Be My Reason Page 5

  Chapter Three

  After checking in at the hotel that is right around the corner from the convention hall, we go up to our two-bedroom suite that Emma has graciously paid for. I am silently grateful that she has her own room in case she decides to have any late-night company. The suite is tastefully decorated with contemporary art and large but comfortable looking furniture. It smells like lilies, thanks to the large flower arrangement adorning the coffee table.

  I thank the concierge for bringing in my bag and then immediately head into the bathroom to clean up my vomit-spattered shoes. They are my favorite wedges or I would simply throw them in the trash.

  Once I’m sure they are perfectly clean, I glance up into the mirror to see my pale mascara-streaked face complete with puffy eyes. God, Lyn, you are pathetic. Did I really just throw up, in a public place no less, over a guy? I guy I haven’t seen in eight years? That is plain stupid. I think it must have been food poisoning from that greasy drive-thru cheeseburger I had for lunch. I clean up my face and brush my teeth and then take off my clothes, swapping them for the hotel robe I see hanging on the back of the bathroom door.

  When I make it out to the living room, Emma is already on the couch with two drinks sitting on the coffee table in front of her. “Sit.” She pats the cushion next to her.

  “Cosmos?” I eye the pale-red liquid in the martini glasses as a smile tries to creep up my face.

  “Thought you could use one.”

  “I love you, Emma. You know that, right?” I sit next to her and give her a hug.

  “I love you, too, girl. More than anyone in this lifetime.” She pulls back but still keeps her hands on my arms. “What do you want to do? If you want to go home, we can leave right now.” I know she means it.

  “What? Of course I don’t want to go home. We just got here and you have much more schmoozing to do and many more connections to make. Plus, it’s not like I’m going to see him again since I’ll be staying at the hotel studying while you are at the conference.” I pick up my glass, take a drink and savor the sweet burn of my favorite cocktail.

  “Yes, but just knowing you are in the same city as that slime ball—won’t it drive you crazy?”

  Well, I hadn’t considered that, but now that she’s brought it up . . . yes.

  “Slime ball,” I roll the words over my tongue. “Emma, you have no idea. I saw him a few times earlier in the day when you were in your sessions, but I didn’t see his face so I didn’t know it was him. He was all over these women, different women. He was kissing them and caressing them and disappearing down the hall with them.” I sigh. “It’s like it wasn’t even him. He was never like that in high school. Then again, that was a long time ago. Today he was . . . well he seemed . . . well, like the male you.” I shrug.

  “So, maybe it wasn’t really him, but someone who looks a lot like him. His, what do you call it . . . doppelganger? Anyway, what does it matter what he is like or if it was really him? He is a low-down dickhead slime ball who isn’t worth getting upset over.”

  I smile weakly at her choice of colorful words. “I know. It’s just that I never expected to see him ever again. Early on, after he left, I thought he might come back, but then after graduation, I kind of gave up hope.” I take another drink. “And, yes, I’m sure it was Nate. When he realized it was me, he turned white as a ghost. He even called my name.” I close my eyes remembering the sound of his voice today after so many years of hearing it only in my head.

  “Lyn, maybe we should cancel tonight. We can hang out here, get toasted on Cosmos and order up ‘Thelma and Louise’ on the TV.”

  “Are you crazy? And waste an opportunity to see the Emma Crawford fall all over herself because of a guy? No way. We are going out and I won’t give that bastard another thought.”

  “Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you.” She hugs me hard. “I really like Graham. And I’m not talking about just wanting to get in his pants and see how big his dick is. I want to find out about his job and his family and crap like that,” she rambles. “How weird is that?”

  “Precisely why we need to go to dinner and see where this thing with him is going. What time are we supposed to be there?”

  She checks her diamond encrusted watch. “About an hour, you good with that?”

  ~ ~ ~

  Emma scoots to the inside of a booth and I sit down next to her. She gives me a look so I say, “What? I’m not about to sit by Graham’s friend. You two will just have to rub knees under the table or something.”

