Orion grunted and lifted his phone. “She just sent me a load of gibberish telling me the wedding is off. I guess that’s all I need to know. I mean, there’s a lot the public doesn’t understand about little-miss-perfect, Ursula Pennington.”
Little miss perfect? Ha.
“I’m sure that’s true,” Everett agreed, keeping his voice flat and diplomatic. “I’m sure the world will never really understand your relationship.”
“No way. It’s so complicated. We’re different, Ursula and me, but we’re also the same in so many ways. It’s why I don’t even know if I want to fight her on this decision. If she wants out, she wants out. I have to let her fly.”
Orion knocked back the rest of his whiskey and then shuddered. A tear fell from the corner of his left eye. “I just don’t know what I’m going to do without her, you know? We’ve been together for almost two years. It feels like a lifetime.”
Everett imagined saying this to Charlotte later. The kid thinks two years together is a lifetime. Wait till he figures out what a lifetime actually means!
“I understand that,” Everett said, nodding. “Is there any chance—just off-hand—that you might have, I don’t know, cheated on her?”
Orion’s eyes nearly popped out of his head. “What?”
“I mean, on your bachelor weekend. Ursula seems to think something might have happened. Maybe this is part of the reason she’s getting cold feet?”
Orion burst up from his chair and marched his seven-foot-tall body over to the drink table. As he poured another glass of whiskey for himself, he barked at his friend near the window. “Baxter. Did anything happen in Malibu? Anything I might have done or said?”
“No way, man. You told us all how much you loved Ursula. Way too many times, actually,” Baxter said. His voice was bored, and his eyes didn’t leave his phone as he said it. But it was proof enough for Orion.
“See? I swear, that girl drives me crazy, but I want to marry her. Still, I’m not an idiot enough to run after her. If she wants to end it, then it’s over. Here we are, in the middle of literally nowhere...” He stretched his hand out toward the snow-capped Martha’s Vineyard out the window. “And the girl of my dreams tells me she never wants to see me again. I’m man enough to admit that there’s no going back.”
Everett tilted his head. He had to find a way to butter this guy up. Obviously, he and Charlotte had these two crazy, ego-driven celebrities in front of them, and they had to convince them both to do what they actually wanted to do—get married—to ensure that their careers could continue to flourish.
It shouldn’t have been this hard.
“Do you believe in second chances?” Everett asked spontaneously.
Orion looked as though he had never been asked a question like that before. He took several moments to contemplate his answer.
“I think I do,” he said finally. “But only if the person is really perfect for you. Only if you’re okay with making the same mistakes, over and over again.”
“But what if you don’t make those mistakes? It’s a little like playing a video game, right? You play the first round, and then you die somehow. The next time you play, you know to avoid that pitfall, and you keep going. You find a new kingdom or a better route or...” Everett shrugged.
Orion seemed in-tune with this idea. “That’s such a good analogy.”
“Agreed,” his friend by the window called out, his eyes still on his phone.
“Have you ever fought for anything as hard as that?” Orion asked Everett.
Everett hadn’t expected the big-time sports star to ask him a question in return.
“Honestly? No,” Everett stated.
“I see. So you’re spouting a lot of logic that you don’t know anything about,” Orion said.
Everett laughed. “I guess I am.”
“Then why should I believe you?”
“I don’t know. Maybe you shouldn’t,” Everett said, shrugging his shoulders before he continued. “I do think that, if I ever found something worthy enough to fight for, I would do all I could to keep it. At least, I have to believe that about myself.”
Orion considered this. “Do you think I’ll regret marrying her?”
“I think you’ll regret never knowing what would happen after you walked down the aisle and said those vows,” Everett said.
Orion looked confused. He poured a second glass of whiskey and passed it over to Everett, who thanked him. Orion finally collapsed back in his chair and leaned forward. Outside, the snow continued to fall from the sky.
“I don’t know. I don’t want to seem pathetic,” Orion confessed.
“How many things do we do in this life, just so people don’t think we’re lame or dumb or pathetic?” Everett asked, arching an eyebrow.
“I’m in the public eye, dude,” Orion stated. “Everyone looks at me and talks about what I’m doing. A million tweets will be sent about what happens today, probably more. It’s enough to make my brain break.”
“Okay. You’re right. I can’t ever really put myself in your shoes,” Everett said.
Orion made heavy eye contact with him for a long moment. “I appreciate you trying, though, man. Really. I do. It’s a rare thing in this world.”
Chapter Twenty
The guests began to arrive for pre-wedding drinks around three in the afternoon. As far as Charlotte knew, Ursula remained in her suite, drinking bubbly champagne and crying to her mother about “the state of the world” and “how hard it was to be a celebrity.” Naturally, Charlotte couldn’t poke any holes into those arguments. She imagined it was rather difficult. Still, it annoyed her that this was meant to be her big break, she had dragged all her family members into this mess, and now they stood, almost all of them, in a big and beautifully decorated ballroom, wondering what was supposed to happen next.
Lola appeared beside her and arched her brow. “So Christine says she was just standing on the Joseph Sylvia Beach? Looking at the water?”
“In her wedding dress,” Charlotte affirmed. “Yep.”
“Is she
