Until Then

8. Hayley

EIGHT

Hayley

“Nice of Briar to have us at the dinner.” My mom fastens a nice belt around her bodice, cinching her narrow waist.

I smile and smooth the static on the ends of my crimson curls. Briar’s pre-wedding dinner (she’s not calling it a rehearsal because she insists there is no need to rehearse her perfect day) will be filled with more family and friends outside of the wedding party.

Once, I thought Briar would be an over-the-top bridezilla, but she’s proved me wrong.

Her wedding is planned as something simple, intimate, and few outside sources to the actual event.

It means her reception will be those who are involved in the ceremony only, and more of a cocktail party. So, to allow for family friends and people like their former second grade teachers, Tyrell and Briar opted to have a larger dinner the night before.

Even Greer scored a last minute invite after hitting it off with Briar at the party.

I swallow down a bit of sick. All day my stomach has been in tangles of sharp knots, like a thorn vine has slithered around my intestines, squeezing until I can hardly breathe.

Noah’s comment before he left will not leave me.

Do you think I’d ever give my personal phone number to a woman I planned to make a one-night stand ?

He meant it to be a slap to the face, and it worked.

The worst part of it all is Noah’s right. I know how high-profile men treat women they use for a bit of pleasure. Non-disclosure agreements are typically handed out before they even step foot in their houses.

They don’t offer to drive them home to help with a sick horse. Some might not even call a car.

They certainly don’t give out their personal phone number. To the high-profile and celebrity types, the anonymity of their contact information is only reserved for their most trusted family and friends.

Noah would’ve simply demanded mine if he wanted me to be some sort of booty call. Or he would’ve used a second number. No doubt he has a few avenues for contact.

He typed his personal cell in my phone.

And I deleted it, crafting imagined betrayal, neglect, and heartache in my mind because of the actions of others.

Then again, nine months ago I wasn’t entirely ready to give up the shattered pieces of my heart. Recent fractures from Jasper hadn’t even started to be healed.

I blow out a breath.

Anyone—Noah included—deserves to have someone all-in, not someone with one foot out the door.

Maybe I ought to apologize.

I frown at my reflection, securing a dainty gold bracelet on one wrist. A rush of annoyance surges through my blood the longer I think of his public actions the last nine months. He behaves as though he was hurt by me ghosting him that night, but how soon after was he spotted in public with another woman?

Then another.

And another.

I doubt he was all that torn up by me disappearing. Maybe his ego, but not his heart.

“Hayley Mae.” Nan hollers from the front door.

My grandma wears a rustic dress that hits just over her worn cowboy boots. Alice Foster is made of iron nails. A woman inching toward eighty-two, but still spry enough to feed cattle and oversee the stalls in the barn. She has her long silver hair braided, as expected.

Her version of dressing up is stepping out of her jeans.

“Coming,” I say and hurry after the two women who raised me.

Well, Pops gets credit too. It still aches without him. He passed just before my high school graduation, nearly ten years ago, and the hole he left behind is still there.

Life has been good with Mom and Nan.

They taught me to work hard, taught me to love the ranch, and both encouraged me to go on and get my degree to combine my passion to help others while keeping close to the horses.

I wish it made a bit more, but marketing and battling insurance companies keeps proving an uphill battle in the realm of equine therapy.

“I wonder how many celebrities we’ll be seeing tonight,” Mom says, checking her red lipstick in the car mirror. She’s beautiful, but I’m not sure how I came out of the woman.

Where my head is red and curly, mom’s is sleek ebony.

Where her body is trim and tan, mine is curvy and pale.

Unfortunately, I seem to have taken all my physical attributes from the man who never wanted to call himself a father.

“There will be a few,” I mutter. Thinking of another man with the power to rob me of my defenses I’ve carefully been crafting since, well, since birth, I guess.

Mom smiles. “I’m so proud of Briar. She’s done so well for herself, yet kept grounded. And this Tyrell, phew, he’s handsome isn’t he? Marci says he’s just head-over-heels for Bry, and so humble, too, despite his success.”

I smile vaguely. “They are pretty perfect for each other.”

And it’s true.

I love Tyrell for Briar.

