“I’ll be in the car. Please have my meal wrapped up to-go for me.”
“Uh, I think they just plated—” She stops short. “I’ll meet you down at the car.”
“De-lightful.” Crow turns back to me. “You’re interesting. I like interesting. Is your passport up-to-date?”
“Uh, yes,” I say, sounding more unsure than someone who was just in another country with a legal passport should.
He’s gone before I can say anything else.
I throw my hands up, not entirely certain of what exactly just happened. “What was that?” I mutter to myself.
“He let you order lunch, didn’t he?” a voice asks.
I turn around, and Darla is standing there with a brown bag in her hand and her nose in her phone.
“Um, yes,” I say. “I can pay for that if I—”
“That means it went well,” she says without looking up. “Did they put you in the St. Regis? The late-night room service menu is surprisingly good. Try the sweet potato fries and ask for a side of vanilla glaze.”
“Got it…” It takes a minute for what she just said to really sink in. She’s nearly gone when I say, “I’m—I’m sorry, did you just say this went well?”
She slides her cat-eye sunglasses on and glances over her shoulder. “And it so rarely does. Stay and finish your lunch. We have the room for another hour.”
As I sit back down in my seat, a waiter brings out my first course. I don’t actually know what it is, but it’s orange and I’m starving, so I scarf it down in one bite. The only time my lunch has had multiple courses is when I’ve gone back for a second grilled cheese.
I scoop my cell phone out of my bag to face the music. Normally, in a restaurant like this, I’d be embarrassed to even reach for my phone, but considering I have a whole banquet hall to myself, my etiquette is flexible.
My finger hovers between Erica and Beck in my missed call list. Both of them are going to kill me, but I just can’t decide whose wrath will be less.
It doesn’t matter, though, because right that moment, my phone vibrates, choosing for me.
“Hi,” I say after the second ring.
“Well, I’m glad you’re alive,” Beck says. “But could you please explain to me why I’m standing here with an empty limousine.”
In the background, I can hear people asking her questions. “I’ve got her,” Beck calls out. “She finally answered.”
A distinct voice definitely belonging to Erica barks, “For Christ’s sake, where is she? Is she okay?”
“Where are you?” Beck asks me, her voice slightly nicer than Erica’s. “I’m sending a car.”
“I don’t think it would get here in time…” I say quietly.
“The helicopter, then. Whatever. We’re live in five hours.”
Honestly, I couldn’t even get there by plane if I wanted to. “I’m in New York,” I finally blurt.
“As in the state on the exact opposite side of the country?”
“The one and only.”
“You’re kidding. This is a joke. Ha-ha, Cindy. So funny.”
“I’m not. I’m sorry.”
“I need you to get your ass to the airport. Pronto. We’ll stall. I’ll helicopter you in from LAX. It’ll be great. The drama of it—”
“Beck, no. I’m not coming. I’m done.”
“But you—But what about Henry?”
“He got his wifey,” I say, my voice more venomous than I wish. “You said yourself that he wasn’t picking me. Why should I show up just to come in second place?”
“Cindy,” she says quietly.
“Beck, I have to go. I’m sorry I let you down. Tell Erica that I love her and I’m sorry. I’ll explain everything later.”
I hang up before she has a chance to say anything else. Guilt racks me completely. I knew this would hurt. I knew giving up the possibility of Henry would be excruciating, but I wasn’t prepared for what it would do to Beck and Erica.
“We don’t have to watch this,” Sierra tells me for the fifty-seventh time.
“If I don’t watch it now, I’ll just watch it later. And if I’m going to watch it at all, I’d rather it be with you.”
“Aw, babe,” she says, rocking back against the leather headboard as she touches a hand to her chest. “I’m honored to witness your pain.”
After crying through one of most delicious meals I’ve ever eaten, I showed up on Sierra’s doorstep with six pieces of pie and my lucky baby-blue Louboutins that Erica gave me for my high school graduation dangling from my fingers. It takes a certain kind of desperate to walk through a New York City apartment building barefoot, but I did not need to add climbing four flights of stairs in the tallest heels I own to my growing list of struggles today.
After we devoured the pie and I had given Sierra every awful and wonderful juicy detail about my meeting, I explained I had a room booked at the St. Regis for one more night. (I had yet to tell her I would be crashing with her in her bedroom after tonight until further notice, but surely that was implied…right?)
Sierra quickly packed an overnight bag and we splurged on a cab to take us back uptown. I don’t, by any means, consider myself to be famous, but after the brief airport run-in with the paparazzi and the live finale airing tonight, I didn’t want to take my chances with public transit.
At eight o’clock on the dot, the opening credits begin to play, and I see Chad’s familiar face. “Tonight is a very exciting night for our Before Midnight family,” he says with that fake charm. “Tonight we learn which of these lucky ladies will have won Henry’s heart…and a hundred thousand dollars. But first, let’s get a recap of the villa dates to see who sank and who swam.”
“Is this, like, the weirdest thing ever?” Sierra asks as a montage of Henry on different dates with each of us begins to roll.
It’s so bizarre to see him with Addison and Sara Claire and even Stacy, but then I see Henry and me, the wind gusting on that sailboat, and my heart stops. My wild hair ripples behind me as I laugh, tossing my head back against his chest. That was just last week, and somehow, it feels like a distant memory that I can barely hold on to.
“It feels like I’m at my own funeral, honestly.”
Sierra snorts. “For what it’s worth, I can’t imagine that Addison chick at your funeral.”
“Oh, you don’t even know. She’d be there with her fake tears and telling everyone we were best friends.”
“Ugh, what a leech.”
“Yes, thank you!” I loop my arm through hers, and if nothing else, I’m glad I get to endure this with my best friend at my side.
After a commercial break, Chad returns with Henry as they both stand on the steps of the château. Henry wears a deep navy three-piece suit with a matte black tie and matching wing tips. Somehow, television doesn’t do him justice, which is probably some sort of crime against nature, because who looks better in real life than they do on camera?
“Was he a good kisser?” Sierra asks. “He’s, like, daytime-soap hot.”