“Okay, I’m sorry,” Shelby says. “But I have to ask, does the fiancée know?”
I shake my head and laugh. “I walked in there, and I swear to God, it was as if time was standing still and everything was in slow motion. I felt eyes on me, and then when I looked up, I saw him.” I grab the bottle and take another swig of the sweet tea, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand. “We pretended we didn’t know each other.”
“What?” Clarabella shrieks out. “And what did you do?”
“I pretended I didn’t know who he was,” I say, folding my arms over my chest. “I even pretended I didn’t like hockey,” I pfft out.
“He plays hockey?” Clarabella asks. “Like professionally?”
“Yes.” I nod my head. “Even when we were in school, he was drafted when he was eighteen, but he wanted to get a degree before he played.”
“Shut up,” Clarabella squawks, taking out her phone. “What’s his name?”
“Matthew Petrov,” I reply as she opens Google and must type in his name.
Her eyes come to me. “Stop it.”
“Let me see.” Presley extends her hand for the phone. She gets it and I ignore the gasp from her and then glance away when she looks at me with her mouth hanging open, and then she closes it again as she hands the phone over to Shelby.
She grabs it, and I see her eyes go big. “He looks awful,” she tries to say, and even I know she’s lying.
“Maury said that’s a lie,” Clarabella jokes, shaking her head. “But did he look at you and was like, holy shit, what do we do?”
“I have no idea. I avoided him as much as I could. I directed my questions straight to Helena,” I state, proud of myself. No matter how many times my eyes wanted to look over at him, I just stared straight ahead. I swear, I could feel his eyes on me the whole time, but I didn’t look over at him. Not once. The only time I did was at the end and even that was too much for me.
“Did they have a date in mind?” Clarabella leans back in her chair and I shake my head.
“No, obviously it has to be in the summer since he’s off then,” I share with them the only detail I really paid attention to. The whole exchange was also a touch weird and not just because it was with my ex, but she name-dropped who he was every chance she could.
“It’ll probably be a big wedding,” I fill in. “He has a big family.”
“Define big.” Shelby lifts her eyebrows at me.
“About as big as mine, if not bigger,” I share and ignore the pull to take the phone from her now.
Shelby puts the phone down and I wonder what pictures they looked at. After we broke up, I blocked his name from my phone. I mean, not really, but I definitely didn’t go on and google him. I mean, maybe I did just the one time, but that was after a long day of drinking and an unsuccessful date where I had to pleasure myself. It was a moment of weakness. “How did you leave it?” She taps her manicured finger on the phone.
“They would get back to me,” I say and laugh, “as if I would even think about doing this.” I roll my eyes.
“Okay, I have to ask, who broke up with who?” Clarabella finally asks the loaded question.
I shake my head and put my hand to my forehead. “He broke up with me.” I thought I was over the pain from that day, but clearly, I am not. I’m far from over it. It’s been two years. It should be dead and buried in my memories. Sadly, seeing him for even five minutes brought it all back.
“This is getting sad,” Clarabella says, “so let’s get back to the questions about sex.”
“Dear God,” Shelby mutters. “Maybe there are some things she shouldn’t share.”
“Bite your tongue,” Clarabella retorts, “I literally heard you and Ace going at it in a shed.”
“It was in my backyard, my fenced backyard!” she shrieks, and I roll my lips. The three of them have caught each other in so many compromising positions, it’s always a new story. I have even caught or heard one of them at times. I mean, if I was in a committed relationship like all of them, I guess I would be doing the same. Especially since Shelby and Clarabella were supposed to marry one person and then married someone else. Presley was so scared she fought really hard to push Bennett away, but he did not let her go. I would love to have a love like that. I thought I did have a love like that. Sadly, I was wrong.
“It was also one hundred and twenty degrees, I’m surprised you didn’t faint,” Presley reminds her. “You came out a sweaty mess.”