He looked down at her with a slight frown. “She’s not anyone important, so just ignore her.” Then he looked up at me. “Please go away, you’re ruining my mood.”
I grit my teeth in annoyance. I was tempted to throw my fist in his face. I’d had my fair share of punching out guys that messed with my best friend, but I was there with Abe and I didn’t want to make too much of a spectacle of myself in case it affected him. Thinking about that was enough to get me to hold myself back, but it didn’t stop me from being hungry.
“Listen up,” I said, pointing a finger at him. “If you don’t give a damn about her, then at the very least don’t string her along. You are going to call Nora and tell her the wedding is off, break up with her and disappear. You do it, or I will.”
I wondered, if I hadn’t shown up and seen this scene, if he would have even showed up for the wedding at all. He certainly didn’t look like he was in a hurry to return to his waiting fiancé.
“What is this woman talking about?” the dark-haired woman asked, her expression darkening as she took a step away from him.
For a moment, it looked like Paul wanted to panic. He kept an arm around the woman, pulling her closer as he glared at him.
“You can go ahead and do whatever you want, because I was planning on breaking up with Nora anyway.” Then he looked at the woman beside him, his expression gentling. “Honey, listen to me. It’s not what you’re thinking, okay?”
“Then why don’t you tell me what it is I’m thinking!” the woman screeched, making heads turn. She was struggling to move away from him, but he held her close. “She mentioned a Nora and you said something about breaking up, so what the hell am I not getting, huh?”
The woman looked beside herself, and Paul looked meek as he tried to get her to calm down and pull her away from the crowd at the same time. I just watched in satisfaction for a moment, turning around and storming off to avoid confrontation. From here on, it was his problem.
My problem, was wondering how I was going to break this news to my best friend, and if I even should.
Crap!
I cursed myself for the split second that I was envious about Nora getting married, I want her to be happy. Something that I’m far from right now. She thought that she had found the one, and I was so fucking sad, that she’d found something but it wasn’t love. It was another bad apple.
Chapter Eleven
Abe
I was already frowning as I went back to look for Brooklyn, and not seeing her where I’d left her made my mood even more sour. I looked around, and saw her walking away from a man, who was dragging a distraught woman with him. My eyes narrowed on the woman, feeling like she was familiar, but as Brooklyn walked closer, she blocked their view, and my eyes fell on her.
“Hey,” I said softly when she came to a stop in front of me. “Are you okay?”
She frowned up at me. “Can I get another glass of wine, please?”
“Sure,” I said readily, gently taking her arm and leading her over to a different area.
This was a wine tasting, so there were plenty of different wines to taste, but I wondered if she would taste any of them now. Brooklyn was obviously just looking for something alcoholic to make herself feel better. As soon as I got a glass into her hand, she threw it all back, and I arched my eyebrows as I gave her my own glass as well.
“Why don’t we find some food?” I suggested? “It should be around time for lunch already.”
“Whatever,” she muttered, her arms crossed as she looked off into the distance.
So, I led her over to where the food would be served, a bit of a walk away from the garden. I found a table for us and ordered the food, and I watched as she stabbed at her plate, barely eating. I pursed my lips, wondering whether to ask or not, then decided I was really too curious to keep quiet.
“Who’s that man?” I asked.
She growled, making a hard stab at her chicken, and the fork passed right through and hit the plate beneath. She sighed and picked up the knife to work the fork out of the piece of chicken.
I arched an eyebrow at her. “If you want to get rid of someone, I could help find some people for you? It should be better than dirtying your own hands, yes?”
“Don’t joke right now, okay?” she said, looking up at me.
I shrugged. “Who’s joking? Whoever it was that pissed you off, tell me who it is and what he did. I can deal with him for you. We…might not be together right now, we might not even be close to being friends, but I’ve never stopped caring for you, okay?”
My voice was soft, as if I was trying to coax a cute, angry little animal, and it seemed to work. Brooklyn looked at me for a long time, and when she looked back down, she sighed as her shoulders slumped and took a proper bite of her food.
“Sorry,” she mumbled. “I don’t mean to take my bad mood out on you.”
I sighed, thinking she wasn’t the only one in a bad mood.