I don't look like I do at the moment. I was at home with May counting sheep. Literally, counting sheep in a picture book.
When Kristof called to tell me Tad had landed in New York and was headed straight for Matiz, I took off out the door. I didn't bother to change out of the jeans and concert T-shirt I'm wearing. I have no fucking idea how a T-shirt from the farewell concert tour of a boyband ended up hanging in my closet, but I put it on this morning.
This is what happens when I'm walking around in an Ellie Madden daze. I pledge my allegiance to five grown men who dance in sync to songs from the nineties.
"You're a fan of them too, hey?" He points to the T-shirt.
I'm burning this fucking thing as soon as I'm home.
"Why do you want to talk to Ellie?" I check the area behind him to see if Ellie is in sight.
"I'm her fiancé." He puts too much emphasis on that last syllable. So much so that he sounds like he's trying to fake a French accent.
Fucking douche.
"I'm her boyfriend," I begin as I tap my shoe on the floor, "I'd say we have a problem."
"Boyfriend?" he huffs out a laugh. "She didn't waste a minute, did she?"
"What do you want?" I cross my arms. I think I'm her boyfriend. I don't know what I saw going down between her and Wolf, but I know what I heard in her voice this morning when I finally listened to the six voicemail messages she's left me since Sunday. They're just friends she whispered into the phone on a sob. I want to believe her. I want to believe that now more than ever.
He mirrors my pose. "I want to speak to my fiancée."
"Your ex-fiancée," I correct him. "What do you want to speak to her about?"
"Things that are none of your business." He widens his stance. "I have something personal to discuss with Ellie. This has nothing to do with you, Crew."
"It's Nolan. Nolan Black," I correct him.
"Crew Benton owns this store," he quips with a grin. "I read that on the company website. You trying to pass yourself off as the owner, Noel?"
"Nolan," I draw out my name on my lips as I mentally note that I need to put someone other than Crew in charge of website design. "I am the owner of Matiz, and I'm Ellie's boyfriend. Two facts you'd do well to remember."
"Where is she?" His gaze darts around the store. "I'm only in town a few hours. I came to New York just to see Ellie."
"You're looking for Ellie?" Verna, one of the security guards, stops as she passes us. "Ellie took a few days off. She blew out of town for a girls' weekend. I wish I could have gone with."
I bite back the urge to ask where the hell Ellie took off to but I don't give Tad the satisfaction.
"Shit," he mumbles under his breath as Verna walks away. "This fucks up everything."
"Looks like you missed your chance." I blow out a breath with the realization that I might have missed mine too. "If we're done, the exit is the same as the entrance. It's right behind you."
"I don't get why she'd go to Boston," he mutters. "There's nothing left for her there."
"There's nothing left for you here." I point at the door. "Ellie's moved on. If you have a legal matter to discuss with her, I'll give you my attorney's name."
"It's not a legal issue." He shakes off my words with a jerk of his chin. "We settled months ago. She gave it all away. Every penny I gave her went to charity. She'd give her last dollar to a beggar on the street."
"She'd do everything in her power to help anyone who needed it," I correct him. It doesn't shock me that Ellie helped other people instead of herself. "There's nothing left for you two to discuss so why are you here?"
"It's her sister's birthday today."
Sister? Ellie has a sister?
Tad examines my face. "I loved her. Whatever she told you about me, I loved her. I fucked it up. If I knew I had a chance to get her back, I'd take it. I'd give it everything."
I don't want to hear it. He broke her heart. I'm fucking breaking her heart right now. The last thing I want is to be like this clown.
"She's no good to the world on this day." His jaw tightens. "I'd have to hold her up to help her get through this day every single year we were together. Says a hell of a lot that she's not looking to you to give her that."
"Hold her up? Why?" I ask without thinking or planning or giving a fuck what he thinks.
I see the flash of satisfaction in his eyes when he realizes he holds a prize that I don't. My watch or my store or my goddamn misplaced sense of entitlement as someone important to Ellie doesn't matter right now. He knows something about the woman I love that I don't have a fucking clue about. "Ellie planned a trip to France for her sister's birthday five years ago. She worked two jobs while going to school to save for it."
"They never went?" I shrug my shoulders. I doubt like hell Ellie would fall apart over a canceled trip. It explains her knowledge of French, though. She must have studied in anticipation of the trip. I can take her. I can take her and her sister and her nieces and May too. I can make this right. I can make us right again.
"Her sister died three months before the trip."