by Lauren Layne
His girl next door.
No. Not his. Not for real.
Not in the way that mattered.
“Whew, testosterone in here.” Audrey waved her hand in front of her face. “I’m surprised there’s not a dartboard and a humidor.”
“They’re getting delivered on Monday,” Oliver said with a grin.
“Figures. Anyway, Naomi sent me up. Appetizers are done.”
“Real appetizers or fussy canapés?” Scott asked skeptically.
Audrey tilted her head. “I think a man with scruff on his chin, wearing a faded bomber jacket, who also says words like canapés, might be just about the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen.”
Scott laughed and hooked an arm around Audrey’s neck as they headed toward the door. “You like that? I’ve got more fancy words. Hors d’oeuvres. Foie gras. Indubitably.”
“If I swoon, you’ll have to carry me down the stairs,” Audrey said, laughing as they left the room, Oliver at their heels.
Clarke took a moment longer, staring after them with a frown as he tried to place the unfamiliar emotion settling in his stomach. When he finally identified it, his scowl deepened. It was a first for him, and he understood now why it had a reputation for being so unpleasant.
Jealousy.
Chapter Fourteen
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 1
Audrey managed to keep her smile in place throughout the entire dinner party. She’d laughed at the right times, complimented the fresh flowers on Naomi’s table, gushed over the food, and delighted along with Claire and Naomi in watching the men do the dishes. There was something downright amusing about watching big hands attempt to hand-wash dainty white wineglasses.
But under the surface, she’d been reeling. Ironically, the only person to notice was the same person who was at fault.
You okay? Clarke had murmured during dinner. She’d nodded.
You sure? he’d said out of the corner of his mouth as he’d cleared the table.
She’d nodded again, even as her brain screamed no.
She was not okay. She was not okay at all about what she’d overheard Clarke telling the guys, and worst of all, she couldn’t even identify exactly why. So what if Elizabeth wanted him back? It’s not as though Clarke wanted Elizabeth back, and even if he did, Audrey should be happy for them.
But try as she might to be happy for Clarke, or at least butt out of his business, she couldn’t stop her chest from aching at the knowledge that he hadn’t confided in her. He’d told the guys about Elizabeth’s proclamation, but not her.
And it had happened on Wednesday, the same day as their cake tasting, when there’d been plenty of time to share—if not at the tasting itself, then certainly when they’d gone out to dinner that same night. Or yesterday when they’d gone to lunch. Or earlier tonight, when they’d shared a cab on the way to Naomi and Oliver’s house.
She was baffled. Angry. Hurt. Three emotions that were all foreign as they related to Clarke. She didn’t have a clue how to sort out the unfamiliar feelings, and she certainly didn’t know how to do so in public, so throughout dinner, she’d played the same role she always did: laughing, cheerful, optimistic Audrey.
But the facade dropped the moment she and Clarke stepped onto the sidewalk outside Oliver and Naomi’s place. She’d have preferred to leave alone, but since Claire and Scott were headed to Scott’s apartment on the West Side, she and Clarke were the only ones heading to the Upper East Side, and she couldn’t think of a good reason why they wouldn’t go together. They were Audrey and Clarke. Clarke and Audrey. They’d been a unit long before they’d gotten “engaged,” and now they were… she didn’t know what they were.
“Okay,” Clarke said with a smile, gently snagging her arm as they stepped into the evening air. “Now tell me what’s wrong.”
Audrey jerked her arm away, and his expression flickered in confusion.
She crossed her arms and stared down at her boots as she had an alarming realization. She’d been wrong, earlier, in thinking she was okay with his ex’s office visit. She wasn’t just upset that Clarke didn’t tell her about Elizabeth. If she were brutally honest with herself, the idea of Clarke and Elizabeth spending time together made her stomach twist.
“Why?” Audrey finally asked aloud, once she’s tamped down the unexpectedly nauseous feeling.
“Why what?”
“Why didn’t you tell me that Elizabeth came to see you on Wednesday?”
