Chapter Twelve

Saylor

The following morning was a storm of activity. In the short time they’d stayed, Dani and Casey had managed to spread their belongings throughout the house and were gathering up bits and pieces and shouting about things they’d misplaced. Or not packed in the first place.

Hunter was permanently connected to his work environment, even when he joined us in the kitchen for breakfast. I let him be. The previous night he’d broken into his work to satisfy my itch and my need to reconnect with him. I didn’t want to appear needy, and with the girls staying at the Paradise Valley Boutique Hotel and Spa tonight, I’d have Hunter again to myself.

I took him a mug of coffee and when he looked at me with a gaze that burned, I knew it wasn’t business he had on his mind. When I couldn’t stand it any longer, I turned away and caught Casey fanning herself.

“Damn, it’s hot in here,” she said. “Did someone adjust the heating?”

Hunter took his coffee and left the kitchen.

“Shit. Something I said?” Casey asked.

“Not at all,” I said quickly, wondering who I was defending. “Something’s come up with his work and he needs to sort it out.”

“Okay, because the way he looks at you is a bit um-wow, if you know what I mean. Are you sure you want to go through with this marrying yourself thing?”

“Of course I do,” I replied, again too quick, as if I didn’t want to think deeply about my decision.

“Good,” said Dani, “because today, at the Paradise Valley Spa, we’re doing the full bridal experience. Body scrubs, hot stones, deep massage, light massage, oils, nails, feet, elbows, chocolate and champagne.”

My phone beeped a message and I felt a burst of anxiety when the first person who came to mind was Rex.

— You all need to be ready to leave in 20 —

Hunter. He was driving us over to Paradise Valley for our spa day.

I laughed. Nerves, I suppose. “That’s the chauffeur,” I announced. “He says we’re leaving in fifteen.” I docked five minutes because I knew Dani would run late. “Let’s shake ass, team.”

We hadn’t had snowfall for twenty-four hours, and on the drive over, the countryside looked as pristine as a Christmas card. The hotel, though, was even more spectacular. This was where I was supposed to have my wedding, and I found I had to suck in a deep breath of bravery to smother the assault on my emotions. Not that I was disappointed my marriage to Rex wasn’t going ahead. I was relieved I’d been saved from a future of heartache.

So what was it I felt? Failure. Anger. Humiliation. A sense of loss. Relief. Rawness at having given so much of myself only to have it discarded. If my friends weren’t here all of these things would have combined into something unbearable. I took another breath, deep and visibly noticeable to Hunter who glanced my way.

“You okay?” he asked in a soft voice that slipped beneath the noisy chatter and exclamations coming from my two friends in the rear of the SUV.

“Sure. I’m good.” I was. I was okay because even though Hunter was distracted by something troubling him at his work, he’d noticed my discomfort and had taken the time to inquire. That was the sort of thing that grew a list that marked off the differences between Hunter and Rex.

He pulled into the drive-through portico of the hotel and a concierge appeared instantly. There was a flurry of activity as we were welcomed and the girls’ luggage was whisked away. A smartly dressed woman with a perfect smile introduced herself as Sally. With the efficiency of someone who probably could herd cats she corralled us towards the main doors to sweep us off for our day of pampering. At the entrance I told the others to go on inside and that I’d catch up.

I ran back to the vehicle, which Hunter had parked off to one side of the driveway. Through the window I saw his head bowed as he spoke on the phone. I knocked on the window and he held up a finger to indicate he needed a moment.

With my hands thrust into my pockets, I shuffled my feet like a kid needing the bathroom. I wasn’t cold, but I did want to be back in the vehicle with him. Finally, he dropped the phone into the center console and reached across to pop open the passenger door. I crossed behind the vehicle and hopped in. It was my turn to ask if he was okay because the look on his face suggested something very different. Hunter wasn’t looking at me and when I followed his gaze I realized he was focused on a man sitting in a car not far from us in the parking lot.

“Who is he?” I asked.

“Nobody for you to be concerned about. I’m heading to New York to meet up with Matt. There are a couple of meetings I’m needed at, so why don’t you stay here with the girls tonight? I’m not sure when I’ll be back.”

“What’s going on, Hunter?”

“Work.”

The way he blocked me was frustrating. “Will you and Matt be here for my ceremony?” I asked, kicking myself for sounding like the whiny girlfriend. I wasn’t whiny, and I wasn’t his girlfriend, so I was completely out of tune. My sologamy ceremony felt increasingly stupid at a moment like this, out of context, when I stared it in the face. It wasn’t the sort of thing the guys would understand. That aside, it would mean a lot to me for them to be here to share Christmas with us, and for moral support.

“As soon as we get this little issue sorted I’ll let you know our plans.”

“I can’t stay here, Hunter. I don’t have a change of clothes, or a toothbrush.”

“The hotel has all of that. Put it on my account.”

