Page 11 of Love Among Vines

With that, she crossed the room and kicked the door open.

The storm of emotions was about to hit a fever pitch.

Did everyone know? Was that why Kenya was so surprised that Jade had agreed to be a bridesmaid?

Were they all just sitting around laughing about how pathetic she was and how she had no idea that her best friend had been fucking her boyfriend while her parents were barely cold in the ground?

That was it. She was leaving. She couldn’t care less if Ashley’s side looked lopsided because she was down a bridesmaid. She didn’t deserve a picture-perfect wedding. And neither did Nate.

She rounded a corner and searched the foyer. The groomsmen were here somewhere. And she had words for them.

Jade stormed out onto the patio. There he was, smoking a cigar and yukking it up with his band of idiots. She slammed the cheese platter on a cocktail table and stormed across the patio.

She was going to punch him. She would rip his tuxedo off and make him eat it. She would hoist him up by his stupid tighty whities until he admitted what he did.

He turned and made eye contact with her. His blue eyes seared into her, and she almost stopped mid-step. But he didn’t have that power over her anymore.

“We need to talk,” she said.

“Can it wait?” Nate raised an eyebrow and gestured at his surroundings with his cigar hand.

She slapped it out of his hand, and it rolled across the patio. “No. Now. Unless you’d prefer to have this conversation in front of your parents and friends.”

“Uh, okay.” He ran one hand over his slicked-back hair and followed her around the corner of the building.

“So what’s up?” He looked cool and unbothered, as always. It was infuriating.

“Ashley told me the truth.”

Nate pulled a flask out of his tux and unscrewed the top. “About what?”

“The fact that you were fucking her for a full month before we were supposed to move in together.”

He sighed. “She wasn’t supposed to say anything.”

She gaped like a goldfish. “Is that seriously all you have to say to me? We were planning to move in together. We signed a lease. And all you can say is she was supposed to hide this from me forever.”

“Look, I’m sorry, okay? I know I messed up. You were just…not yourself anymore. After the funeral and everything. It didn’t feel the same.”

“Oh, so it’s my fault that you can’t keep your dick in your pants? I’m so sorry for having a hard time after my parents died. Both of them. In the blink of an eye. Of course your only choice would be to run headlong into the first vagina you meet. Even if it belonged to my best friend.”

“I’m sorry, Jade. I don’t know what else to say. When you introduced me to Ashley, something just changed. She gets me.”

“I don’t need any more apologies from you. You don’t even feel anything, do you? At least Ashley felt bad about betraying me. But you? You’re irredeemable. I can’t believe it’s taken me this long to see it.”

She ripped the flask out of his hand and debated slamming it into his stupid face. But the Astors were a litigious family, and she couldn’t afford a lawyer.

“What’s going on over here?”

Jade jumped. Nate’s mother, Patricia Astor, rounded the corner.

She sighed when she saw them together. “I knew it was a mistake when Ashley said she was asking you to be a bridesmaid.”

Jade blinked. “Why? Because you didn’t want a middle-class nobody from Queens in the wedding pictures?”

Patricia scoffed. “Don’t be so dramatic. I knew you wouldn’t be able to handle the wedding. And frankly we don’t need the drama on Nathan’s wedding day. It’s bad enough that they’re getting married here and not at the Ritz.” She brushed a piece of lint off his tux.

“Well, I didn’t need the drama of your son cheating on me and blowing up my entire life either. So I guess we’re even.”

“You can go now, dear. We had a spare bridesmaid dress made for Nathan’s cousin. We don’t need you.”

Anger flared in her belly. Were they trying to dismiss her? Fuck that.

“No. I’m staying,” Jade said.

“What?” Nate’s nostrils flared.

She ripped open the top of the flask and chugged. Whiskey stung her throat. “I spent almost six thousand dollars to be in this stupid wedding. I’m staying. And I’m going to be in all the pictures. And you’re going to be reminded of me every day for the rest of your life.”

She made steady eye contact with Patricia and pulled out a chair that was probably meant for a parking attendant. She lowered herself down onto the seat, staring Patricia down.

Patricia inhaled sharply.

“Oops.” Jade sloshed some whiskey onto her dress.

“Come, Nathan.” Patricia put an arm around her son and steered him back to the patio.

In their absence, Jade caught her breath.

A chapter had closed here. It was time to move on. To forget about Nate and the heartbreak that followed in his wake like a thick fog.Despite her adrenaline-induced words, though, she wanted nothing more than to flee.

“Jade?”

If this was someone else coming to confront her, she was going to lose her mind. She whipped around in the chair.

Rett stood there, dressed to the nines and looking like he had just wandered off the set of a GQ photoshoot.

Her lower lip wobbled, and tears pricked her eyes. She had never been good at hiding her feelings. And here they were, ready to spill out all over some guy she had kissed one time.

“What happened?” He took her hand and pulled her up from the chair.

“Well,” she said, swiping her free hand under both eyes. “Remember that story I told you that Nate and Ashley fell in love without doing anything physical?”

Rett nodded with a frown.

She took a deep breath and continued. “Turns out it was all bullshit. It shouldn’t change anything. It’s been two years.”

His eyes softened. “But it does. Change things.”

She nodded. “I can’t believe she lied to me for two years. She was supposed to be my best friend. She was my only friend, really. Everyone else took Nate’s side in the breakup. Now I have no one.”

The future was looking lonelier and lonelier. But compared to her impending homelessness, that was the least of her problems.

Rett drew her closer. He was warm and strong. The cologne he had picked for the occasion was so much better than the pine bullshit Nate was always wearing.

“A best friend wouldn’t have done something like this in the first place,” he said.

She grunted.

“So are we leaving?” he asked.

Jade pulled back, but he kept his arm around her.

“No. I did a dumb thing.”

He cracked a smile. “Do tell.”

She rehashed the story.

He whistled. “I really admire your commitment to the pettiness. I’m not judging, by the way. They earned it.”

“You should have seen the way she looked at me. It was exactly what I was afraid of all along. I knew everyone was going to pity me, to whisper behind my back about how my life turned out.”

“Hey.” Rett held her chin and gently turned her face towards his. “A lioness does not concern herself with the opinion of sheep. They’ll get what’s coming to them.”

She blinked. “Did you just quote a motivational poster at me?”

He chuckled. “Yeah, sorry. What I really wanted to say was ‘screw those guys and let’s go eat our bodyweight in shrimp cocktail on their dime,’ but it felt a little uncouth.”

She smiled. “I like uncouth.”

“You’re in luck. I have it in spades.”

Thank god the urge to vomit and/or wail like a banshee had passed. Rett had been her little guiding light, there before she even knew she needed him.

She took a step back. “I understand if you want to leave after hearing all that. Nobody wants to be the arm candy for a professional mess.”

He shook his head. “We had an agreement. I’m not going anywhere. Especially not now. Let’s go find another bottle of champagne. I think you’re going to need it.”