Page 108 of Good Directions

The worst part of it all isn’t my own pain. It’s knowing that I hurt her. That I broke her heart too. Or at least I think I broke it. But even if I didn’t—even if she didn’t share those feeling for me—I know I hurt her. I was mean. And what I said cut deep. That knowledge will haunt me just as closely as my mama’s disappointment.

In fact, that’s what we can put on my tombstone. Here lies Anton Hayes—he disappointed his mama and hurt the woman he loved. He was a jackass.

“I’m still trying to figure out if we can squeeze you into one of Willa’s pageant dresses,” Jace quips.

“What?” I whip my head around, looking at him. Now he has my full attention.

An impish grin takes over, and somehow I know he’s been planning this since day one. “Yup. Not sure of all the details yet. Gonna depend on if we can get your ass in one of those babies or not.”

“No way,” Milo says. I spin in my chair, watching as he takes a sip of his beer, a contemplative look replacing his normal shit-eating grin. Where did he come from? “He’ll bust the sequins right off one of those things. Then Willa and Mama will both have your asses.”

“Even one of the ones with the lace-up thingy?”

“Corset,” Hux offers. “And they’re a lot tougher than you think…”

Milo nods, giving Hux a knowing look, then holds out his fist. The two tap their knuckles, and I chuckle to myself, not wanting to know what silent message they just shared.

“Because you’ve conquered so many corsets?” Jace snarks.

“Dolly’s wedding dress,” Hux answers, so deadpan and matter-of-fact I’m surprised that he doesn’t also mimic dropping a mic. Until he leans in, lowering his voice. “Twice.”

There it is.

Jace shrugs. “So maybe a pageant dress is out. I still got some other ideas brewing.”

“I haven’t officially lost yet! The agreement was the anniversary dance, and we haven’t done the anniversary yet.”

They all stop, four sets of eyes instantly trained on me. Because my pointing out the technicality I weaseled into the bet at the eleventh hour as a last-ditch effort is not helping my argument.

It’s a lost cause. I know it. They know it. But that doesn’t mean I’m not holding out hope. She could still show. She could have read the letter of recommendation I sent—the one that Gus and Margeaux helped me wordsmith—and recognized that it was more. That it was my heart poured out onto the page.

Then again, she could also be somewhere burning an effigy of me.

Frankly, after the way I acted, it’s probably the latter.

“As the family romantic, I’m all for the keeping the faith,” Jace comments. “But…”

He looks down at his watch, then back up at me, his face full of something I can’t name. Wait, nope. Sure I can. That’s pity. Pure, old-fashioned, sucks to be you, pity.

And he’s not wrong. It does suck to be me right now.

Without Sawyer, it’s going to suck to be me for a very long time. Like forever.

“If I could get all the couples out on the dance floor for the anniversary dance,” the DJ announces.

Fuck me…the hits just keep on coming…

My insides recoil as if someone actually hit me. Since when is the anniversary dance before cake? And why haven’t we cut the fucking cake? I suck in a breath, trying to remind myself that I have to behave—this is my sister’s wedding. Doesn’t matter that internally I want to die. Externally, I need to be having the time of my life. And to do that, I need cake.

Pushing to my feet, I walk away from my brothers without a word. Not that they care where I’m going. Milo and Hux are too busy grabbing their girls to take them to the dance floor—for the point six seconds that they’ll be out there since neither are married yet. Ewan is wrapped up in conversation with Emily Barrowcliff, the two of them leaning in to each other whispering something. And Jace, well, who cares. Right now, not me.

I need some air.

“Anton Hayes!”

For fuck’s sake!

I stop, steeling myself for whatever is coming. Because even over the music, I know the voice of Hattie Burch, Dolly’s great-aunt, and maybe more importantly, the top of Hickory Hills’s rumor mill.