by Roxy Reid
He smiles, and it’s that wistful, crooked smile that’s been haunting my dreams, “I can always rebuild my career. I can’t rebuild us. If you leave, I’m pretty damn well fucked.”
He spears me with his gaze and raises his glass, “I love you, Sienna. Please don’t take that ring off just yet.”
Then he steps back from the mic and chugs his high-end champagne like it’s gatorade and he just finished the race of his life.
Meanwhile, every camera in the house swings to me, and people start shouting questions.
“Do you love him, Sienna?”
“Are you going to marry him?”
“Is the engagement real now?”
“What designer will you be wearing to the wedding?”
“What would you say to those who call you an opportunistic gold-digger?”
It’s the day in front of the jewelry store all over again, and I can feel myself getting dizzy.
“HEY!” Joshua bellows into the mic, and they all step back to cover their ears.
“Leave her alone,” Joshua says. “If you want press access to me or my films ever again, you leave her the fuck alone.”
Elinor wraps an arm around my shoulders, “That’s our cue, love.” She ushers me out of the courtyard and back into the room I dragged her into earlier. Once we’re inside, she let’s go of me to shut the door behind us.
The crumpled, unsigned contract still lies on the floor where Joshua tossed it.
I still can’t believe he did that. I can’t believe he did any of that. Joshua hates that kind of messy vulnerability.
“What… what was that?” I ask, raising my hands to my face. I don’t think I’ve ever been as shocked in my entire life.
“That,” Elinor says, “was the sound of a man changing. You would not believe the amount of hours I have spent listening to that young man drone on about King Productions, and this movie, and what it means to him, and how carefully he’s planned it all out. And he just threw a major wrench in that plan, for you.”
“But he can’t mean… I’ve only known him for…”
Elinor studies me, then shrugs, “You don’t have to say yes to him, any more than I do.” She puts the rumpled contract in her purse, then turns to go.
Elinor puts her hand on the doorknob, then turns back to me one last time, “For what it’s worth. I have lived my entire adult life in a town pull of professional liars. It’s the flip side of trying to make the stories we do.” Elinor nods to the world beyond the door, “But, the man on that stage? He wasn’t lying about a damn thing.”
I bite my lip, my heart pounding with a terrible, wondrous thrill, as I begin to believe her. Begin to believe everything Joshua just said.
“The question,” Elinor Swift says as she opens the door, “is what are you going to do about it?”
By the time I pull myself together and realize what I have to do, Joshua has disappeared from the party. So have the reporters and photographers, who are all rushing off, trying to be the first to post the story. Though which story they’re posting is anyone’s guess.
The rest of the guests are wandering around, cheerful and boozy. None of them have seen Joshua, although one lady is pretty sure he took off after Elinor and I left the stage area.
“I think he took it hard,” she says, wobbling in her heels and sloshing champagne on the flagstones under her feet. “When he said he loved you like that in front of the whole world, and you didn’t say it back.”
I finally find Darian, but all he knows is that Joshua bought one of the guest’s motorcycles, and took off toward the coastal highway.
I groan. Joshua King, the love of my life, is so damn extra. He literally bought a motorcycle? Because I made him wait twenty minutes for an answer?
“He’ll make it home, eventually,” Darian says. “Sometimes he just disappears like this, when he needs to burn off steam. No one has any idea where he goes, not even Brittney or his family. But he always comes back. And he’s always ready to listen when he does.”
That’s when I realize. No one else knows where he goes. But I do. And I can’t wait until he gets back. I have to talk to him now.
“Darian, I need to borrow your car. Mine’s trapped behind the catering van.”
“Jesus, you’re as bad as he is,” Darian complains. But he digs in his pockets and tosses me the keys.
I catch them and blink, “These are the keys to a Porsche.”
“What, did you think Joshua paid me crap? I don’t take 3:00 a.m. calls for the love of the job,” he waves me off. “Go find your true love or whatever. And don’t scratch my car!”
I’m already sprinting to the parking lot.
21
Joshua
The sea spreads out before me as I stand on the bluff overlooking my favorite beach, leaning against the motorcycle, trying not to think of all the ways I just made a spectacular fool of myself.
But as the sun creeps closer to the horizon, I’m also, oddly, coming to some sort of peace. There’s nothing else I could have done. It hurts like hell to lay all your cards on the table like that, and still come up short. But it would fuck me up even more to always be asking “what-if” about Sienna Bridges.
The salt air stings my face, which feels appropriate. Every part of me feels raw.
The most fucked up thing, though? The person I want to reach out to for comfort is still Sienna.
Ok, looking at the beach isn’t cutting it. I’m going to have to take a walk down there and walk in the water until I’m numb. Hopefully no one steals my newly acquired ride home.
I’m reaching down to tug my shoes off, when I hear the squeal of tires.
It’s Darian’s car. At first I’m irritated and bewildered — how the hell did he find me? — but then the door opens and a woman’s legs emerge, followed by a red dress I remember very, very well.
It’s Sienna. Of course, it’s Sienna. No one else knows about this place.
She gets out and walks toward me, and I drink her in. She’s so beautiful it hurts to look at her. Like she’s snatched my heart and replaced it with a constant ache.