They’re both great people who avoid the limelight, merely enjoy doing their jobs and passions without the clout that could come with it.

I lean my head against the headrest. Tyrell and Briar both care about Noah Hayden too.

Maybe he’s not what I keep trying to make him out to be.

The dinner takes up the entire back room of a restaurant with a waitlist of six months.

Laughter, conversations, all of it rattles the modern beams that crisscross over the ceiling. Too much wine passes between the guests, and more than one boisterous toast is given to the happy couple.

I hardly touch my plate.

In truth, I’m too absorbed in avoiding the gaze of the man across the table, then down three seats.

The seating has Briar written all over it.

I’m not by Greer.

I’m barely by my own mother and grandmother.

She placed me strategically in proximity to Noah Hayden, but, of course, couldn’t be so on-the-nose as to put him directly across from me.

“Dancing!” All at once, Briar stands up from her place at the head of the table. “The only thing I need to rehearse is the wedding party dance. Bridesmaids, groomsmen. Stand up and get your partner.”

“You haven’t practiced your dance?” Briar’s cousin—a girl of seventeen—practically looks scandalized.

Briar snickers. “Tyrell and I are very, very good at dancing, Luce. It’s all you people”—she points at those of us marked with a simple daisy near our water glasses—“that have me worried.”

Tyrell lifts his bottled beer. “We need to make sure you don’t embarrass us. Odds are one or two cameras are going to sneak in.”

Collective groans ripple down the table. It’s strange to be seated so casually amongst celebrities, rockstars, even a few business tycoons that land on Forbes now and then. Scattered throughout are ordinary people, like me. The sort that live their nine to fives and watch the person sitting next to them on screen at night.

No one wants the paparazzi to shadow the day.

There’s a bit of pride knowing Briar and Tyrell, high-profile as they are, have found such a circle of people who care about their happiness more than clout.

Another clap from the bride, and the wedding party is forced to stand.

Noah rises slowly, buttoning the jacket of his suit in the center. He casts a swift, wary look my way, then pastes a confident sort of smirk on his face when another bridesmaid squeezes past, whispering something to him as she goes.

“Hayley Mae.” Nan tugs on my hand. “Tell me that boy is your partner.”

“I’ve seen him somewhere,” Mom adds, her chin on the claw of her hand.

Their gazes are locked on Noah as he rounds the table, aimed at me.

Deep breaths. Hopefully he won’t smell delicious.

I cuss in my head when he crowds too close to me and I get a full lungful of his spicy, clean cologne. It’s like he stood in a winter forest, then jumped in the morning tides.

Noah looks ready to speak, before he catches sight of the two women ogling him next to me.

“Noah Hayden.” He takes Nan’s hand first. “Are you Miss Hayley’s mother?”

Curse him and that stupid southern drawl that comes out as he pleases. Nan looks ready to get married for a second time.

“You schmoozer.” She giggles—yes, giggles—and pats the top of his hand. “I’m Alice, Hayley Mae’s grandma. This here, is her mom.”

“You’re kidding. I would never have guessed that.”

Great, now he’s flirting with my mother.

Mom flushes. “Where have I seen you before?”

“He’s in a TV show, Mom.” I take his arm and tug him away.

“ Wicked Darlings , Ms. Foster,” he says over his shoulder.

My mom’s eyes go wide. “I’ve seen the first season. And . . .” Her face goes even redder, then she whispers something to my Nan who barks a laugh, fanning her face.

Noah smiles, but when I look close enough the one blue eye gives up a bit of nerves. “That usually happens when people realize they’ve seen a lot of me.”

Oh. My. Gosh.

My eyes go wide. “My mother has . . . no, no, no.” I cover my face with my palm. “She’s seen you naked. Great. Awesome. Can’t wait for the ride home.”

Noah leans close to my ear. “Well, not entirely naked if she’s only seen the first season. Just the top half. The rest comes in season three.”

I frown. “I don’t need to imagine my mother seeing . . . ugh, never mind.”

By now, music is playing and the other pairs of the wedding party are already laughing and dancing with a touch of theatrics. As though they all know Briar and Tyrell had them perform merely for the fun of it and they’re playing their part.

