Page 26 of Say it Ain’t So

“His name is Rylan.” I had to pause, to hold onto the wheel and wipe the tears and the sun from my eyes. “He was…”

My god. He was everything.

Kind. Generous. Fun.

Handsome.

Everything a woman could want and a thousand times more.

I never dreamed I could find a man like Rylan.

Never dreamed they actually existed in this world.

But they did. He did.

“Joss? You okay, babe?”

Those pesky tears had become a river that I could no longer dam. I pulled to the side of the road and put my car in park, then tried to breathe through the pain that had clenched around my heart.

“Joss?” Cheyenne’s voice was slightly panicked, and my thoughts turned to damage control.

“I’m fine. Just allergies. It’s so dry in Vegas.”

“Don’t do that.” I shifted in my seat at her harsh tone. “Don’t pretend with me, girlie. Tell Cheyenne what happened.”

So I did. Parked alongside the highway on the road back to my house in Minnesota, I spilled my guts to my best friend. I told her what happened with JaCinda and her friends, the video Peter had sent, and the fallout after I broke up with him.

I told her about meeting Rylan and how he’d swept me off my feet. Lunch at the Strat followed by thrill rides. The whole movie montage wardrobe scene, including the beautiful flowing dress and him getting down on one knee to help me into my new shoes.

My tears were streaming down my face, tears filled with happiness and loss, when I spoke about the country bar and the crazy, costumed people that walked around on Fremont Street.

Cheyenne fell silent when I told her how Rylan proposed. How we raced to get our marriage license, then he took me to the chapel. She gasped when I told her about the ring and how it was almost an exact match to my vision board at home. Then she gasped again when I told her about the dress.

The absolutely beautiful dress he’d had shipped to the chapel directly from the boutique after he’d known me for only a couple hours.

“And the sex?” Cheyenne asked, her voice an awed whisper. “Was it good?”

“No!” My cry had to have startled her, because it certainly startled me.

“Oh.” I could just picture her chewing on the side of her lip. “Is that why you left?”

“No, Cheyenne.” I wiped the snot from my nose. “The sex wasn’t just good. It was phenomenal. It was mind-blowing. It was the most amazing thing in the entire world. He had me shaking before he even touched me. I came so hard, I’m pretty sure I blacked out. If I’d known that this was possible, that a man like this existed in the world⁠—”

No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t stifle the sob that ripped through me. I clutched at my mouth with one hand, clutched at my chest with the other.

It hurt.

Everything hurt without Rylan.

Cheyenne gave me a moment, but she wasn’t that kind of friend. She wasn’t the one who’d sit back and tell me I was right when I’d made the worst mistake of my life.

“Why’d you leave him?” she asked, right on cue. “If he’s this magical unicorn of a man, why the hell did you run away?”

“I don’t know.” I’d been asking myself that very question since my plane took off that morning.

I’d woken next to Rylan, his arm draped over me, his big, naked body pressed against my back.

And I panicked.