He frowned. “How did you know that?”
“Well, not from you!” she snapped.
His eyes narrowed slightly. “Spy much, Dree?”
“Secrets much, Superman?” she shot back, deliberately wielding his least favorite nickname.
He threw up his hands in exasperation. “Sorry. Okay? It’s not like I meant it to be some big secret.”
“And yet you told the guys and not your fiancée?”
She winced as soon as she said it, well aware of just how jealous she sounded. His eyes narrowed again in speculation.
Audrey held up her hand. “Don’t. No need to correct me. I know I’m not actually your fiancée. But I am your friend. I thought your best friend.”
“You are my best friend. Seriously, what’s the big deal?”
She huffed. Such a guy. “Whatever. Forget it.” She started to whirl toward the curb to hail a cab.
He reached out and grabbed her hand. “Hold on. We’re not done yet.”
“Fine.” She turned back around and waited. “I’m listening.”
She could practically hear his teeth grind in frustration. “It’s just… having your ex-girlfriend stopping by isn’t something you tell your fiancée. It felt strange to bring it up.”
“Especially since she didn’t just stop by. She said she wanted you back,” Audrey challenged.
“Wow, you were really thorough with that eavesdropping.”
“Well, she does, doesn’t she?” Audrey pressed, not letting him off the hook. “Want you back?”
He looked down at his feet, then back at her, shrugging. “So she says.”
Audrey looked at him carefully. “Whatever happened with you two anyway? Back then? You never talked about it. I thought maybe there wasn’t much to tell, but now that I know you and I have secrets—”
“Will you stop with that? We don’t have secrets. How old are you right now, eight?”
She didn’t rise to the bait. “What happened with you and Elizabeth?” she asked again.
“Oh my God, this is why I don’t have girlfriends,” he said, plowing his fingers through his hair. “They’re demanding and pushy.”
Audrey’s lips parted in hurt. “I wasn’t asking as a girlfriend. I was asking as—”
“A friend, I know,” he said tiredly. “I shouldn’t have said that. I just… I don’t want to talk about this, Audrey. It was a long time ago. She moved on, I moved on—”
“Except she didn’t,” Audrey persisted, not sure why she was pushing so hard. She only knew that she felt something strange burning in her stomach, and she wanted it to stop. “Elizabeth didn’t move on. She thinks you’re engaged, and she still came and made a move.”
“Because Liz knows this,” Clarke said, gesturing between the two of them, “is fake.”
The words weren’t meant to hurt her. They shouldn’t hurt her.
But they did.
“Got it. Well, if this is so fake, I guess this is as good a time as any to call it,” she said, suddenly exhausted down to her very bones.
“Call what?”
“The ‘engagement,’ ” she said, lifting her hands into air quotes. “Scandal Boy’s backed off, your mother got a lesson in not sticking her nose where it doesn’t belong, and your ex-girlfriend got the wake-up call that she let a good one get away.”
“That’s not why I’ve been doing this,” he snapped.
“No?” she asked.
“No!”
Her frustration burst out. “Well, how am I supposed to know when you don�
��t tell me!”
“Because I don’t tell you everything, Audrey!” he shouted. “I’m sorry, but I don’t. We can be friends without me having to fucking spill my guts every minute of the damned day.”
The hurt was stronger this time. Not the sting of a paper cut, but the throb of something much deeper.
“Got it,” she said, turning away.
“Dree, wait—”
“No, Clarke.” She turned back, keeping her face expressionless, her tone calm. “I think separate cabs would be a good idea. Let’s just take a night to cool down.”
“And then what?” He shoved his hands into his pockets, looking as lost as she felt. They never fought.
She shrugged. “Then we figure out how to get ourselves out of the mess we got ourselves into.”
Clarke said nothing for a long moment. “Sure. Okay. Let’s get you a cab.”
Wordlessly they walked to the curb. It was late on a Saturday, so it took a few minutes to find an available cab. She was relieved when he opened the door for her but didn’t follow her into the taxi.