“I need my laptop—”

“Can you hang out here without it for one night? I’ll call you tomorrow. You need to go, the girls will be waiting.”

I leaned towards him for a kiss, but he stopped me with a hand on my arm and shook his head. “I’ll call you,” he said, reaching across me and flicking the door open. I’d been dismissed.

I plastered on a smile and walked swiftly to join my friends. They’d made an effort to show up for my crazy self-wedding even though it appeared Hunter would rather cut his vacation short than be part of it. And in doing that, I surmised that he and Matt had cooked up some work drama to give them an excuse to stay away.

That didn’t matter. This was my gig, and I was going through with it. A solo stand to celebrate myself and let the world—or Rex—know that I didn’t need a man at my side to validate my worth.

Casey, Dani and I lay face down on our respective massage beds in a peaceful, Scandinavian-inspired luxury spa. The scent of a pristine mountain range with a side-serve of pine and ozone permeated the air in the room. We were spoiled. I was lucky. This was the enviable life of a social media influencer yet it felt somewhat empty.

Knowledgeable hands rubbed fragrant oil into my skin, working into the hard knots, stretching out taut fibers. I imagined those hands were Hunter’s, that he was the one tending my body, smoothing tension and going harder, deeper when necessary. I thought of him placing kisses down the notches of my spine, the graze of his teeth over the curve of my ass. I wanted him in the room with me. A private room without the manufactured peace of the hushed spa.

A camera flash broke my fantasy. The hotel had hired a photographer to follow our day. It had been arranged months ago, when I was having a real wedding and the hotel was giving myself and my two bridesmaids the full spa treatment in exchange for me talking it up on my Instagram. They were possibly the only people to stick with me after I broke off my engagement, and I knew how much Casey and Dani had looked forward to this day. I also knew that they couldn’t afford this level of pampering, so I agreed to go ahead with the promotion, which meant the situation I found myself in wasn’t entirely private.

And I wanted to speak to my girls about private things like fear, and love, because I’d reached a point where I wasn’t certain I knew what love truly was. All I felt was that I’d gained something special with Hunter, something so much more intense than I’d ever felt before, and now it seemed as though it was slipping away.

We ate dinner in the suite, languid from the pleasure and pampering we’d received all day along with flutes of champagne that never emptied. I tried to be surreptitious about checking my phone, but those girls missed nothing.

“Whose call are you waiting for?” Casey asked.

I shrugged and tucked the phone behind a cushion, aiming for nonchalance and coming up with full-blown guilt.

“Hot-Hunter. That’s who she’s waiting for,” Dani said. “You can tell. She’s got that ‘why hasn’t my boyfriend called?’ look about her. Distracted, morose—”

“I’m not,” I cut in.

“Good, because you’re too awesome for that. Why don’t you have a practice recital of your goddess vows.”

Dani beamed a goddess-like smile at me and I wondered if my friends were beginning to see this as some kind of joke.

“I don’t have vows,” I said. “I’m supposed to have done all kinds of exercises and I haven’t completed them. Right now, I’m contemplating abandoning myself at the altar.”

Casey put her hand across her mouth, but I could tell by the way her shoulders shook that she was doing her best not to laugh out loud. Dani had her gaze fixed on a point where the wall met the ceiling, lips pressed together, the tightest focus I’d ever seen her achieve.

“Okay. From what I’ve read it should be something like this.” I stood and put my hand over my heart. “I promise to discover who I really am and live as that person, totally awake and aware, and whole within myself.”

Casey and Dani erupted, shrieking with laughter until they wept. It took about five seconds for me to join in. When we finally recovered, wiping our eyes and grabbing water, Casey came to me and took my hands.

“Pray tell us, sister, what have you discovered?”

“That Hunter’s such a sex bomb the idea of spending a night out of his arms is sucking the life from her soul,” Dani said.

She probably wasn’t far from the truth. I sank back onto the luxurious sofa and checked my phone before waving the blank screen at them. “See this? I’ve scared him away with all the sologamy talk.”

“Damn. So you’re definitely going through with it?” Dani asked.

“Yes, I am.”

Casey’s phone pinged. “Can you get a divorce if it doesn’t work out?” she asked without looking up.

“Can I get a little respect around here?” I countered.

“No,” Dani said. “But I guess if you stayed away from all forms of masturbation you could have your self-marriage annulled.”

I threw a cushion at her, missing by a mile, but catching Casey as she stood, phone in hand. “Gonna take this in my room,” she said, winking at Dani.

“What’s she up to?” I asked.

Dani shrugged. “Probably one of her secret boyfriends.”

“She doesn’t have secret boyfriends. If she so much as shares an elevator with a hot guy she’s texted full details to everyone in her contacts list by the time she reaches her floor.”

Dani simply widened her eyes and smiled at me. Some response. Since getting out of the shower that morning it seemed as though I was living in a board game where nothing would be revealed until I flipped the dice and managed to land my counter on the right square.