  We order our usual Diet Cokes and talk about some of the interesting design exhibits that I saw earlier today. I tell her about my catering idea and she says she will talk to her dad, who is a corporate banker, about ways to find investors after we get back. She is telling me about her last session of the day on lighting in design when a big smile creeps up her face. “They are here. Do I look okay?” She quickly pats down her stick-straight hair then takes a drink of her soda. The very same soda that a second later spews all over me.

  “What the hell, Emma?” I grab my napkin and start to wipe down my shirt as beads of Diet Coke run onto my jeans. I look up at her and follow her wide eyes over to the door Graham has just walked through and see none other than Nathan Riley trailing in behind him.

  He looks at me and pales again, as he did earlier. I’m quite sure the blood has drained from my face as well. How is this happening to me?

  “You have got to be freaking kidding me,” Emma says, loudly I might add, staring at him in disbelief as I hit my ankle on the corner of the booth making my quick exit towards the ladies room. Ouch! Damn that hurts.

  Emma follows me and I keep my head down, not making eye contact as I hobble by them on the way to the bathroom. I hear Graham say, “What is going on?”

  “Ask your dickhead friend why don’t you,” Emma huffs as she walks by them.

  She ushers me into the ladies room and sticks her head back out the door to say, “Graham, just give us a minute, will you please?” Then she closes the door and grabs onto my arm. “Oh my God, Lyn. Nate Riley is the player that is Graham’s partner? I guess you really did see him earlier. Wow, what are the odds of—”

  “Give us a minute?” I interrupt her rambling. “Give us a minute, Emma? What the hell does that mean? I know you don’t expect me to go back out there and actually eat a meal with that snake.” I rub my ankle and try to keep it together, doing only a slightly better job of it than earlier today.

  She stares pointedly at me and I can almost see the cogs spinning in her brain. “Lyn, calm down. Think about this for a minute. If you leave now and go off crying back to the hotel, he sees you all weak and broken. But if you hold your head up and go out there and show him what a beautiful strong woman he missed out on, then you win, not him. Be the bigger person.”

  Damn it, she has a point.

  “Please, Lyn. You can do this. One hour, that’s it.”

  She takes her bag and places it on the counter, retrieves some makeup and proceeds to touch-up my splotchy face. “Good as new and gorgeous as ever,” she says a minute later, nodding at me in the mirror.

  I take a deep breath and nod back at her. “Okay. I’m doing this for you. Because I love you more than life and I believe you really like this Graham . . . and maybe because I want to show Nate he didn’t break me.” He didn’t break me, did he?

  I’m shaking and my throat goes dry as we head back to the table. Grateful beyond words, I see Graham rise from his side of the booth and move over to where Nate is sitting. He looks at me sympathetically and says, “We don’t have to do this tonight if you are uncomfortable.”

  Obviously the snake has filled him in.

  Emma pokes me in the back urging me to say something. “No it’s okay, we can stay for dinner. It’s fine.” I put on a fake smile and look anywhere but at Nate.

  Funny thing about the word fine, it can mean just about anything, but it almost always means the opposite of fine. You can be sick as a dog but when someone
asks how you are you don’t say ‘I’m sick as a dog’, you say ‘I’m fine’, even when what you really mean is that you just prayed to the porcelain god for hours on end and you can’t believe that much vomit can ever come out of one body.

  We sit and order more drinks since Emma’s first one is now gloriously displayed down the front of my white blouse. I try to ignore the fact that Nate is staring at me. I fail miserably. I can’t keep looking away all night. I probably look stupid looking everywhere but at him.

  Just do it already. I slowly shift my eyes until they meet with his. My heart skips a beat when I take him in. He looks the same, but with more defined features. Those deep blue eyes pop out on his tanned, chiseled face. He has broad shoulders and I can see his biceps bulging out from his too-tight navy blue t-shirt that only brings out more of the blue in his eyes. Man, he’s hot. Subconsciously I had hoped he had peaked in high school and that he ended up with a crooked nose, ears too big for his head and really bad teeth.

