No Weddings (No Weddings #1)(56)

Her face began to soften, tense muscles in her jaw relaxing.

“This morning, I knew you were ready, because I was ready. I could no longer stand to be apart from the one person who gets what I’ve been through. You get me. My patience snapped, Hannah. I needed to be here for you, and I needed you to be here for me too. It seemed asinine to continue to deal with it separately.”

She snorted, her lips twitching at the corners. “And really, are we dealing? If this is dealing, we suck at it.” An almost-smile appeared. At least I was on the right track.

I gave her a gentle smile. “Then it occurred to me that we didn’t have to suffer anymore—separate or alone. By letting their selfish actions hurt us, we give them power. I refuse to let my ex have an ounce of power over me. And I definitely don’t like Dumbf*ck having any power over you.”

Amusement lit her eyes. “Don’t think I mentioned it earlier, but I like calling him Dumbf*ck.”

I grinned. “Feels good, doesn’t it?”

She nodded and then regarded me for a few seconds. “We need to have a name for your ex.”

A sudden weight crushed my chest as my ex’s name burned through my mind. Fuck, I knew this wouldn’t be easy, but therapy sucked ass harder than I thought. In order to get better, I supposed we had to rip our scars wide open, let them heal. I didn’t know how we’d ever be able to move on until they were gone.

Hannah’s steady gaze disarmed me. Under her watchfulness, a protection wrapped around me that I hadn’t ever felt before with another human being.

I barely found my voice in my closed throat. “You name her.”

She tilted her head. “Why?”

A smirk tugged at my lips. “Because I christened your * Dumbf*ck.”

The smile she’d been fighting finally lit up her face, and it was brilliant and contagious. I grinned as the two days’ worth of suffocating tension eased off my chest.

Her fingertips tapped her lips as her expression turned thoughtful. “Are you sure you’re ready for this?”

I straightened. At this point, Hannah could tell me to jump onto a sinking ship and I’d do it. I nodded.

“Well, I need to know, was she cruel?”

My eyes never left Hannah’s, but memories of the night flooded in. “After I proposed, she said ‘no.’ Then she laughed at me.”

Hannah’s brow furrowed, her eyes sparking with anger. For me. “What reason did she give you?”

“She’d said she’d only ever been with me during our time together. But that night, she told me there were others—while we were together. She didn’t want to settle down. She wanted to see the world and be with other men.”

She exhaled hard, compassion washing over her face. “She cheated on you?”

I sighed, dropping my gaze, staring at the wood grain in the flooring for a few heartbeats before looking back up at her. “Yeah.”

“So she obviously wasn’t serious about you at all. She was just having her fun with you.” Hannah scowled. “That’s such bullshit, Cade. What a selfish bitch!”

For a few seconds, we sat there in silence—her digesting the latest details of my train wreck, me feeling a little better because she was outraged by them. Wounds two years’ deep had begun to cauterize right there in Hannah’s living room.

“Selfish Bitch.”

I glanced up. Calmness descended over Hannah, like she’d gotten control over herself, over my situation. “What?”

“That’s her new name: Selfish Bitch.”

I grinned, feeling vindicated by a girl who hadn’t been there, but seemed pissed off enough to bloody her hands and do battle for me. Then I arched my brows and nodded. “Nice.”

Hannah laughed with me, and the whole room lit up. And I no longer cared about names or our exes. All that mattered was we’d each taken a step toward one another.

Her eyes drifted to the abandoned bag on the floor. “What’s that?”

I glanced over at the white plastic bag. “That is an epiphany I had, and a way we can both move on.”

Hannah stood from the couch and waited, watching me. “I’m ready.”

“See?” I winked at her, confidence building in where this was headed. “I knew you were.”





Hannah had a skeptical expression, but she came over to me anyway and removed the mug of sludge from my hand. She deposited both mugs on a small side table. Then, with a finger and thumb, she picked up the plastic bag I’d brought.

I stood there like an idiot, watching her. In the span of thirty minutes, over two crap-tasting vegetable smoothies, we’d become a team in something again. The baby step made me feel like Neil Armstrong on the moon.

“Well?” With the bag dangling at the end of her arm, she looked at me, her brows lifted.

I stepped closer and took the bag, then remained in place, inches from her. “It’s important to note we’re already properly dressed for the momentous occasion.”

She looked down. “The pajamas I put on Saturday night?”

I grinned. “And the jeans and shirt I had on Saturday night. The dress code to exorcise Dumbf*ck and Selfish Bitch from our lives forever is funky grunge.”

She laughed. And the world tilted a few degrees toward right again.