CHAPTERSEVEN
Becca
“Are you packed?” Mom asks, standing in the doorway.
She’s already got her backpack on, her suitcase at her feet. Her gray hair is pulled into a tight bun, and she aims her sharp, dignified features at me.
“Yeah.” I gesture at the bed. “All ready to go.”
I hope she can’t sense the sadness in my voice, the sadness which has touched me every day since the wedding.
After we waved Tiffany and Alex off for their honeymoon, the pull I felt for Ben was so strong, so overwhelming.
It was – and it is – difficult to focus on anything else.
All I could think about was the near kisses, the one at the party and then the wedding. And then there was that moment at the bar, where we said more wordlessly than with our speech.
We were saying goodbye, admitting this could never work.
The thought of returning to England, of leaving Ben behind, makes me ache, physically freaking hurt.
As we leave the Air BnB and load up the car, I hide this all away. Dad stands next to the driver’s side, built more like me than Mom, with a kind smile on his face. He playfully taps on his watch when he sees me approaching, wheeling my suitcase.
“Chippy-chop.”
I giggle, shaking my head. “Don’t do that silly British accent, Dad. You sound like the weirdest James Bond ever.”
“Righty-o, then,” he says, grinning, waggling his eyebrows.
We load up the car, then I climb into the back, clasping my hands in my lap. It’s difficult not to wish I was back at the wedding, at the fountain when Ben’s hands were on my body, my hips, my ass.
When he messaged me, it was like he was hungry for me, for all of me. And his words were even sweeter than his touch.
He called me beautiful, all of me beautiful.
“Where are we going?” When Dad turns left instead of right, I ask, which would lead us to the airport.
“Alex isn’t sure he enabled his security system,” Dad says. “He called this morning. I guess he was too distracted to remember before.”
Mom beams. “He’s so in love, isn’t he? Our baby boy. I can’t believe how old he is, how grown-up.”
Dad chuckles. “He’s been grown for quite a while now, Cassandra.”
“I know,” Mom says. “But something about him being married – to somebody he loves so much– changes things.”
I clench my teeth way too hard, with way too much unfair bitterness coursing through me.
Everything they said is true. Alex is happy, and in love, and he deserves it.
He’s a good person.
I’mthe one who wants to betray him.
I’mthe one who wants to ruin it all.
“Parking around here is a bloody nightmare,” Dad says, the Britishism sneaking in as it often does after so many years.
“Do you want me to go up quickly?” I say. “If you give me the code, I can make sure everything’s okay.”