“My friends?”
Fuck.
Her friends.
Her friends who decided not to come.
“Yeah, those people that you’re always disappearing for, running off to who knows where for another wedding or bachelorette thing or whatever.”
“I’m not always running off,” she protests weakly, in a tone she loathes because she knows her voice only sounds like that, high-pitched and uneven, when he’s right and she’s wrong.
He scoffs. “You have been in more weddings in the last few years than people I actually know, let alone would go to their wedding and write them a check for money I can’t really afford to give them.”
“That’s not . . . It’s not that bad. It was only,” she counts in her head quickly, Lexi, Erik, Isobel and Frankie, “four weddings.”
“Plus all the other shit that goes with them,” he insists.
And he’s not right exactly, but he’s not entirely wrong either. Because weddings aren’t just weddings anymore, an excuse to put on a nice dress and hit an open bar. Weddings are a yearlong, sometimes more, countdown, with engagement celebrations and bridal showers and bachelorette weekends and bridesmaid fittings and it all always seems to add up to a couple of thousand dollars even while the bride insists she’s keeping things simple.
It’s what you do, though, for your friends. You celebrate their milestones and you’re there for them in the biggest moments of their lives. That’s the reality of being in your late twenties into your thirties – everyone is getting married, having babies, living life.
Except her.
Though, no. A doctorate isn’t not living. It’s just focusing on her career. Doing exactly what she wanted since she was a little girl and first watchedThe Mummywith Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz. As soon as Evie declared herself as a librarian, Bianca knew her answer to that question adults always seemed to ask: what do you want to be when you grow up?
And maybe baby Bianca didn’t realize it would be more research and writing than adventuring through the desert and hooking up with a hot rogue with a heart of gold, butstill, her dreams are finally coming true.
“It’s not my fault that people want me to be there on the most important day of their lives. People love me!”
Xavier opens his mouth to respond, but her phone buzzes in her bag, probably one more person in her life bailing on tonight. She darts her hand inside of it, grabs the damn thing and slams it onto the bar face down.
The tears are back.
Fuck.
“Shit, you’re not okay.”
“I am, I’m fine, I just need a drink.”
“Okay, we’ll get you a drink. What’s your poison?”
She snorts and it feels wet and snotty and so fucking unattractive, but again it doesn’t matter. She raises her nearly empty glass at him and tilts it back and forth. “Dirty Shirley.”
He raises a slightly judgmental eyebrow, but she glares at him.
“I like grenadine.”
“Then one Dirty Shirley for Dr Dimitriou coming up,” he says with a casual salute, two fingers to his forehead.
The judgment disappears when she smiles at him, and as shitty as she feels right now, hearing doctor in front of her name sounds so good, and even better when he says it. He matches her smile with one of his own and then turns away, raising a hand to get the bartender’s attention.
“And once we get you a drink, maybe you’ll tell me what’s going on?” he asks casually, so much so she knows it’s not casual at all. He’s . . . worried?
Fuck.
Panic, ice-cold and instant, climbs up her throat.
Her knee starts to bounce, the heel of her tall black patent leather pump hitting the rung of her barstool once before it hooks around the metal. She downs the last of her drink, she lets out a shaky breath, her mind reeling back a few hours ago . . .
