by Noelle Adams
“I wasn’t interrogating you. I didn’t even ask a question.”
“You did too. You said, ‘So that guy.’”
“That’s not a question.” His eyes were holding hers with a bland look that was almost defiant.
How had she had ever thought this infuriating man was someone she actually wanted?
“You were trying to question without really questioning, and both of us know it.” She was pleased that her voice was clear and controlled and unbreaking. “You saw Tom flirting with me, and you wanted to know what was going on. But it’s none of your business. You made it very clear that you didn’t want me.”
Patrick opened his mouth like he would object to this, but she didn’t let him.
She continued, “You made your decision, and I’m fine with it. But you don’t get to skulk around now and act jealous because a guy might be interested in me.”
“I’m not jealous,” he said, a lot of gravel in his voice.
“I’m not saying you are. I’m saying you’re acting jealous—for whatever reason. Because you’re a guy and guys don’t like their territory invaded even if they don’t want what’s on that territory.”
Patrick’s expression changed, and he took a step closer to her. “Don’t talk about yourself that way. You’re not territory, and it’s not that I didn’t want you.”
Carol froze for a moment at his earnest words. Her eyes widened dramatically.
Patrick seemed to realize what he’d said because he cleared his throat, dropped his eyes, and took a step back. “I just mean what happened had nothing to do with you. It’s just that it wouldn’t work. With me.”
She didn’t know what exactly that was supposed to mean, but she knew he was serious. He didn’t want her thinking that anything was wrong with her. He didn’t want her to think it was her he’d rejected.
It had been her—no matter how he tried to couch it—but it was still sweet of him to worry about her feelings.
Despite everything, he was a good guy. It was why she’d fallen for him in the first place.
“Okay,” she murmured. “But still. What I do in my personal life isn’t connected in any way to you. So you don’t get to ask about it. You don’t get to care about it.”
His brown eyes were strangely conflicted, almost sad. “Aren’t we still friends?”
“Yes. But we’re going to have to take a step back from being close for a while. I’m not mad. I’m really not. That’s just what happens.”
He took a deep breath and let it out. Then he said softly, “All right.”
He looked wounded somehow, and Carol’s heart went out to him.
She wished it didn’t. He was the one who had chosen against them. She was the one who was most hurt by what had happened. She shouldn’t have to feel sorry for him, even as she was trying not to feel sorry for herself.
Licking her lips, she glanced back down at her tray of cinnamon rolls. “You want one?” she asked.
Patrick blinked. “What?”
“A cinnamon roll. They just came out of the oven. You want one?” She carefully slid a utensil beneath the biggest one and placed it on a small paper plate.
“Yeah.” His expression had relaxed, and his mouth had softened, and she loved that expression so much. She wanted to just swallow him whole.
She handed him the plate, and he it took it like it was precious.
“Thank you,” he murmured.
“You’re welcome.”
He cleared his throat and stood there for a minute. “Have fun trying on dresses this afternoon,” he said.
“We will.”
Then he finally turned around and walked away.
***
Blacksburg wasn’t a particularly large town, and it had only one bridal shop.
Carol, Ginny, and Emma spent three hours there that afternoon.
Emma’s wedding was in just a few weeks, so the dresses were already picked out. But they’d come today to pick out Ginny’s wedding dress. Ginny and Ryan’s wedding was still several months away.
Picking out Ginny’s dress didn’t take multiple weekends and a trip up to Roanoke like Emma’s dress shopping had. Ginny fell in love with the first dress she tried on, and she’d refused to waste her time looking at any others.
Since they were at the shop, however, they decided to look for the bridesmaid dresses, and that wasn’t nearly so easy.
Emma was small, fit, and brunette. She wasn’t as naturally slim as Ginny, but she was compact. Carol wasn’t. She had a lot of curves and didn’t look nearly as good in cute little dresses as Emma did. She also had red in her hair and pale skin.
It wasn’t an easy job to find a dress that would look great on both her and Emma.
Ginny’s wedding dress was simple and stylish and not extremely formal, so she didn’t want full-length bridesmaid dresses.
Carol didn’t like how she looked in knee-length skirts. She wasn’t used to showing any amount of leg. But she dutifully tried on whatever was given to her and tried not to cringe when she stepped out of the stall to show it to the others.
She was trying to zip up the tenth dress she’d tried on when Ginny asked through the door. “How is that one?”
“Eh. I don’t know.”
“Well, come out and let us see it.”
Carol opened the door and came out to discover Emma was already wearing the dress and looking absolutely gorgeous with the slim, fitted shape, square neck, and sleeveless cut.
By comparison, Carol felt like she was spilling out of hers all over.
“Oh, that’s good!” Ginny exclaimed.
“You look great!” Emma agreed, smiling and eyeing Carol from top to bottom.
Carol frowned down at herself dubiously. “I don’t know.”
“What don’t you know? It looks great.” Ginny leaned over to pick up a pair of heels she’d brought to try on her dresses. “Here, put these on, and you’ll like how you look a lot better.”
