Mine to Take (Southern Weddings #5)(26)

I close my eyes as she huffs and rub my hands over my face. “You think this is easy for me?”

“I don’t give a fuck about if it’s easy for you or not. What the hell am I supposed to tell my family?”

I shake my head. “I have no idea. We could maybe just say that we are putting it on the back burner.” I try to think of something to tell her.

"Back burner,” she repeats what I said and even I want to shake my head at how dumb it sounded. “Fuck you, Matty.” She turns and grabs her stuff. “Fuck you all the way to hell, where you are going to rot for doing this to me.”

“Helena,” I call her name before she walks out of the room. “I’m really sorry.”

“I can’t believe I was going to settle by marrying you,” she says. “My mother said you were beneath me,” she pffts, and I about laugh at how childish she sounds. “I mean, look at your family.”

I stare at her for a good five seconds, giving her a chance not to say the next words about to come out of her mouth. She wants to shit on me, fine, I deserve it, but my family. “Watch it,” is all I say.

“Or what?” She cocks her hip to the side. “You’re a sad excuse for a man.”

“Actually.” I hold my hand up. “A sad excuse of a man would have gone through with the wedding and then divorced you.” She takes one more look at me before shaking her head and walking out the door, slamming it as hard as she can behind her.

My head falls forward, and I don’t know if I do a sigh of relief or if it’s an I fucked up sigh. Either way, I push away from the island and walk over to the living room. I sit down on the couch and rest my head back. Looking up at the ceiling, I run the past hour through my head.

I try to piece the puzzle that is going on in my head as to when it all went to shit. When did it change? Was it always this way and I was just blind to it?

Getting up, I walk over and grab my jacket and walk back over to the couch. Looking at it, I know there is only one person who I can possibly call. There is only one person who I want to call right now. I dial the number, putting it on speaker. One ring leads to two and I know there is never three rings. “Hello,” he answers before the second ring even finishes.

“Dad,” I say, my voice monotone, “the wedding is off.” I close my eyes as the words come out.

“I’m on my way,” he says. “I’ll be there tomorrow.” I look down at the phone. “Are you okay?”

“I have no idea,” is the only answer I can say. “I’m kind of numb, to be honest.”

“It’ll be okay,” he assures me softly. “I promise you it’ll be okay. I’m going to get things organized here and I’ll send you the details.”

“Okay,” I say. Even though I know I should tell him that it’s fine, something about him coming to me makes it feel like everything is going to be okay.

I hang up the phone but never move from the couch. My phone rings five minutes later. When I look down, thinking it’s my father, instead I see it’s Christopher. “Hello.”

“What the fuck happened?” he asks as soon as I answer the phone.

“Who told you?” I ask, closing my eyes.

He chuckles on his side of the phone. “They sent out the Bat-Signal.”

For the first time since Helena and I broke up, I laugh, and it just feels lighter in my chest. I don’t know why I’m surprised that it already made it to him. Actually, I’m surprised it took him five minutes. “It was all wrong, man,” I finally admit it out loud. “All fucking wrong.”

“Does this have to do with Sofia?” He was the only one I told that I saw her again.

“No,” I answer without thinking twice. “This had everything to do with Helena and me.”

“Well, I wish I could be there for you tomorrow.” He laughs. “I’ll FaceTime sometime soon, for sure.”

“Thanks,” I tell him. “I’ll call you tomorrow. I’m going to go and—”

“Definitely not drown your sorrows,” he jokes with me.

“Nah,” I say, after the night that I fucked up everything, I never took another drink again. I was never not going to have a clear head. Actually, scratch that, the only time I would make an exception was if I won the Stanley Cup, otherwise it was always a no. “Thanks for checking on me.”

“Always,” he states before he disconnects. I put my phone down beside me, taking in the quiet of the house when the phone beeps beside me.

Looking over, I see that Helena texted me. I don’t know what I’m expecting but it gives me a light of who she is.

I’m not paying the wedding planner.





sofia





I jog up the steps to the office, pulling open the door. Taking a look around, I see no one there waiting for me, which is weird since I had my date last night. “Good morning,” I say loudly while I turn to walk down the hallway to my office.

“We are already in the conference room, waiting to be briefed!” Clarabella yells out.

“We have coffee and mimosas,” Presley says, “without champagne because Shelby is a stick in the mud.” I roll my lips. “And we have to work,” she mimics Shelby.