Of course I did. His text is practically pulsing with wounded ego. She’s not worth it.
He thinks that because he’s never slept with her. Or felt the buoyant happiness she inspired. Her name, man. Come on. You promised. I’ve been a great, loyal bro to Tony, remember?
Curry Snyder.
Curry Snyder? It almost makes me laugh. No wonder she didn’t want to tell me her name.
Another text arrives. Ducking autocorrect. Curri. Then another. CURIE. Curie Snyder. But seriously, forget her.
Why?
She’s getting married tomorrow.
Everything inside me slams to a stop, like a locomotive crashing into a mountainside. Where? I manage to text, despite shaking fingers.
Maui.
To an ugly guy who propositioned her parents? The movie Indecent Proposal had something similar. Well, it was an old dude offering a million bucks to sleep with a young married woman in that flick, but still. Some old fart could’ve done the same to her parents. Stuff like that probably still happens.
Is she being forced? I text.
Forced? She’s marrying her high school sweetheart.
Is this some kind of cosmic joke? Her high school sweetheart? My lurid Indecent Proposal fantasy shatters. No way this can be right.
Screw texting. I call TJ. “Hey. You sure about all this?”
“Of course I’m sure. She paid for the drinks with her credit card. Her groom’s name is Joe Washington. Good, all-American boy.”
What the fuck? “Then why the hell did she sleep with me?”
“You asking me? Didn’t your fancy professors teach you anything in your gender studies class?”
“Who remembers any of that shit after they graduate?” I clench my hair, then cut the connection, my mind churning.
TJ’s right. I should let her go. But…
I feel like I was holding a rainbow in my grasp, only to have somebody snatch it away.
Okay, forget the sex. What I want most from her is that sense of peace and happiness. There’s no way this Joe guy is going to take that—take her—from me. If he were her true love, she wouldn’t have danced with me that way or slept with me.
“Hey, you all right?” Nate has appeared, and places a hand on my shoulder.
I unclench my hair and run my fingers through it. “Not really. But I need to borrow your plane.” I might be set to inherit a billion dollars in another week, but that doesn’t mean I have a private jet lying around, ready to just take off whenever.
He stares. “The Learjet?”
“Yeah.”
“You want to borrow the Learjet?”
“I gotta get to Maui.”
“To do what?”
Oh geez. Hundreds of thousands of possibilities spin in my head. But there’s only one logical option. “Confront Skittles.”