Carol sighed and stuck her feet into the heels. Ginny wore a size larger than she did, so the heels slid on easily enough. She turned to look in the mirror, relieved when her legs did look a lot better.
Maybe the shorter skirt wasn’t as bad as she’d feared, and the fitted shape looked better than she would have suspected. The navy blue looked good on her—much better than pinks and purples would have.
But still…
“My arms aren’t really made for sleeveless tops,” she said, frowning at her upper arms, which were very white and not particularly slim.
The woman who had been helping them turned to open the top drawer in the set built into the wall. “Here,” she said, pulling out what looked like a bunch of black lace. “These lace toppers are really popular lately. They basically just add pretty sleeves to dresses, which a lot of women really like. We can get them in blue to match the dresses.”
She shook it out to reveal what looked like a tiny lace jacket with three-quarters-length sleeves.
“Okay, try that then,” Ginny said, looking interested in the idea.
The saleswoman helped Carol put it on over her arms and pulled it up over her shoulders. When Carol turned to check herself out in the mirror, she smiled in pleasure. The lace looked like it was part of her dress, covering her upper arms and her shoulders but still leaving the simplicity of the dress and neckline. If it was blue, it would look perfect.
“Oh, I really like it!” Ginny exclaimed.
“Me too,” Emma agreed.
Carol was relieved both that they’d found something all of them liked and that she wouldn’t have to show her upper arms at the wedding.
They changed back into their regular clothes and finished up the last details with the saleswoman. Then they left and went to a cute little café in the shopping complex to get something to eat.
Carol was happy. She always had a good time with her friends, and she was glad Ginny had found a wedding dress and bridesmaid dresses like she wanted. She had no problem spending hours talki
ng about her friends’ upcoming weddings.
Sometimes it made her a little sad though.
Emma was going to be married in less than a month and Ginny a few months after that.
Then Carol would be the only one of the three without a husband.
Without even a man.
She’d never believed in putting her self-worth in being coupled up, but it made her feel a little lonely. She, Ginny, and Emma had always done everything together—ever since they were ten years old.
But now they’d be moving on without her.
“Are we talking about the weddings too much?” Emma asked out of the blue, putting down the fork to her salad and her brown eyes focused on Carol’s face.
Carol straightened up. “No! Of course not. You know I’m excited for you both.”
Ginny frowned. “You have to tell us if we get obnoxious.”
“You’re not being obnoxious. Really. I know before I was acting like… like I thought it would work out for me too. That the three of us could… But it didn’t. And it’s really fine. I’m happy for you.”
Emma and Ginny exchanged a significant look that Carol could read very easily.
“I’m not down in the dumps about Patrick,” Carol said, giving her friends a defiant look.
“I know you’re not,” Emma said quickly. “But you are a little… sad, aren’t you?”
Carol swallowed. “Yeah. Yeah, I am. But it’s not the end of the world. Maybe I was just… romanticizing. All of us ending up with our older brothers just seemed so… Anyway, it didn’t work out. I’m fine.”
Out of respect for Patrick and concern about their intersecting relationships, she hadn’t given her friends any details on what happened, even though it still felt like it was just on the edge of spilling out of her.
“So what did happen?” Ginny asked bluntly. “It never made sense that you wouldn’t tell us.”
“Nothing,” Carol said, dropping her eyes. “Nothing important. It just became clear that it wasn’t going to work out.”
“Are you sure?” Emma asked, her voice much more careful than Ginny’s had been. “Because I know for a fact that he’s not indifferent to you. Maybe you should have given it a little more time. He’s not like Noah and Ryan, you know. He’s not… super-assertive. He’s kind of shy really. He might want something and still not… go after it.”
Carol had to swallow again over the lump in her throat. She still couldn’t raise her eyes. “That’s not it,” she said. “He told me straight out that it wasn’t going to work.”
“What?” Emma’s voice cracked slightly in her obvious surprise. “He told you?”
“Y-yeah. He knew I wanted it, but he didn’t want it. So he told me. I can be silly sometimes, I guess, but I’m not a fool, and I’m not completely spineless. I’m not going to waste any more time swooning over a guy who doesn’t want me.”
“Of course not,” Ginny said quickly, reaching out to put a hand on Carol’s forearm. “You did exactly the right thing. If he’s that much of an idiot, then there’s nothing you can do about it. You’ve got tons of other guys interested in you.”
“Well, not tons.” Carol raised her eyes to meet Ginny’s with a little smile. “But thanks.”
Emma was still frowning. She looked confused, disoriented, like something just didn’t make sense to her. She was Patrick’s sister. The situation had to be a little awkward for her.
“It’s really fine, Emma,” Carol said. “I don’t want things to get weird. We made it through you and Noah, and we made it through Ginny and Ryan. We can make it through this embarrassing little interlude too.”
“You have nothing to be embarrassed about,” Ginny said. “There’s nothing wrong with being interested in a guy and letting him know it.”