But I wouldn’t look away for anything. It’s probably a matter of minutes before she walks out of my life forever, and I’m not missing an instant of the time I have left.
Sienna comes to me, tentative, a slight smile lurking at the corner of her mouth. That smile is doing horrible things to me. It’s whispering Maybe she changed her mind, and Maybe she does love you, and Maybe it’s a pity smile. You’re pathetic and she pities you.
But there’s nothing tentative when she reaches up and presses her lips softly against mine. She’s sweet and sure, and I’m terrified this is a goodbye kiss. I pull her in as close as I can get her, sliding my hands up her back, through her hair, across her cheek. I need her so badly, in every way one person can need another. And the way she’s kissing me, her hands fisted in my shirt, holding me exactly where she wants me as she slides her hips against mine, I think maybe she needs me too.
Sienna pulls back to look at me, and I feel the first wild beat of hope.
And then she takes off the engagement ring, and my world comes crashing down.
Everything inside me revolts. No. This is not how it ends.
Sienna has to grab my hand and pry it open, then forcefully fold it around the ring, because I don’t want to take that ring back. In fact, if it’s not on her, I don’t even want to touch it.
I turn away and crook my arm back to throw it into the sea.
“My God, you’re melodramatic,” Sienna says. “If you don’t care about the money, at least hawk it and give the proceeds to charity.”
“Is that why you don’t want the ring?” I say, turning back to her, and I can’t keep the bite out of my voice. “Because I’m too dramatic?”
“No, I don’t want the ring because it’s ugly.”
“It is not ugly!” I say indignant. “It’s valuable!”
“It’s gaudy!” Sienna snatches the ring back from
me, and holds it up to make her point. “And it symbolizes a fake engagement! If I’m going to wear something, I want it to be real.”
I freeze. Did she just… Is she saying…
“What exactly are you telling me?” I ask.
My heart’s in my throat.
This is the longest second of my life.
And then she breaks into a radiant smile. It’s so brilliant, I can feel the warmth of it in my toes.
“Will you buy me a real ring, Joshua King? One that actually looks like me?”
“Anything. Anything you want?” I crush her to me, just breathing in her scent, my eyes threatening to water because she’s not leaving after all. She’s mine. Sienna Bridges is mine.
Have I ever been this happy? I don’t remember being this happy.
“Just to be clear, I’m planning on wearing it on my right hand. At least for a while,” Sienna leans back just far enough to look me in the eye. “I think we should date. Like for real. Like a normal couple. And then if you still want to…” she makes a motion with her hand.
“I’ll still want to,” I say, and she blushes.
“I’m talking about getting engaged,” Sienna says. “Not sex.”
“I’m talking about getting married, not engaged.” I say. “But now that you mention sex…”
I try to steal a kiss, and she leans farther away from me, laughing. I’m laughing too, as I catch and lift her, spinning us in a circle. Sienna’s hair flows out behind her, silhouetted against the sunset. Her smile quiets as she looks down at me with something approaching wonder. She traces my face gently.
“This feels like a scene from one of your movies,” Sienna says.
“Nah,” I say, lowering her down to the ground. “I don’t do romantic comedies.”
“You do now,” she says.
I’m not sure who starts the kiss this time, but now that we’ve found each other we can’t seem to stop. The pink of the sunset envelops us and the wind tangles her hair and wraps her scent around me.
God, this woman. My hands slide up her silken red dress, touching every place a man can get away with touching in public.
Although… we’re not that public.
“When you said no to sex on the beach,” I say, and my voice is husky and happy, “were you saying no because it was the first time or because you have a fundamental opposition to sex on the beach?”
Sienna grins slyly, adjusting her glasses which got knocked crooked during a kiss, “Well, on the one hand, sand in all the places you don’t want sand to be, and it’s technically a public area, and it will get cold soon. On the other hand… you.”
And that pretty much sums it up for me. On the one hand, all the reasons why we shouldn’t work, why we shouldn’t have ended up together, all the chaos we’ve wreaked on each other’s lives. On the other hand… her.
I hold out my hand, “Let’s go find out.”
She takes my hand, and we walk down to the sunset together.
Epilogue
Sienna
“Please! Let me see it, let me see it, let me see it. One last time before bed. Pleeeeeeeeeease!” Poppy’s jumping up and down, begging me, and I can’t help but smile. She’s eleven now, and normally too cool for this level of excitement, but it’s the night before her dad’s wedding, and even a cool pre-teen can get caught up in the excitement of something like that.
To mark the occasion, we’re having a girls sleepover at Jax’s apartment, a.k.a. the apartment I was living in when I met Joshua. Jax’s decor involves a lot more hot pink than mine did, but there’s still a part of it that feels like home.
I look over Poppy’s head at Brittney, who’s sipping a martini and wearing a t-shirt that says I was a Bridesmaid in My Ex’s Wedding and All I Got Was This F****cking Shirt . The asterisks are because Poppy got in trouble for dropping an f-bomb at school, and we’re all trying to be better role-models.
