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Eden

H uh, I think.

Rhys’s eyes have just been all over me. I’m still tingly from the experience.

Unless I imagined it? Maybe he was looking at me judgmentally, like, Put some clothes on, woman! No one wants to see that!

Regardless, I grab my dirty clothes from yesterday, and?—

Shit.

My thong is still hanging in the bathroom.

I knock on the door.

“What?” comes back a rough voice.

“My, um—” I roll my eyes at myself. He has a sister. It’s not like he’s never seen women’s underwear. “If you kind of ball up the towel that’s hanging there, my panties are, um, inside, and you can toss me the whole thing—” Without, you know, touching them.

Although I don’t hate the thought of him touching them.

I sort of like it…

Jilted! common sense reminds me. You’re supposed to be mourning Paul.

Paul who? my brain sends back.

A moment later the door opens and my thong flies at me. It’s air-dried nicely. Phew.

As I slip it on, I don’t let myself dwell on the fact that he did, indeed, touch it.

No more washing the undies in the sink and sleeping commando. It causes thoughts. And feelings .

First stop today—undie shopping.

Rhys emerges from the bathroom a few minutes later, dressed, hair rumpled but damp and semi-styled. He doesn’t meet my eyes. Which is fair. The thong thing was kind of awkward.

Or at least that’s one word for it.

I can feel the thong between my legs. It’s just so thongy today. I don’t remember ever being as aware of it before.

I wonder if he’s thinking about it, too.

Oh, my God, Eden, stop!

In an effort to reset my horny monkey brain, I check my phone, which opens to Find My.

For a second, I’d almost forgotten about Paul. The quilts. The broken-down car. The fact that Rhys and I aren’t just two people having breakfast together on a slightly awkward, unintentional road trip.

“Oh, shit,” I say as I take in what I’m seeing.

“What?”

“Paul’s on the move again.”

“Where is he?”

“He just entered Montana on 90.”

His brow furrows. “Where do you think he’s going?”

“I don’t know,” I admit. “He went to college in Bozeman, so—maybe he’s on his way to see someone? Or…”

Something has occurred to me. I literally can’t believe I didn’t think of it sooner. I think it’s testament to how whirlwind yesterday was and how much my attention was focused on the quilts, because once it jumps into my head, I can’t unthink it.

I bite my lip.

“What?” he asks.

“Before Paul moved to Rush Creek, he lived in Sioux Falls. With his?—”

My heart is pounding. I can’t make myself finish the sentence. With his previous girlfriend. Grace Vain.

When I look up, Rhys is watching me. Like he knows exactly what I was going to say. His expression is wary and also pitying. “You’re probably right about Bozeman,” he says, but he can’t make it sound convincing.

He thinks I might be right. About where Paul went.

I look down at my phone again.

“What are you doing?” His voice is alarmed.

“Looking at his social media.”

“Don’t do that.”

“I just need to know.”

His voice is gruff. Irritated. “You need to know what?”

“Where he’s going.”

“And how will you find that out?”

“Maybe he posted something.”

He’s shaking his head. “Eden?—”

I ignore him, tapping open Facebook. Instagram. Threads. Bluesky.

Paul hasn’t posted anything on social media.

But maybe his parents have?

“Eden,” Rhys says, more sharply, but I ignore him.

There’s nothing obvious on his mother’s Instagram. Nothing that says My son just called off his wedding to chase after his ex-girlfriend who is clearly the love of his life .

But now that I’ve let myself think it, I can’t let it go.

I pull up Grace’s Insta feed, scroll back, and there it is.

Grace has posted a photo of herself, looking fabulous.

Long shapely legs under a short, flared skirt, a blouse that nips in at her slim waist. Shiny dark hair to her shoulder blades, smoky eyes, berry-red lips.

And beneath it, the caption: Hey all. Doing this on social media to get it done all at once.

Henry and I called off our engagement. It was a mutual decision, and we’re both doing okay with it.

Thanks for not asking too many questions for a little while.

Posted less than twenty-four hours before Paul’s disheveled appearance at our last pre-wedding meeting.

I’m going to be sick.

I sink down onto the bed for a moment until the sensation passes.

“Eden,” Rhys says again, this time gently. And he takes the phone out of my hand and turns it so he can see what I was looking at. He makes a sound—a grunt of dismay.

I try to grab the phone back from him, but he holds it out of my reach.

“What difference does it make now?” he asks.

“I need to know.”

“You should turn it off. Put it away.”

“I need to know,” I repeat. “Give me the fucking phone.”

His eyes widen. He lets me have the phone.

I scroll back in Grace’s feed. Days. Weeks.

Months. It’s a cascade of photos of her and her ex-fiancé, Henry.

We sail back in time through a parade of beaming good times—posing at the Falls of the Big Sioux, paddleboarding, a Fourth of July barbecue with friends, rafting, kite-flying, a Memorial Day picnic with her family, an Easter egg hunt with his family, her making a birthday wish with eyes squeezed tightly shut as Henry looks on adoringly, and then, there it is, six months back: a candlelit dinner for two, Henry’s hands extended with the ring box open.

Henry proposed to Grace ten days before Paul proposed to me.

Paul proposed to me because Henry proposed to Grace.

Because Grace said yes.

Because Grace was going to marry someone else, someone who wasn’t Paul.

“Paul revenge proposed to me,” I say to the quiet room.

“It might be coinci—” Rhys tries, but I cut him off.

“I knew he wasn’t over her. I fucking knew , and he told me a million times he was, and I still knew, and I believed him anyway.”

Rhys swivels toward me. The movement’s abrupt, but his expression isn’t angry.

It’s something else, something I could almost mistake for sympathy if I didn’t know better.

“Hey. Hey. If you knew how many women could say those exact words…it doesn’t make you foolish or stupid or any of the things you’re beating yourself up with?—”

I cut him off, afraid that if he keeps being that nice to me, I’ll cry. “You were right,” I say. “You were totally fucking right.”

“About what?” he says, and I can tell: He doesn’t want to be right this time. Well, too bad.

“Relationships are a joke. Marriage is a disaster. And love is a fantasy.”

He looks like he wants to say something, like he wants to argue with me.

Instead he says, voice steely, “We need to get those quilts.”