Page 102 of Crash and Burn

"Aaawkward," Connor drawled and Quinn nudged him in the ribs with her elbow.

The next time I snuck a glance, Grant was gone.

"Isn't that right, Lizzy?" Mason said.

I lifted my head at the sound of my name. "What?"

"We might need to hire another new person," Mason said. "Because you're thinking of going back to school to be a paralegal."

"Oh. That." I hadn't told anyone yet. I contemplated whether to announce it, wondering if this was the right time, then decided to go for it. "I'm not going back to school," I told them. "I have another plan."

"Oh?" Bree blinked at me with excited curiosity. "What is it?"

"I'm going to launch my own fashion line." Despite the terrible ache in my chest I couldn't stop my lips from curling into a smile. “I’ll still work at Sin and Tonic on the side, but this is going to be my main focus now. It will be a lot of hard work, but I want to try.”

The reaction was instantaneous. Wide smiles and cheers rose from my group of friends as they all raised their glasses in a toast and clapped me on the back.

"That's amazing," Bree beamed. "Good for you."

"How cool is that?" Evan grinned.

"I'm proud of you," Mason said.

The ache in my heart receded a bit.

"Thanks, guys," I said. "Your support means a lot."

But the one person who I should have been able to count on for support wasn't there with us. If things had been different, if Grant had made different choices, he would have been there to congratulate me and to celebrate with our friends. I felt too keenly the gaping void where his presence should have been.

“Tell us more about this new fashion thing,” Bree said, clearly ready to change the topic. "Whatever happened to that one guy you were working with?"

I pursed my lips, then attempted to smooth my face, not wanting to frown.

"It didn't work out," I said simply.

“Oh? Why not?” she asked.

I really didn’t want to get into it. I caught sight of another server with drinks, so I nodded my head over to them.

“I’m going to get another drink,” I said. “I’ll be right back.”

I weaved through the crowd toward the server. I didn’t really want another flute of Champagne, but it gave me an excuse to extricate myself from the conversation before anyone could pry further. The last thing I wanted to talk about was Carling.

Or, perhaps I should have said, the second last thing.

Because I turned a corner to follow the server and ran into a crying Alana. She was hidden out of sight by a pillar.

I’d thought she’d stomped off and left after Grant told her she hadn’t been invited. But she was still here, her eyes red and her jaw set with a grim expression.

I tried to subtly back away before she saw me, but something must have caught her eye because she looked over to me with a start. Her expression twisted into anger, then a resigned sort of misery.

“It’s you,” she said flatly. “Did you come to gloat?”

“No,” I told her. I didn’t know what else to say.

“Well, you should,” she said. “You won.”

“I wasn’t aware this was a competition.”