“You sure this is what you want?” he asked quietly before closing the door. “To end the engagement?”
She looked into his familiar gold-brown eyes and nodded. “I’m tired of pretending.”
He held her gaze, then jerked his head in understanding. “Sure. I get it.”
Audrey pulled the door shut, not looking his direction as the cab drove away. She squeezed her eyes shut. Clarke wasn’t the only one who was keeping secrets.
Audrey was tired of pretending, but what terrified her down to her very soul was that she wasn’t tired of pretending to be engaged.
She was tired of pretending she wanted it to end.
Chapter Fifteen
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 8
A week later, the ice between Audrey and Clarke hadn’t yet thawed. It was fitting, Audrey figured, that the next time they saw each other would involve copious amounts of snow.
“You’re sure you won’t come with?” asked Erin Ratliff, a society darling whom Audrey was friendly with. Erin positioned her designer ski goggles atop her head and gave Audrey a worried look. “I feel so bad leaving you behind. I thought you skied!”
“Oh, I do ski,” Audrey said with a reassuring smile. “I like skiing. I just love a good book, a hot toddy, and a roaring fire even more.”
Audrey gestured behind her at the resort’s après ski lounge area, which truly was her version of heaven, a hideaway with plenty of cozy corners and comfortable furniture tucked around an enormous fireplace.
Erin gave her another skeptical look before stepping closer and lowering her voice. “I am super sorry. This must be so awkward. When I invited you and Clarke a while back, I didn’t realize you were together, and then one of the other girls invited Clarke’s ex—”
“It’s fine,” Audrey cut in quickly. “Clarke and I are adults, and Elizabeth and I are fine.”
Not quite as fine as Clarke and Elizabeth, a traitorous little part of her brain whispered, as her gaze skimmed over the small group pulling on gloves and dabbing sunscreen on their noses as they prepared for a day on the slopes. Audrey’s eyes found Clarke almost immediately, and she was unsurprised to see that Elizabeth was glued to his side.
Audrey looked away, wising she’d have found a way to get out of the ski-trip invitation she’d accepted weeks ago. The worst part was that even as of last night, Audrey had been looking forward to the weekend. She’d figured it’d be the opening she and Clarke needed to resolve things after their fight.
When Erin had picked Audrey up at the crack of dawn, Audrey had all but skipped to the car, her stomach aflutter at the thought of seeing Clarke again. She’d missed him and had run to open the door of the SUV, only to find the back seat full, all three seats taken.
By Erin’s cousin. By Clarke. And by Elizabeth Milsap.
The worst part hadn’t been seeing Elizabeth’s thigh pressed familiarly against Clarke’s. It had been the fact that Clarke had barely looked at Audrey. And they hadn’t spoken even once.
She looked back toward Clarke and Elizabeth again, watching as a laughing Liz reached out and swiped a glob of sunscreen onto Clarke’s nose. Audrey felt like throwing up as Clarke smiled in response, tugging off his glove to rub in the sunblock.
“You’d think she could be a little more subtle,” Erin said loyally, under her breath.
Audrey forced a smile. “Oh, it’s fine. We’re all friends.”
Though at the moment, she wasn’t quite sure what she and Clarke were. They’d gone a week without talking or texting before, when they were busy with work or on vacation, but this felt different. There was a gap between them that they’d never experienced before, and Audrey didn’t have a clue how to bridge it. Somewhere in the past couple of weeks, things had started to skid out of control, and she was terrified that even if and when they did manage to get things back on track, everything would feel different.
“Everyone ready to head out?” Erin’s cousin Mike asked the group.
He was met by an enthusiastic chorus of yeses as they began filing out the door.
Erin gave Audrey’s arm one last squeeze. “I’ll come check on you in a couple hours?”
Audrey rolled her eyes. “I’m fine. I promise. I brought reading supplies.” She held up her e-reader.
