“I’m just so happy for you both.” I roll my eyes at Laurie. “Finally!”
“We’re going to get married,” she tells me, an edge of excitement in her voice. She releases a shaky breath, as if she doesn’t quite believe it yet. “We’re getting married,” she repeats.
I turn to Brett, my eyes wide and my mouth open. He nods in confirmation and I scream, throwing my arms around Laurie again. “Oh Laurie! I’m so happy.” Now, I’m actually crying with happiness. “Wow!” I give her an arch look, “A lot happened while I was gone.”
Laurie giggles, “You wouldn’t believe.”
“I have to get back to the gym,” Brett says. He’s still grinning, his chest swelled with happiness. He bends to kiss Laurie on the forehead and she leans into him, wrapping her arms around his waist. Their intimacy and emotional connection is palpable, and I might as well not even be in the room.
After a few seconds, they reluctantly pull apart. “I’ll leave you two to catch up,” Brett continues, his hand lingering around Laurie’s. He finally lets it drop so he can give me another quick hug. “I’ll come back later,” he tells Laurie, before leaving.
I wait for the door to close behind him then I scream again and give Laurie another excited hug. “How did this happen?”
She sighs happily and falls back on the couch. “Where do I begin?”
“At the beginning!” I throw up my hands. “Last night, you said… you and Chadwick…” I join her on the couch. “What the fuck happened?”
She covers her face, giggling behind her hands. “I couldn’t do it.” She drops her hands and gives me a shamefaced look before shaking her head. “I just couldn’t. I went there thinking that maybe I needed to get under someone else so I could get over Brett, and I was ready to. Chadwick is cute and sexy, you know?”
“Yeah…?” I shrug. “So what happened?”
“We got talking. Me and Chadwick. The food was horrible, God!” She grimaces. “Anyway, we drank wine, got slightly drunk, then I started talking about Brett, and even though I knew somewhere in my head that this was a date and I was supposed to be thinking about doing the dirty with Chadwick, I just couldn’t stop talking about Brett.”
“Poor Chadwick.” I sigh. “How did he react?”
“He listened.” Laurie smiles. “He’s really sweet, isn’t he? Underneath all that, ‘I can’t wait to get into your pants’ swagger.”
I laugh at her description of Chadwick’s harmless flirting. “He is,” I agree.
“Anyway,” Laurie continues, “At some point, it just became clear that what I needed wasn’t some quick fix to try to get over Brett. What I really needed was to tell him how I felt, to listen to him and try to make it work.”
I hug myself. “Awww. That’s so sweet.”
Laurie swats me playfully. “Chadwick called me a cab, and on the way, I called Brett. I took my own advice and told him everything I was feeling, my fears, everything I thought he didn’t understand.” She smiles. “He came over, we fought, made up, cried… Then it just kinda slipped out that he wanted us to spend the rest of our lives together. He didn’t plan to.” She holds up her hand. “See, no ring.”
I blink back tears. “I’m jus
t glad you’re happy.”
“Me too.” Her eyes start to glisten and she blinks rapidly. “I can hardly believe how happy I am. I can’t believe I was going to throw it all away because of a stupid hug in front of a stupid diner.” She looks at me. “He explained all about that too. She left her boyfriend and moved here to escape the ‘small town life’ and she’s been incredibly lonely, struggling with the desire to move back home, trying to find reasons to stay, but she’s finally leaving, and the diner was her goodbye lunch. Brett wasn’t even the only one there from the gym. He just came out with her because he was leaving too. Everyone else was still inside.”
“Really?” I chuckle, “And you made me power walk almost the whole way home.”
“Sorry.” She gives me a sheepish look. “I feel sorry now that I didn’t listen to him, but maybe we needed to go through all that to get here.”
I sigh. “You’re right,” I agree softly.
She takes my hand. “How did it go with Landon?”
I told him how I felt.
But he couldn’t bring himself to say he feels the same way.
Because maybe he doesn’t.
“I…” I shrug. “I don’t really want to talk about it, not right now.”
Laurie gives me a long look, and for a moment, I think she’s going to insist. I really don’t want to talk about Landon. It’s not just because it would hurt me to remember, but also because I don’t want to tell her how last night went and be the one ruin the happiness of the moment.