  He is smiling at me, probably assessing me the way I am him. “Brooklyn, you look beautiful. I knew you would.”

  Knew I would?

  “Um . . . thanks. You look nice, too.” What else was I supposed to say? “And my name is Lyn.” I look away and try to feign interest in the other conversation going on at the table. I am willing Emma to include me in it so that I can start breathing again.

  She doesn’t let me down when she looks over and finds me staring a hole into the side of her beauty-queen head. “So, Lyn opened her own bakery a few years ago and it is doing really great. She is also about to earn her business degree,” she says with the pride of a true best friend.

  Thankfully, Graham seems genuinely interested in my business and I am in my element talking about my one true passion. I glance over and notice that Nate seems ticked off about being left out of the conversation. Ha!

  The waitress comes over and asks for our orders. I pray that nobody orders something that takes a long time to make. The quicker we get out of here, the better.

  Graham and Emma are engaged in a discussion about the conference. Nate is fiddling with his phone. Why is he acting like nothing happened? Like he didn’t take my virginity and throw it on the ground and stomp all over it. I still can’t believe I’m sitting across from him after eight years. I want to yell at him. I want to reach into his chest and rip out his heart so that he can understand what it feels like to have someone dangle love at you like a carrot and then whisk it away without so much as a word of explanation. I want to tell him what it was like to be a young girl in love with a legend at school, only to become the butt of jokes when he left suddenly, leaving me a heap of melted mess on the floor of the school bathroom.

  But I don’t. I remain quiet about all of it. I don’t want him to know how he ruined me. How he crushed my heart, rendering it incapable of feeling until years later. Until I found Michael.

  Oh, God. What’ll I tell Michael? He will freak out, won’t he? I mean, he’s not really the jealous type but he knows how much Nate hurt me so he will be pissed. He will probably want me to come home. I shouldn’t tell him. Yes, I should. I don’t want to keep anything from him. I’ll tell him when we talk tonight, by then this will be over and I will never have to see Nate again. So, it’s settled. I’ll tell him. Maybe.

  I become less comfortable with the next topic of conversation. Graham smiles over at me. “So, Lyn, when is the big day?”

  Nate perks up and breaks his silence. “What big day would that be?”

  “Oh, didn’t Graham tell you that Lyn is getting married?” She has a huge bitchy smile on her face like she just told him the ending of a movie he hadn’t seen yet.

  Nate takes in a sharp breath. “No.” He gives Graham a what-the-hell look. “No, he didn’t mention that. Who is the lucky bastard?” he asks while staring me down.

  Oh, so now he wants to talk. “His name is Michael,” I say.

  “Michael?” He snorts. “Michael? Sounds like he changes toner cartridges and wears a pocket protector.” Now I’m the one giving him a what-the-hell-look.

  “Dude!” Graham elbows him and gives him a disapproving look.

  “Actually,” Emma pipes in, “Michael is a doctor doing his residency in pediatric cardiology down in Savannah.” She squeezes my leg under the table. I could high five her right now. I’ve never used Michael’s job to make him or me look better, and I had no intention of bringing it up tonight, but damn, to see the look on Nate’s face—so worth it. He looks like he just ate a lemon. Or maybe a little crow.

  “So, Nathan Riley,” she says to him, spitting out his name like it tastes bad coming out of her mouth, “I thought you were going to be a big baseball player or something, yet here you are at an architectural convention.” Oh, boy, Emma is unleashed.

  If looks could kill, Emma would be dead. His phone chirps and thankfully, he ignores her attack and his temper is now directed towards whoever was on the other end of that text. He slams it back on the table muttering something about a bitch and then he runs his hand through his hair. Wow, I may be engaged to be married but I’m not dead. It is still flat-out sexy when he does that.

  “Claudia?” Graham asks Nate.

  “None other. The bitch won’t leave me alone,” he responds.

