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“Because…because I fucked up.”
His dropping the F bomb got some attention around us.
“OK,” I said. “But I’ve got some serious maid of honor shit to do, so this better not take long.”
I was putting up a tough front, but damned if I wasn’t sort of happy to see him. And as far as reasons why I ought to talk to him went, there were worse ones.
“Fine. But like I said—this needs to be fast. Maid of honor duties.”
“I get it,” he said. “Best man, remember?”
Together we made our way down the hallway, eventually taking the stairs up to the second floor and going out onto one of the balconies. Down below in the garden I could see the spot where we’d been standing when he’d told me the news that we were breaking up…or whatever the term would be for whatever it was that we’d had.
“OK,” I said once we were out there away from the eyes and ears of everyone else in attendance. “You fucked up.”
He looked away for a moment, appearing to gather his thoughts.
“Back when I met you,” he said. “All the way back in college…I knew there was something special about you, Shania.”
“Mhmm.” I was not swayed.
“And I felt pulled to you in a way that I could hardly understand.”
“Like you’d been pulled to all those other girls?”
“No,” he said. “Not like them at all. That night you and I met, I was…actually kind of scared.”
Now this was interesting. I could remember that night well, and of all the words I’d use to describe him, “scared” wasn’t one of them.
“That right?”
He nodded. “Scared out of my mind, to be honest,” he said. “Scared that I’d met you and the way I’d felt was way, way more than I was ready for. And then I when we woke up the next day together, that fear came back. I felt like I was crazy—how the hell did a woman I barely know have this kind of effect on me?”
Figured it was time for getting it all out there, if that’s what we were doing.
“That was my first, you know.”
Man, did that feel weird to say. Not only imagining there was a time that I was some innocent virgin, but that I was finally telling Sean about what had really happened back then.
“Wait, what?” he asked. “You can’t possibly mean…”
I put my hands on my hips and looked away. “I mean exactly what you think I mean by that,” I said. “I’d never had sex before.”
“Shit,” said Sean, running his hand through his hair. “So I was your first and then I just…left.”
“You just left,” I said. “Didn’t say anything, no calls, no texts, no nothing. One night and that was it. And I was left all alone with feelings I didn’t know how to describe and the sense that I’d been used.”
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “You weren’t a one-night thing. Because you’ve been on my mind for the last ten years.”
“Are you serious?”
He nodded. “Every now and then I’d find myself thinking of you, wondering what you were doing, how your life was going. If you’d gotten married…”
“Nope,” I said, letting my tone soften a little. “Just most of my friends.”
He smiled back. “But then when I saw you again, when you came back into my life…I had no idea what the fuck to do. It was like I was being given a second chance or something, and then I was fucking scared again—scared that I’d screw it up again for the second time.”
“Is that what this was about?” I asked. “You broke this thing off with me because you were afraid of screwing it up?”
“No,” he said. “I already knew I’d screwed it up. Because of what you did.”
I was confused as all hell. What on earth was he talking about?
“Because of what I did?” I asked. “What do you mean?”
“With you and James,” he said. “How you two have been seeing each other for the last week.”
I about damn near fell off the freaking balcony. “What?” I asked, my shocked voice carrying down to the garden below, catching the attention of more than a few people. My eyes went wide for a moment and I lowered my voice. “What are you talking about?”
Now it was Sean’s turn to be confused. “Are you screwing with me or something?” he asked. “Because the whole point of this conversation was to get things out in the open.”
“Sean,” I said. “I have no idea what the fuck you’re talking about.”
His mouth opened a bit, in total shock. “I talked to James the other day,” he said. “At the rehearsal dinner. He told me that you guys had been seeing each other.”
No way. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
“That fucking dick,” I said. “Tell me exactly what he told you.”
