at the beginning. I think.”
Bella tightened her arm around Charley, no small feat considering Charley had her by a good six inches. Bella was petite and curvy, while Charley was all long limbs and sharp angles. “He did like you. In all fairness to him, I think he even loved you. But it boils down to this—you challenged him. Beverly never will. And because he’s shallow and selfish and lazy, he’s chosen the path of least resistance. You deserve better than that. You deserve someone who sees all the things I see—how funny, smart, sensitive, spontaneous, and real you are.”
“I haven’t been very real lately.”
Somehow, slowly, over the past year or so, Ben had drawn her away from her friends and into his circle.
Instead of chugging beer at a sports bar while watching hockey on the big screen, her evenings had turned to cocktail parties and wine tastings, discussing politics, as Ben schmoozed his way into a partnership at the accounting firm.
And instead of dropping everything to go on a long hike or a spontaneous road trip just because it was a sunny spring day, their lives had suddenly become planned down to the second, all impulsiveness snuffed out in favor of routine.
Charley sucked at routine.
“You made a rookie mistake, Charley. You thought changing would make Ben love you. That’s something girls have been doing since the beginning of time. And if we’re being really honest, you decided making those changes would be easier than looking for someone better suited to you.”
Bella had a knack for calling things as she saw them.
It was why Charley loved her so much.
Except for now. When she preferred being pissed off and blaming Ben for everything rather than forcing herself to do some serious introspection.
Bella wasn’t wrong, but Charley was in too much of a mood to tell her so.
Of course, Bella didn’t need those words.
Smug woman knew she was right.
“So now, you have experience under your belt. It’s time to find a man who will love you for you, and if he can’t, instead of changing yourself, you’ll kick him to the curb and move on to the next one.”
“Yeah. Right. Because I have a line of guys just waiting to ask me out.” Charley meant that sarcastically, but hearing it out loud, she realized she just sounded pathetic.
“You have a date tomorrow night.”
She scoffed. “That doesn’t count.”
“Make it count.”
Bella’s comment took her aback, and she struggled to understand her best friend’s intentions. “Are you pimping me out to your brother or your brother out to me?”
Bella laughed loudly. “God. This is what I’m talking about, Charley. No one ever has to guess where they stand with you. You have a question or a thought, you just say it. I wish I had half of your boldness.”
It was the first time Bella had ever confessed to wishing she were like Charley.
Truth was Bella was the cool girl in school, the one every other female in their class tried to emulate—except Charley, of course.
Charley could never pull off Bella’s kind of cool and never wanted to. It required too much time in front of a mirror or at the mall.
“You’re bold,” Charley said, not sure how else to respond.