My Favorite Souvenir(64)

My brows furrowed. “What makes you say that?”

“Well, even if she doesn’t wind up with you, if she’s out there falling for another guy, whatever she had with the first guy wasn’t going to last anyway.”

If he only knew...

Brady had never been philosophical, but he did have a point. If you’re truly in love with someone, your heart should be full, and there wouldn’t be room to let another person in. “I guess…”

“Did you fool around with this girl?”

I couldn’t believe I was having this conversation. “No. It wasn’t like that.”

“So it’s not about great sex then?”

I shook my head. I definitely needed to extricate myself from this somehow—change the subject. Then it dawned on me, I could turn the tables. My own morbid curiosity wanted to know what had gone down with the Greek woman who caused Brady to call off his wedding, and this was the perfect opportunity to toss out a question and get the heat off of me at the same time.

“What about you?” I asked. “You just said if you’re in love with someone and you’re out there falling for another person, the first relationship is doomed. Didn’t you tell me about some woman—Athena, I think you said her name was? Doesn’t that mean you and Hazel are doomed?”

He smiled. “That’s different.”

“How? Because we’re talking about you now and not me?”

“No. Because I never fell for Athena. It was just a physical thing between us. If you saw what she looks like, you’d understand.”

Trevor came back from the kitchen. He passed us each a beer, even though he’d said he wasn’t getting us any, and twisted the cap off his. “What who looks like?”

Brady responded. “A Greek goddess from my office.”

Trevor took a swig of his beer. “Oh yeah? Set me up.” He wiggled his brows. “Greek is my favorite thing to eat.”

“She’s not your type,” Brady said.

Trevor looked offended. “Why not?”

He smirked. “Because she’s into tall, clean cut, physically fit, successful dudes, that’s why.”

Trevor was short, scrawny, and had a long, hipster beard. He looked at me and thumbed in my direction. “So I guess he’s not her type either? Dunc needs a haircut.”

Brady laughed. “Didn’t you go to college with us? Dunc is every chick’s type. I only hung around him for the leftovers.”

Eddie came back into the apartment, and I knew our discussion was about to go off track. I gave it one last-ditch effort. Picking up my beer, I twisted off the cap, tossed it into the middle of the table, and pointed the bottle at Brady. “So set me up with Athena then. Maybe I’ll like her better than Kimber.”

Brady grabbed the cards from the table and started shuffling. “I would. But you have that rule. At least you did in college.”

“What rule?”

“You don’t dip your pen where your fraternity brothers have inked before.”

? ? ?

It was almost nine by the time the conductor on my train announced Maddie’s station was next. I’d spent the last hour and a half beating myself up over where I was going after where I’d just come from. What kind of a guy spends the day with one of his best buddies from college, a guy whose wedding he was supposed to be in, and then sneaks off to his fiancée’s house at night? Or his ex-fiancée anyway.

An asshole—that’s who pulls that kind of crap. I knew a few guys who’d done shit like this over the years, and I’d always kept my distance, looking down my nose at them for breaking bro code. Yet while I beat myself up over it, I also could have gotten my ass off the train at a dozen different stops along the way and gone back home.

Instead, I’d found a way to justify my actions.

Brady had cheated on her. He’d come clean on that fact tonight.

So he didn’t deserve Hazel.

He was the real piece of shit in this equation.

What I’d done, I’d done innocently.

In fact, it was totally his fault. If he hadn’t called off his damn wedding because he couldn’t keep his dick in his pants, I wouldn’t have had to take a trip to Vail, and I would have met Hazel when she was his wife.

Goddamn Brady. He was the real cause of the mess we were all in.

Not me.

That was the truth.

Now…if only I could believe the shit I’d been telling myself the last hour and a half, I might feel a little better.

I sighed as the train slowed and pulled into the station. I’d texted Hazel when I’d first gotten on to let her know I was on my way. She’d offered to pick me up, but I told her I’d grab a cab and asked for her address, which she’d texted. So I was surprised when the doors slid open, and I stepped off the train, and the first thing I saw was Hazel standing in front of a car parked smack in my line of view.

My mom used to read romance novels and leave them laying around the house open to whatever page she’d stopped at. When I was a teenager, I’d pick them up and read aloud as she cooked dinner—poking fun at what I interpreted as over-the-top, bullshit women’s fantasies that didn’t exist in real life. But apparently that crap—the sweaty palms and swollen hearts skipping a beat when you see the person you love—might not have been so unrealistic after all.