  “Girlfriend?” I raise my eyebrows at him in question. I know it’s been eight years and all, but the thought of someone you once loved, or thought you loved, with another person, even if you hate that someone right now, is not a pleasant thought.

  “Ex-wife,” he says, and now I’m the one with my mouth hanging open and blood draining from my face.

  Emma coughs up her Diet Coke for the second time tonight. Thankfully it was in the other direction this time. “You were married?” she asks in utter disbelief.

  “Briefly,” he says, his left hand coming up to rub on his right bicep. I think I see the hint of a tattoo peeking out from under his t-shirt. It looks like some kind of script. He rubs it absentmindedly and stares out the window of the restaurant.

  He was married? I shouldn’t care about this. I am about to be married myself. Then why does it feel like a sledge hammer just hit my heart?

  Our food arrives and interrupts what was bound to be a thorough Q & A session from Emma about his failed marriage. I study the clock on the wall thinking that I just need to get through this dinner and show him that I have a good life, and then get on with my life. I mean, I have a great guy and my dream job. He doesn’t seem to have anything that he wanted at age seventeen. Divorced at twenty-five? Well, of course he is. He is a playboy. I saw it myself. Why would anyone get married to a guy like that? He called that . . . Claudia, a bitch. Hmmpf . . . I bet she’s nice and beautiful and in a world of hurt dealing with his philandering ways. Maybe we could start a club.

  I’m pulled from the thought when I hear a high-pitched, “Hi Nate,” coming in tandem from two tall gorgeous women passing by our table. He lifts his chin and winks at them and they giggle as they walk out of the restaurant. Did they really just giggle?

  Nate and I struggle to make idle conversation while Graham and Emma are hitting if off big time. “So,” Nate says, “what are you going to do all day at the hotel when Emma is at the conference?”

  “Study for my finals.” I’m deliberately being short because I have no desire to have a heart-to-heart with him. “And run.”

  “Your hotel has a great running trail.” He stops talking and scrunches his eyebrows together while stroking his chin with his thumb and forefinger. “Um . . . so what are you studying?”

  “Small business management.”

  “Not big on words tonight, are you Brooklyn?”

  “It’s Lyn. L-Y-N,” I spell it out for him.

  “Well, Brooklyn . . .”

  I roll my eyes at him.

  “It looks like you’ve gotten everything you wanted.” He frowns and looks down at his wrist which he is moving around in circles. I notice some small scars on it but don’t ask about them. The less
we talk the better.

  “You’re really getting married, huh? Why would you do that?” he asks.

  “It is usually the progression of events after meeting, dating and falling in love,” I quip.

  He looks pissed. “Marriage is a bunch of crap, you know. Expecting two people to stay together forever is unrealistic.”

  Whoa, hello Mr. Personal. I really don’t want to talk about love and marriage and forever with the guy, who I thought, eight years ago, was going to be all of that for me. I know. Deep down, I know it was just one night and that it obviously meant so much more to me than to him. But for a minute, actually for thirty-three hours and twenty minutes, I really thought that he was it for me. I was finished. Done. At seventeen I had found my prince and he came in with his silver pickup truck and swept me off my feet.

  “Just because your marriage failed doesn’t mean everyone else’s will,” I say, twisting my engagement ring.

  He shakes his head. “No, it’s not natural. Most people end up divorced anyway so why bother to go through all the trouble of dating, flowers, meeting the parents and garbage like that?”

  “The trouble of dating?” I snap at him, raising my voice because he has really hit a nerve. “Oh, yes, how could I forget? It is too much trouble for you. You would rather just sleep with everyone and then leave.” There, I’ve said it.

  He takes in a sharp breath and looks like I’ve just punched him in the stomach. Is that . . . regret, I see? He shakes his head and recovers quickly. “Whatever,” he says in clear frustration. “It won’t work out. You’ll see.” He rubs his tattoo again.

  I see out of the corner of my eye that Emma and Graham have been following our conversation like watching a tennis match. Emma is turning red. This is not good.