“It is true! Since the wedding, I’ve been just Alexa, or sometimes ‘my friend Alexa,’ or occasionally dramatic pause Alexa. But never your girlfriend, because in real life, Drew Nichols doesn’t do girlfriends. Which is fine—that’s fine, at least you’re honest—but don’t try to pretend that I’m making this up right now.”
Oh, thank God, she could finally legitimately be mad at Drew. She’d felt guilty being mad at him earlier; it hadn’t been his fault that she had feelings for him, or that she’d wanted him to return those feelings so much she’d almost convinced herself that he did.
But it was his fault that he was now trying to act like he’d wanted her with him at the wedding for anything more than a shield. And it sure as hell was his fault he sounded so smug she’d admitted she cared about him.
He rubbed his eyes and ran his fingers through his hair. Even after all of this, she had to fight to not reach up and touch it.
“Alexa, can we talk about this, please?”
She shook her head. The patented Drew breakup talk was the last thing she wanted right now.
“No need for a conversation. I know the drill.”
He stepped closer to her. She was annoyed that even in the midst of this fight they were never going to come back from, she just wanted to step into his arms and have him tell her everything was going to be okay.
“Come on, can you calm down for a minute and let me say something?”
That solved that problem. Nothing pissed her off more than a man telling her to calm down.
“I get it, my feelings aren’t worth anything to you, but I can be as un-calm as I want about this.”
“No, no, that’s not what I meant. I just want to . . .” He paused and put his hand on her arm. “I just want to explain.”
At his touch, tears shot to her eyes. She shook his arm off and turned away from him.
“Don’t worry about it, Drew. You don’t need to explain. Your feelings come through loud and clear.” She opened the door and ran back downstairs before he could reach for her again.
Thank God no one was in the bathroom. She ducked in there for a few minutes to take a deep breath and swallow the tears that had threatened. She washed her hands, dabbed cold water under her eyes, and faked a smile at herself in the mirror like she hadn’t just had a sangria-fueled relationship-ending fight in the middle of a party.
When she walked out of the bathroom, she ran into Heather, coming out of the kitchen with more cupcakes.
“Awesome, you can help me carry these.” Heather handed her a tray of cupcakes. Thankful for something to do, Alexa carried them outside. She took a deep breath before she walked through the door, but a quick scan of the crowd showed her no evidence of either Drew or Carlos in the yard. She did see Lucy, though, and put two red velvet cupcakes on a plate for the two of them.
“You said this was your favorite, right?” Alexa held out the plate to Lucy, and soon they both had red tongues and lips smeared in cream cheese frosting. Robin joined them with a cupcake of her own and a pile of napkins. Alexa had just relaxed a little and wiped her mouth when the circle opened and she heard Drew’s voice.
“Alexa.” His voice was steady, like their fight had made no impact on him. “I got a call. I’ve got to be at the hospital in thirty minutes.” He touched his hand to her shoulder and dropped it almost as quickly. “Sorry to do this to you guys, but I have to take Alexa away from you: duty calls.”
She thought about telling him that she’d stay, that she could get a ride home later, and also that he could go fuck himself.
But her political training hadn’t completely deserted her; not even this much sangria would allow her to let all of these people know her business. So instead, she gave everyone in the group hugs good-bye amid false promises of getting drinks “the next time she was in town” and followed Drew to his car.
Drew had stayed in Heather’s bedroom for a while after Alexa had fled. He’d wanted to run after her, to tell her no, she’d gotten it all wrong, that wasn’t how he felt. But he’d already made a mess of this conversation, so he figured he should maybe wait and try again when they got home after the party and could really talk.
But then he got the call from the hospital and had to run outside and grab her in a hurry. He’d thought about asking Carlos to drive her home, but after basically accusing Carlos of hitting on her, he wasn’t in the best position to ask Carlos for a favor. Plus, he didn’t want Alexa to think he was pissed at her and had ditched her at the party.
However, from the look on her face and the way she refused to meet his eyes when he found her outside, he thought for a second that she’d tell him to go on without her. That would have pissed him off. That he could tell she’d considered it even pissed him off.
They drove without talking for a few minutes, the only noise in the car the pop music she’d been singing along to on the way there. She broke the silence before he could.
“Did you really get a call from the hospital, or was that just your excuse to leave?”
That’s when he lost his temper.
“What the fuck, Alexa? Really? You really think I would make up a call from the hospital just to get you out of there? Do you think I’m that much of a child?”
She didn’t respond, and when he glanced her way, she just shrugged. That made his temper flare even higher.
“Really? You have that low of an opinion of me, just because I didn’t introduce you to people as my girlfriend? Just because I don’t use the exact word that you want me to use to describe you, you decide I’m the kind of asshole who would lie to you and all of my friends like that? When you decided to push back our dinner reservations by an hour last night because you were on the phone with your buddy Teddy writing one fucking sentence together for forty-five minutes, did I call you a controlling bitch workaholic who doesn’t pay attention to anyone else’s feelings? No, I didn’t, but I sure as hell could have.”