Page 115 of The Wedding Menu

The phone lights up with another call, and this time I pick up. If this is the last time, I want to hear his voice too.

He releases a deep breath as soon as I pick up. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Amelie. I should have said no, I know I should have, but—”

“It’s not your fault, Ian.”

“It is. You’re obviously going through something. I shouldn’t have said yes—I just…” He lets out a long exhale. “I have no self-control when it comes to you. I’m sorry.”

“I’msorry,” I whisper. Tears keep raining down my cheeks, but I’m not sobbing anymore. I don’t want that to be the last image of me he has. “I dragged you down in my mess.”

“I knew I was playing with fire, Amelie. And besides, I’d let you burn me anytime.”

There’s a moment of silence in which it sinks in that this is a goodbye. In which hedoesn’ttell me that the mark I left will probably burn forever. And Idon’ttell him that I’ll silently feel this way about him for the rest of my life.

It’s a depleting, consuming silence.

“Give me tonight. Just tonight, before you go back to him.”

“Tonight?” I ask, propping myself up against the headboard and grabbing a tissue from the nightstand to blow my nose.

He sighs. “Just for tonight, be mine. We’ve fucked it up anyway. But if I were there, and we had fucked it up in the right way, I’d be kissing you right now. I’d hold you between my arms, touch every bit of you, whisper words in your ear. I’d spend the night fucking it up some more and making you smile. And then I’d be gone in the morning. Let me do that.”

“Ian, I—”

“Please, Amelie. Just one night—not even an entire night. Three hours, until it’s morning. And then I swear you’ll never hear from me again. I’ll let you live your life.”

My head throbs with the first signs of a hangover, and that’s still not the most painful thing going on. Nor is the awareness that Frank and I broke up, although that’s a close second. This is the last time I’ll talk to Ian. Forever. A night with him is the least I can get.

“Yes,” I whisper.

“Yes?”

“Yes,” I repeat.

A breath of relief breaks through his lips. “Thank you.” He pauses. “So… hmm… What did you and the girls do?”

I chuckle, drying the tears off my face, although some more follow. I tell him about my day, then he tells me about his. And then we fuck it up some more, superbly. We push the sadness, the sense of guilt down. And instead we spend our last three hours together chatting, laughing, telling each other loving, beautiful lies.

Until it’s morning.

A gentle squeeze of my shoulder drags me away from a dreamless sleep. I blink a few times, waiting for the room to focus before my eyes, a knife carving the inside of my brain. When I see Frank offering me a glass of water, it all comes back to me.

The party, the fight, the night I spent with Ian. My hands pat the mattress until I find my phone, and when I turn the screen on, my heart sinks into my chest. Just like he promised, he’s gone. I fell asleep with his words in my ear, and now the call is disconnected. No new messages.

“Are you feeling better?” Frank asks.

I nod, setting my phone down and grabbing the glass of water. I drink it all in small sips, more memories making heat spark all through my body. “You—you came back.”

“Yes.” He rubs his forehead, then sits next to me on the bed. “Yes, of course I did. Last night was…”

“I think we need to talk.”

He nods, then slowly walks out of the bedroom. “I’ll make coffee.”

After I splash some cold water on my face and pull my hair back with some pins, I join him in the kitchen. There’s a cup on the table, and he points at it as he takes a seat. His shoulders are tense, his forehead furrowed. I have to tell him what happened, and this will likely be the last conversation we have. The last coffee we share. The last time we sit in our kitchen together.

“I’m sorry about last night, Ames. I really am. But at two a.m., and after I’ve had a fucking long day…” He pushes his glasses up and sighs. “I really wasn’t in the mood to discuss our sex life.” Shaking his head, he continues, “And the way you threw yourself at me—”

“Yesterday was my birthday.”