37
PARKER
When I woke up in the morning, a black cloud of depression bore down on me and it was almost as dark and angry as the ones in the sky outside. The rain had let up for brief intervals during the night, but it was back this morning and the weather suited my miserable mood perfectly.
Isabella was gone. We’d searched for half the night and hadn’t been able to find Colt. When I’d eventually gotten a reply to one of my dozen texts to him, he’d said he was fine and just needed some space to process.
After that, we’d had a couple of drinks and, fucking exhausted after what had been one hell of day, decided to go to sleep. The room Isabella and I had been sharing had two beds in it, and I’d known as soon as I unlocked the door that she’d kept her word and left.
Even though we wouldn’t have been sleeping next to each other anyway, I still felt her absence so acutely that it fucking hurt.It still hurts, but life’s a bitch.
Not wanting to spend any more time in the god-awful room than I had to, I tossed all my shit in my bag after rushing through a shower and getting dressed. As soon as I zipped it up, I slid the strap over my shoulder and headed downstairs to check out.
When I got to the front desk, Colt was there doing the same thing. Relief crashed into me when I saw him in one piece, looking hungover as hell but alive and not passed out in a ditch somewhere.
“Hey,” he said when I took the space next to him at the counter. Dark sunglasses covered his eyes despite the weather and the fact that he was inside, but I still saw him wince a little when the word came out of him. He groaned, dropping the pen he’d used to sign out and slowly turning his head to face me. “Fucking hell. I feel like death. Actually, no. I feel so bad, I’d welcome death right around now.”
“Do you want to go grab breakfast before we head to the airport?” I asked, picking up the pen and signing the sheet the receptionist slid over to me. “I’m buying. You look like you need a shit ton of grease before you’ll be able to make it back home today.”
“I know. Who would’ve thought being left at the altar would necessitate a liver transplant?” His voice was rough, but he held it together. “What I need is another drink, but I’ll settle for breakfast. Just not here. I’m in no state to face everyone right now.”
“Sure thing. I get that. It’s not like they need telling what happened and they’ll all be leaving after breakfast anyway.”
We walked out of the hotel and found a diner nearby. I raised my eyebrows at him. “You’d have another drink? Fuck. The last time I was even close to as hungover as you are, I quit drinking for two months after.”
He chuckled, but the sound was dark and not humorous. “I remember that. It was after the relaunch party. You swore you’d never drink again.”
“It wasn’t the relaunch party that got me. It was the after-party Marley dragged us to. What was that stuff he kept pouring down my throat? Ouzo, right?”
“Ouzo,” he replied, dragging out the last syllable as he remembered. “Fucking Marley. It was a good party, though. Definitely one worthy of celebrating what you’d achieved until then.”
“Yeah.” We fell quiet as we sat down. We studied the menus before placing an order for two of the biggest coffees they had and breakfasts that would keep us full until next week. Once the waitress collected our menus, I turned my attention back to Colt. “How are you holding up?”
“Not so good.” He lifted his glasses to let me see his bloodshot eyes and heaved out a heavy breath as he dropped them again. “Aside from the obvious, I’m broken, man. I kind of feel like I’m not even here. I’m going through the motions, but I feel detached. Like I’m watching this happening to someone else.”
“Do you need any help with the practical stuff? I can call up the travel agent to cancel the honeymoon,” I offered.
“I’ve been thinking about that, but there’s no point in canceling it now. We were supposed to check in today, so we won’t get any money back. I’m playing with the idea of going on it by myself. God knows, I need to get my head straight before I go back to work. I’ve already taken the time off, so I figure I may as well go and do some fucking soul searching.”
“Soul searching?” I frowned. “What for? I’d just have gone and enjoyed the two weeks of downtime.”
“Yeah, but you haven’t been in a relationship for the last twelve years that has suddenly blown up in your face,” he said bitterly, then sighed and pulled off his glasses to scrub his hands over his haggard-looking face. “I’ve been with Anna for so long, I don’t know how to just be by myself. So I need to figure that out.”
I didn’t reply. There was nothing to say and I could see he wasn’t done talking yet anyway. “I should have married her ages ago, but we were always waiting for the perfect time. First there was waiting for graduation, then to get settled into our jobs, then for enough money, and the list goes on.”
His voice cracked, and he paused, clearing his throat before sliding his glasses back on. “I just don’t understand why she left. She was with me every step of the way. It’s not like I made her wait for me when she was ready and I wasn’t. We made all those decisions together.”
“Sometimes people just move on,” I said, shrugging when I felt him looking at me from behind the black lenses. “You love them, but they won’t let you. They just… leave.”
“That’s bullshit.” He scoffed. “People should hold on to love with both fucking hands. As hard as they can. Don’t worry about the right timing or how much money is in the bank. Go for it. Bet on love.”
“You still feel that way? Even now?” My jaw slackened. “After what you’ve just been through—fuck, what you’re going through—you’d still bet on love?”
“Yes,” he answered immediately and without any hesitation whatsoever. “Anna and I had our ups and downs, but it was all worth it. Every single minute of the bad times was better than these last few hours have been without her. I don’t know.”
He hung his head to massage his temples. “The more I think about it, the more I think that she was right to have left. I would’ve gone through with it, even if I knew things probably weren’t the way they should’ve been between us.”
Hollow laughter rumbled out of him, and he sniffed before lifting his head again. “I don’t know what I’m going to do now. I have no fucking clue how to be alone anymore, but maybe that’s part of the problem. Maybe I need to figure out who I am without her before I can really be happy with anyone, even her.”