Page 78

TWENTY-THREE
Skylar felt like she’d been sucker punched in the gut. He met someone? She thought maybe his news was that he was finally walking away from the firm or maybe that he realized he was hopelessly in love with her. Not this. Not someone new. Not again.
She knew her face probably gave away exactly how she was feeling in that instant, but she summoned all the strength within to pretend it didn’t bother her. “You met someone?” Her voice caught a little.
Gus high fived Franky. “All right! Where’d you meet?”
“I went out for drinks with some work colleagues, and she was there. Turns out, she’s one of the new corporate attorneys at the firm.” Skylar hated the way his face lit up as he talked about this woman. “We started talking and ended up totally closing the place down.”
“Sounds like you really got along,” Merritt said.
“Yeah.” Gus put his arm around Merritt. “Sounds a lot like us. We talked all night when we first met.”
“Yeah, it was definitely one of those kinds of nights. Her name’s Ivy, and she’s awesome.” Franky smiled over at Skylar, and she felt like throwing up. “I’m inviting her to the wedding.”
Franky turned away when his father asked him a question, and Skylar was thankful for that because there was no way she could hide her devastation.
“Will you excuse me?” Skylar said to nobody in particular as she pushed back her chair and bolted down the hallway for the bathroom, tears spilling over as she walked.
“Sky,” Merritt whispered loudly from behind her.
She wiped at her cheeks and turned to her sister-in-law. “It’s stupid. I don’t even know why I’m crying.”
“Because you like Franky. It’s obvious.”
Skylar’s eyes widened as she glanced down the hallway. “Please, don’t say anything.”
Merritt took her arm and led her into the bathroom for privacy. “Talk to me.”
Skylar blew out a breath and rested her back against the bathroom door as she proceeded to fill Merritt in on her longtime crush on Franky and the timeline of their friendship. “Since he came back to town last summer, we’ve gotten really close. He’s become my best friend, and it felt like things were changing between us.” She covered her face with her hands and groaned. She hated everything about this. He’d met someone new. What was she going to do now?
“Hey, maybe it won’t work out with this Ivy person.”
Skylar let her arms drop to her sides. “I don’t know. How am I going to get through the wedding seeing him with another girl?”
Merritt reached out and touched her arm. “I’ll be there if you need to talk or hide out, whatever you need.”
“Thank you, Merritt. It’s nice to have someone to talk to about this. My brothers would tease me if they knew. I’m so happy to have a sister.”
Merritt smiled, and they returned to the dinner table. Skylar felt calmer, knowing her new sister had her back.
When the meal was finished, the parents retired to the family room to visit, and the four of them remained at the table to talk. Franky did most of the talking when he and Gus started sharing travel stories, of which Franky had many. But Skylar wasn’t in the mood to talk. In fact, she barely heard anything he was saying. Her mind was stuck on the fact that he was asking this Ivy woman to be his date to her brother’s wedding. And he had ditched her. She couldn’t believe he’d done that. They had made plans to go together, and he had changed things without even considering how she would feel about it. It felt like the Christmas party all over again.
After Gus and Merritt turned in for the night, she and Franky headed out.
“So …” He broke the awkward silence that hung between them in the car.
“Is that what you wanted to tell me?” Skylar asked. “About the woman you met?”
“Yeah. I wasn’t going to tell you like that, but when your mom mentioned Sebastian’s wedding and Gus asked if I was going, it just came out.”
An awkward silence fell over them.
“She’s really great, Sky.”
“When did you meet?”
“A month ago.”