Well, everyone but Elinor Swift. She’s on her third movie with King Productions — this time as a co-producer — and on more than one occasion we’ve caught her telling Poppy that the art of swearing is something every true lady should learn. Elinor helped Poppy craft her toast for our reception tomorrow, and if I’m honest I’m a little terrified.
“What do you think, ladies?” I ask. “Should we look at it one more time?”
“It’s your party,” Brittney says, and then takes off on a rendition of Lesley Gore’s “It’s My Party,” changing the lyrics to be about trying on your wedding dress. It’s possible she’s had one too many martinis.
“You are not trying the dress on!” Jax says. “You’ll wrinkle it, or rip it, or spill something on it, and I won’t have time to get it fixed before your wedding. No.”
Poppy deflates.
Jax has gotten surprisingly militant about her duties as Maid of Honor. I think it’s because she’s been spending more time with Darian. Which, actually, now that I think about it, she’s been spending a lot of time with Darian...
I eye Jax speculatively.
“What?” she says.
“I was just wondering how it went picking up the flowers with Darian yesterday. You guys were gone a long time.”
“Let’s go see the dress!” Jax says brightly, grabbing Poppy’s hand and racing upstairs.
I watch them go, trying to hold my laugh in. I’m dying for details, but I can respect a secret. Sometimes fragile things need the shelter of a shared secret to grow.
I turn to see Brittney watching me, looking surprisingly serious for a woman on her fourth martini.
“What?” I say.
Brittney shrugs, and smiles, then tosses back the last of her martini, “I’m just glad it’s you. If I was gonna pick a step-mom for my kid…”
I swallow, surprisingly touched.
“You should go up and look at the dress,” Brittney says.
“I’ve seen it before,” I say, heading to the kitchen to refill the cheese plate.
Brittney rolls her eyes as she follows me, “Poppy didn’t just want to look at the dress.” Brittney pours herself a glass of water. “She wanted to look at it with you. The smart, beautiful woman with a kick-ass career who is the reason she finally stopped asking me how old you had to be to get contacts.”
“Oh.”
Brittney props a hip on the counter and sips her water, “She’s pretty excited to have you officially join the family.”
“Then I should…” I gesture in the general direction of the thumping and giggling happening upstairs.
“Yup.”
On an impulse, I give Brittney a hug, “I’m glad I’m joining your family too.”
She scoffs, but she does let me hug her for a whole five seconds before developing a sudden need to call her manager.
I’m marrying into a family of artsy workaholics, who I know from experience will absolutely wake me up at 3:00 a.m. to tell me about the idea they just had or the shoot they just finished. And I couldn’t be happier about it. Because at the end of the day, they always choose the people they love.
I head upstairs. Jax has wandered off — I have a sneaking suspicion she’s hiding in the bathroom texting Darian — leaving Poppy sitting reverently in front of my dress.
It’s hanging on the back of Jax’s closet door, and I have a sudden memory of another dress that hung there, years ago. A red dress, that meant I could still have a vivid, meaningful life after Joshua. And now, in its place, a white one, that means it will still be vivid and meaningful, but in a host of beautiful ways I never could have imagined when Jax and I were buying that red dress.
My wedding dress is a simple silk gown, modest except for the fact that it pours over every curve I have like water. It’s smooth and delicate against my skin, and I love the way it flares out when I twirl.
I can’t wait for Joshua to see me in it.
I can’t wait for Joshua to see me out of it. We’ve been living together for two years now, and the man still has a way of looking at me that makes me feel like we�
��re on a first date.
Well. Maybe a third.
Poppy reaches out and runs a careful thumb along the bottom of the dress, “Remember that time, when we were in the ballroom, and you said that sometimes we need to make our own magic, and then we danced together?”
A wave of tenderness washes over me, “Yeah, honey. I remember.”
She pushes her glasses up her nose and turns to look back at me, “Can we do that now? Because I’m so happy it feels like all I can do with it is dance.”
I crouch down next to Poppy, a.k.a. the second love of my life, and wrap my arms around her. I kiss the top of her head, “Yes, Poppy. We can absolutely do that now.”
Five hours later, I collapse into bed next to a snoring Jax. Poppy and Brittney are curled up together on one of the couches downstairs.
I’m happy and exhausted, but it’s a good exhausted. After the most epic dance party ever, we watched cheesy movies until Poppy fell asleep. And then Jax and Brittney and I migrated to the balcony, where we stayed for hours talking and drinking wine and in general having the kind of heart-to-heart that can bond you to a person for years to come.
Tomorrow is my wedding day. It is my literal, honest-to-God, wedding day. And I’m marrying Joshua King, the love of my life. When I stop to think about it, the whole thing feels fragile and improbable. But when I think about Joshua, it feels like it couldn’t have happened any other way.
All I have to do now is fall asleep.
But after an hour of tossing and turning I’m about to give up. I can’t fall asleep without Joshua. It’s as simple as that. I miss his scent, and his warmth, and the way his slow, heavy breathing calms me down when my mind is going a mile a minute.
This probably bodes well for the rest of our lives, but not particularly well for me looking rested in the wedding pictures.
That’s when I hear it.
A light chink on the window. At first I think I imagine it, but then there’s another. And another.