“I know.” Carol felt embarrassed anyway. Embarrassed and sad and like she’d suffered a loss. She wasn’t going to let it keep her down though. She turned to Emma, who was still frowning thoughtfully. “It’s really okay, Emma. I’m fine, and Patrick didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Maybe. I don’t know.” Finally Emma shook off whatever she was brooding about and smiled. “Anyway, we haven’t heard much about that guy who was hanging all over you this morning. Tell us more about him.”
So Carol told her friends about Tom and tried to be excited about him.
He seemed like a decent enough guy, but the problem was he wasn’t Patrick.
And no matter how much Carol was trying to get over him, he was still the one she really wanted.
Seven
Patrick swallowed down the last of his beer and leaned back in his chair. When he glanced across the table at Ryan and Noah, he noticed they were both giving him significant looks.
He arched his eyebrows and demanded, “What?”
“What what?” Ryan asked. He finished off his beer too, looking relaxed and a little smug. It was a fairly typical expression for Ryan, so it didn’t necessarily mean anything was going on, but Noah’s look was more revealing.
They were making the rounds at the downtown bars tonight—there weren’t actually a huge number in Blacksburg, and this was the last one for the night—in celebration of Noah’s wedding next weekend. He hadn’t wanted a regular bachelor party, saying they were awkward and kind of creepy—a sentiment Patrick fully endorsed—so the three of them had gone to visit a few bars instead.
Noah didn’t appear to be the least bit nervous or uptight about getting married, even after spending so many years running from any sort of commitment. He’d made his decision almost eight months ago, and he hadn’t so much as glanced back over his shoulder since.
If he had, Patrick would have noticed. He would have had a problem with it. He would have confronted it head-on.
Noah was marrying Patrick’s younger sister after all.
Right now Noah was looking like he had something significant to say.
And Ryan was still looking smug.
“Why are you guys looking at me like that?” Patrick asked with a frown. “This is my fourth beer of the night, so if you’re expecting some sort of deep conversation, you’re going to be disappointed. I’ll be lucky if I don’t fall asleep in this chair.”
Ryan laughed. “Deep conversation. That would be a laugh.”
“We thought that since you’re liquored up, you might tell us what’s going on with you,” Noah said, his voice making the words light and ironic as if it were a joke.
Patrick knew it wasn’t a joke. Even with a slightly fuzzy mind, he knew his friends were probing for information.
He could hardly be surprised.
They’d been friends for a lot of years and sustained the relationship with laughter and companionship and support that was understated and mostly unspoken. But if something important happened with one of them, they usually talked about it.
And Patrick hadn’t told his friends a word about what happened with Carol—something that felt very important to him.
They might not be the most sensitive or observant of human beings, but his friends weren’t blind or stupid.
Patrick played with his empty glass and tried to think about what he should say.
Ryan leaned forward, crossing his arms on the surface of the table. “You know, it wasn’t all that long ago when you were nagging at me, telling me if I was unhappy then I had to do something about it.”
“I don’t nag,” Patrick mumbled. “I might have mentioned it once or twice.”
Noah chuckled. “Ryan’s point is still valid. And I might add that it wasn’t that much longer ago when you gave me a killer black eye because I hadn’t done right by Emma.”
A hard lump of tension rose in Patrick’s throat. He sat up straight and looked from Noah to Ryan. “Has Carol told you something?”
“What do you mean Carol?” Ryan demanded, his expression changing. “Did something happen with Carol? Are you saying you treated Carol the way Noah treated Emma?”
Patrick immediately realized his mistake.
/> Unlike Emma, his friends had had no idea what was troubling him. They’d just known something had gotten him down. They hadn’t put the clues together to form a full picture.
And he’d just filled in all the missing pieces for them.
Ryan was visibly outraged, angry, defensive of his sister, and Patrick felt like sinking into the floor with mortification.
“No,” he said quickly. “It’s nothing like that.”
The truth was it was almost exactly like that.
Noah had slept with Emma and broken her heart.
Carol’s heart might not have been broken by Patrick, but she still deserved to be treated a lot better than Patrick had treated her.
“Then what the hell is going on?” Ryan asked, that edge still audible in his voice. He met Noah’s eyes for a moment before he turned back to Patrick. “Because we assumed she rejected you and that’s why you’ve been so down. Are you saying it was other way around?”
Ryan was not going to be okay with it being the other way around, and Patrick hated himself for stumbling them all into such a miserable situation. “I didn’t reject her. I wouldn’t.”
It wasn’t exactly true.
It wasn’t even close to true.
He had rejected Carol, and at the moment he couldn’t even begin to imagine why.
Noah cleared his throat. “But something did happen?”
“Y-yeah. Something. It was… awkward. But we’re both fine with it. Carol is obviously fine. She… It’s not like I’d ever be her type.”
The other guys didn’t say anything. In fact, the silence went on so long that Patrick shifted in his seat and glanced up at them again.
He couldn’t read their expressions, and it made him decidedly nervous.
“What?” he burst out. “Both of you know it. You assumed she’d rejected me, right?”
The thought was embarrassing that his friends had been talking about what might have happened, concluding that the most likely scenario was that he’d made a move on Carol and she hadn’t wanted him.
