“Hey, Jilly Bean. Where the hell have you been all day?”
“Here and there. There’s a few things I need to tell you, but now isn’t a good time.”
“Why?”
“I’m with someone right now,” she spoke.
“Hmm. Just by you saying ‘someone’ indicates that it’s of the male species. Because if it was Kristen, you would have said you were with her. Who is he, Bean? Let me see?”
She looked across the room at me and then turned her laptop around.
“Drew, meet Kellan. Kellan meet Drew.”
I gave him a wave and a smile. “Nice to meet you.”
He stared at me as if he was at a loss for words. Jillian must have told him about me from Hawaii.
“Nice to meet you too, Drew. Jillian Kathryn Bell. What is going on?”
“How funny is it that Drew lives in New York too? Okay, got to go, my love. We’re heading out to dinner.”
“Wait! Don’t you dare end the call. I want details!” he shouted.
“Tomorrow. Bye, Kel.” She ended the call.
I couldn’t help but laugh. “Jilly Bean?” I asked.
“Pet name. He loves me. He’s been calling me that since we were thirteen years old.”
“It’s cute. I like it.” I winked.
“Don’t you dare, Mr. Westbrook.”
She grabbed her purse and we walked down to the Chinese restaurant.
****
Jillian
As we were sitting in the restaurant eating, Drew asked me to tell him about Kellan. So I did.
“He’s the best friend anyone could ever have. The things he did for me. Wow.”
“What did he do for you?” he asked.
I swallowed hard. “Drew, I’m a terrible person.” I looked down in shame.
“No you’re not. Don’t say that.” He reached across the table and placed his hand on mine.
“No, actually, I am. Remember when I told you that I booked the flight to Hawaii for a ‘just in case’ I decided to leave Grant?”
“Yeah. I remember.”
“I had it planned all along.”
His brows furrowed. “What do you mean?”
“I purposely waited for that day to leave him. It was the perfect plan and Kellan went to great lengths to help me.”
“Why?” he asked in confusion.
“Because I wanted revenge on him and my parents for what they did to me. Mostly my parents. But Grant had it coming. I already told you that he was a cheater and a liar.”
“And how did you and Kellan plan this so meticulously?” Drew cocked his head.
“Well.” I sighed. “Where do I begin? About three months before the wedding, I placed an ad under an alias name on Craig’s List for my wedding dress to be shipped out the day after my wedding.”
“Did you sell it?”
“Yeah. A nice woman in Wisconsin who couldn’t afford a wedding dress bought it for $50.” I smiled. “A fifteen-thousand-dollar wedding dress for fifty bucks. Patricia would be so pissed.”
Drew picked up his glass and took a sip of his drink. “Look at it this way. You made someone who couldn’t afford a wedding dress feel like a queen.” He smiled.
“I guess. So all in all, some good came out of what I did. A couple of days before the wedding, Kellan went and bought me a new phone and he rented a hotel room.”
“Why the hotel room?”
“That’s where I kept my luggage for my one-way ticket out of Seattle, which by the way, Kellan purchased for me. Before I left the church, I called a cab from my old phone and had him meet me at Pier 59. I did a factory reset and set it on the chair next to my ring. Once I left the church, I had the limo driver take me to Pier 59 and then I climbed into the cab and took it to the hotel. I changed out of my dress, grabbed everything I needed, and hopped on a plane.”
“Did you pay off the limo driver?” He smirked.
“I sure did. Except he opened his mouth to my parents, who apparently paid him more than I did.”
“Ouch. What a dick.”
“Yeah. Except he didn’t tell my parents that I got into a cab. The next day, Kellan went to the hotel, boxed up the wedding dress, sent it off to Wisconsin, and checked out of the hotel.”
“So no paper trail on your end?”
“Nope. I left all my credit cards at home and my bank account untouched.”
“If it’s not too personal, how are you paying for everything?”
“When my grandmother died, and I turned twenty-one, she left me four million dollars in an offshore account that was untraceable because she knew I would need it someday.”
“So you literally vanished.”
“Yep. I sure did.” I smiled.
“Remind me never to cross you.” He winked.
“They made me that way, Drew. I’m not really that person. I just needed to escape and find me. Not the Jillian Bell they made.”
“I understand. You did what you had to do. That doesn’t make you a bad person.”
“Thanks. But somehow I still feel like it does.”
“Come on. I’m going to take you home now. It’s getting late and I have an early meeting.”
As soon as Roland pulled up to my building, Drew walked me up to my apartment.
“Thank you for making my shitty day a little less shitty.”
“It was my pleasure.” He placed his thumb on my chin. “I’m happy you’re here.” He leaned in and brushed his lips against mine.
“Good night, Jillian.”