When Noah’s arm circles my waist, when my body smashes against the hard planes of his chest, I’m not sure if I should kill my childhood best friend or thank her.

The way Briar whispers to Tyrell, then lifts her wine glass in my direction, I have a feeling this was planned from the beginning.

I square my shoulders to Noah and let my arm drape over his shoulders. “So. The wedding. We’re going to . . . call a truce.”

“Sure,” he says. “We wouldn’t need one if you’d just apologize for ghosting me, Wildfire.”

“I’m not apologizing when I had my reasons.”

“Such as?” He tilts his head, swaying with me to the music. “Not satisfied? I’m embarrassed, but I can take the critique.”

“No, I”—I close my eyes for a breath—“You should’ve told me about your job.”

Noah doesn’t answer right away. “You’re right. I should’ve. But I apologized already. Why’d you run?”

The walls seem too close, the room too hot. The way he looks at me—silently pleads with me—I want to tell him everything. I want him to know I’ve never felt the way I did when I was wrapped up in his arms.

I want to tell him how my mind instantly painted such a devastating picture of losing it when I fell.

Because I would.

If I went back, if I spent one more day with Noah Hayden, I would’ve fallen. Utterly and completely.

I don’t tell him any of it, merely whisper, “Can my reasons stay my own?”

His mouth tightens, but he dips his chin. “A truce then. We tolerated each other for a day before. We can do it again.”

He flashes me a soft grin, like he’s trying to lighten the mood.

Maybe he is.

The Noah I met was a witty, easygoing guy. I’m starting to think that’s just him. I’d believe it encapsulated all the man save for the glimmer of secrets behind the light in his eyes.

We drift across the floor. More couples randomly join, laughing and spinning for fun. I almost let the awkward history between us fall when I accidentally stumble on Noah’s shoe, and he’s forced to catch me before I tumble to the ground.

For half a breath we laugh. Together.

Then I straighten and catch the cool, gray eyes of a man in the corner. My pulse quickens. “Why?”

Noah follows my gaze. “What’s wrong?”

My throat goes dry, like I swallowed too much air, too fast. “Um, that’s . . . that’s Jasper.”

“Your douche of an ex?”

I can only nod.

The woman who’s sitting beside my ex-fiancé doesn’t look familiar. She must be related to Briar or Tyrell somehow.

Jasper holds my stare, looking like he won some great victory, and lifts his glass.

He’s horrible.

All those words he used to spew my way flood back.

The insults disguised as gifts, like gym memberships, clothes two sizes too small, nail appointments, and vouchers for plastic surgery.

The way the man cut me at the knees, subtly telling me I was not enough for his world, left me bleeding out before I even knew he’d taken the strike.

I freeze in Noah’s hands.

Noah .

The man who didn’t want to share his life because he didn’t want to freak me out.

The man who told me I was stunning, beautiful when he didn’t need to.

The man who stole the pain of the past for a night and filled it with something brighter.

“Wildfire,” he whispers.

I blink, embarrassed by the tears in my eyes. All the mental work I’ve done to feel okay with myself, to feel a little worthy, cracks and splinters, and I’m going to crumble.

In front of everyone.

No. Not on Briar’s special night.

I take a step back, forcing a smile. “Um, since the dinner is over, I think I’m going to convince my partying mom and grandma we better get home.”

“Hayley . . .” Noah starts, but I wave to him, stepping farther away.

“I’ll see you at the wedding. Truce is on.”

He shoves his hands in the pockets of his dress pants. “Until then.”

It takes some nudging for my mom and Nan to leave, until they see Jasper.

Then, it takes even more pleading for my grandmother not to throw something at his head.

I leave, catching a final look at Noah, who’s already surrounded by more people. Mostly women. He’s looking nowhere but at me, a steely, almost dark look in his eyes.

He’s . . . something.

I hate that the sight of my ex has filled my frantic mind with all the reasons I would never fit in his world either. I can’t stop spiraling through the reasons he’d grow tired of me, or wake up dissatisfied until he cut me loose.

Strange, but I can’t help but feel like if Noah did the same as Jasper—a man I was with for nearly three years—my heart might crack until it was nothing but dust.

By the time I get home and lock myself in my room, I press a hand to my chest, slide down my door, and let myself break.