Somehow, I knew that we both knew that line was complete and utter bullshit. Eric never slept through anything.
I pulled out my phone and texted him again while Katie tried to call him for the tenth time.
ME: WTF!!!
ME: Where are you?
ME: Mother fucker, I know you aren’t passed out drunk somewhere.
ME: Answer me!
I saw Katie repeatedly saying the word “okay” into her phone, but she wasn’t looking at me. Almost like she was too embarrassed to look me in the eyes right now.
I looked back at my phone and saw the three dots indicating typing, then they disappeared and immediately came back up. Finally, I was getting an answer on what the actual fuck was going on.
ERIC: I’m sorry.
ERIC: I can’t do this. I don’t want to get married. Can’t we go back to the way things were?
ME: Are you FUCKING kidding me?
ERIC: I don’t want to marry you.
ME: Go fuck yourself. Get your shit, and get out of my apartment.
ERIC: It’s our apartment.
ME: And everything’s in my name. Kindly go fuck yourself gently with a chainsaw.
I wanted to hurl my phone at the wall, but instead, I hurled myself out of the room.
“Fiona, where are you going?” Mom shrieked after me.
“The fucking bar!” I yelled back and hitched up the skirt of my ridiculous dress. I couldn’t even think of the fiasco this would cause for my parents. I didn’t care; I needed a drink.
I parked myself in front of the hotel bar in a huff. The bartender blinked at me in surprise. He glanced over my shoulder and then back at me. “I think you’re early?” he asked in confusion.
“It’s off,” I seethed. “Give me a whiskey.”
His face fell, and he nodded before getting to work behind the bar. He put a glass of whiskey down in front of me. “On the house, Miss.”
I shook my head. “Oh, no, don’t pity me.”
He pushed the glass closer to me. “I insist.”
I cocked my head at him. He was kind of cute with his spiky blond hair and five o’clock shadow. Maybe I should fuck him just to get back at Eric. Maybe it was the fact that my sex life had been lacking in the past couple months that I was entertaining the idea of sleeping with a stranger. I took the drink and downed it in one fell swoop. I looked at my phone and saw more texts from Eric.
ERIC: I was happy before, but I don’t see why we had to get married.
ERIC: Marriage is stupid. We don’t want kids.
ERIC: Fi, don’t be this way. I know you don’t want this wedding either.
I frowned but noticed my drink had been refilled. The cute bartender winked at me, and I nodded my head at him in thanks.
The truth was we hadn’t decided that we didn’t want kids; Eric had decided that and never gave me the chance to really think about it. I had been fine with that because I had loved him, but the fact that he didn’t want to go through with the wedding either meant he didn’t love me. How could I expect him to be committed to me if he didn’t show up on our wedding day? PLUS! Canceling all of this shit was going to cost a shit ton of money. I didn’t even want to think about it. My dad was going to be livid if he wasn’t already. I might need to get him a whole bottle of whiskey to apologize. Maybe even a freaking case.
I maddeningly typed out my response into my phone.
ME: AGAIN, how about you go fuck yourself, you fucking asshat? I can’t believe you did this to me. We are DONE. Have a good life, Eric!
My phone was blowing up with texts from guests wondering what was going on, but the only one I looked at was Riley’s.
ME: Don’t come.
RILEY: What’s going on?
ME: Wedding’s off. Don’t come. I’m sorry, I know it was hard for you to get here with your hockey schedule.
RILEY: Where are you?
ME: Bar.
I put my head in my hands and finished off my second glass of whiskey. I put my phone down and decided answering all those texts was not what I was going to do right now. When I pulled my hands away, my eyeliner was smudged on my hand, along with some wetness. Great, I was the crying bride left at the altar drinking alone at the bar.
Way to be a cliche, Fiona!
A glass of water and another whiskey was placed in front of me. “You want to start a tab?” the bartender asked me.
Before I could answer, a deep voice from behind me said, “Yeah, put it on my card.”
I turned to take in Riley in all his glory. He looked great in a suit, his broad shoulders and thick biceps filling it out nicely. His blond hair was tousled in that ‘I couldn’t care less’ style that meant he spent a long time on it. I’d only seen him a few times this year; with his professional hockey career and my writing career, we were both traveling a lot and rarely in the same city. But damn, he looked good today, filling out that suit tailored specifically for him. I felt heat pool in my lower belly, but maybe it was just from all the whiskey. I definitely wasn’t remembering all those times in high school when Riley’s mouth had been on mine. Definitely not.
Riley slid onto the stool next to me and ordered a beer. When the bartender handed him the bottle, that’s when he turned to me and pulled me into a big bear hug. Maybe that’s all I needed because I relaxed into his strong arms, leaning my face against his hard chest. But then I started crying again. To his credit, Riley was a good sport who let me cry on his shoulder