“Okay, okay, I’ll stop mama-bearing you. And for what it’s worth, I’m totes jealous that you get to rock the snow bunny look without the bulk.” She patted the thick padding of her down jacket and gave Audrey’s black yoga pants, fur boots, and cozy oversize sweater a covetous look.
“Go,” Audrey commanded with a laugh, pointing her friend out into the bright, frigid sunshine with the rest of the group. “They’ll leave without you.”
Erin turned away, and Audrey allowed herself one last look at Clarke. Other than Erin, he was the last one out of the lodge. He glanced her way and hesitated. For a second, Audrey thought—hoped—that he was going to walk over and finally address the weirdness between them.
But just as he stepped forward, Elizabeth poked her head back into the lodge. “Clarke. You coming?”
Clarke stopped in his tracks, glancing over his shoulder at Elizabeth, then back at Audrey. As she silently begged him to choose her, Audrey saw the indecision in his gaze and knew him well enough to know which path he was going to choose: the easy one. She was disappointed in him, but more so, crushed to realize which side of the coin she fell on. Not so long ago, Audrey had been his easy path, his safe space.
Now she was the one he didn’t want to deal with.
“Yeah, coming,” Clarke said to Elizabeth with a grin. He turned his back on Audrey and walked outside without a backward glance.
Audrey swallowed, a little alarmed to feel a lump in her throat. Apparently, they were really, truly done pretending to be engaged, even though neither had explicitly said it to the group. She could handle that. But at the moment, it felt like they were done being friends. And that felt like it would kill her.
Taking a deep breath, she turned on her heel and scanned the mostly empty lodge. There were a handful of people who apparently had the same idea as her and had staked their claim on various chairs and couches with a laptop or book in hand. But for the most part, she had her pick of places to sit and opted for a cozy chair near the window facing opposite of the way her friends had gone. The last thing she wanted to do was watch the group get on the chairlift. Each chair seated two, and it didn’t take a genius to know who Clarke would be paired off with.
Audrey ordered a hot chocolate with extra whipped cream, and though it took her a few false starts, she finally managed to lose herself in her book, a psychological thriller that everyone had been talking about but that she was just finally getting around to reading.
She eventually became so engrossed that she jumped when she realized someone was standing in front of her, trying to get her attention. Audrey looked up and saw a man dressed in ski pants and a black sweater smiling
down at her, a bit sheepishly. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.”
Audrey blinked. The man was attractive. Extremely attractive. Tall and lean, with a dash of silver at his temples and smile lines indicating he had a few years on her. But the years looked good on him. He seemed vaguely familiar, though she couldn’t quite place him.
He pointed toward her feet. “You mind if I sit? I hate to invade your space, but as far as I can tell, you’ve got access to one of the only power outlets in the place.”
“Oh, of course,” she said, noting the laptop under his arm and waving at the chair opposite her.
He smiled and sat, pulling a charger out of his jacket pocket and shrugging out of his coat. “Good book?” he asked, nodding at her Kindle.
“Apparently,” she said, looking at her watch, surprised to see how many hours had passed.
“Not a skier?” the man asked curiously, bending down to plug in his charger.
“I am. I just never learned to love it enough to choose being out in the cold over being cozy by the fire. You?”
“I did learn to love it. But I’ve got two loves, and this is the other one.” He tapped a long finger against his closed laptop.
“Your computer?” Audrey asked dubiously.
“Work,” he said, his eyes doing that attractive crinkling-in-the-corner thing again.
Audrey couldn’t help her gaze dropping to his left hand, a little surprised to see there was no ring. She wondered if he was newly divorced or a rare late-thirties/early-forties bachelor who was, well, hot.
“Your husband ski?” he asked casually, opening his laptop.
“Hmm? Oh,” she said, realizing that he had apparently checked out her left hand as well and found it adorned with Clarke’s ring. “Fiancé. And yeah, he does.”
The man gave a noncommittal smile and turned his attention to his screen.
Audrey turned her Kindle back on but looked up when she sensed eyes on her. She was a little surprised that the man didn’t look away or make any effort to pretend he hadn’t been curiously studying her.
