Page 134 of While You Were Trending

My heart dips like I’m on a roller coaster.

I interrupted his wedding, and now he’s divorced?

Declan glances at me this time. “Knock it off, Ginny. He shouldn’t have had more than a single date with her, much less proposed and rushed to the altar.”

“I didn’t say anything,” I say.

“Your vibe did.”

“It’s none of my business.”

“Oh, you didn’t know? She dropped him before they made it six months,” Adelaide tells me. “Mama always said that man fell in love as often as normal people need toilet paper.”

Declan swipes a hand over his mouth, dark eyes dancing. “That’s…a creative way to put it.”

Are they serious right now? “I dated him forfour years.”

Declan’s gaze locks on mine. “He loves being in love. Loves it more when women make it easy on him.”

Mabel grips my elbow, but she doesn’t tell anyone to drop it.

“I had a friend like that back in Chicago,” Cricket says. “All she needed was the slightest bit of attention, and she’d latch onto him either until he dumped her, or until someone who seemed to like her more than her current boyfriend came along. She wanted easy love.”

I swallow hard.

I relate far too much to theslightest bit of attentionpart.

“Easy love.” Declan nods at Cricket. “That’s a good way to describe it.”

“Are you saying he didn’t actually love me?” I whisper.

Declan looks up at the darkening night sky. “No. He loved you. He just—had—hasa certain perspective of what love is and how easily it should click.”

I let that roll through my mind. Some through my heart too.

I bent over backward to make Alex love me.

We worked because I gave and he took.

It was my goal—win and keep his love by being everything he wanted in a girlfriend—but I was constantly worried he’d wake up one morning and realize I was a fraud. A total sham.

Until the day I started wondering if he’d propose since we’d been together for so long, and my immediate gut reaction was a bone-deep certainty that I didn’t want to marry him.

I didn’t understand why I was so opposed to marrying him, but I knew instantly that I needed to break up with him.

“He loved that I made his life easy.” I don’t like the words coming out of my mouth, but they make sense.

And I did it to myself.

I look at Declan, who’s still shirtless, then down at his University of Minnesota T-shirt.

“I’m keeping this shirt,” I announce. “I like it.”

“Okay,” Declan says.

“I might tie-dye it.”

His lips twitch. “Flow would love to help with that. She’s a tie-dye expert.”