Especially the wine part. Especially these days.
Heather came into Brooke’s office, plopping in her chair and helping herself to some of Brooke’s Hershey’s Kisses. Not that there were many left—she’d been going through them at twice the normal rate lately. Between the chocolate, the cabernet, and Seth Tyler, Brooke was well on her way to an early death.
“Looks like I’m not the only one being super lame tonight,” Heather observed.
“I don’t think working late is lame. I love my job.”
“Honey, it’s eight thirty. On a Friday,” Heather said pointedly.
Brooke sighed. Okay. So it was kind of lame. But for the past two weeks, work had been the only thing holding the fragile parts of her heart together.
It turned out that Seth’s spy had been dead-on about Clay being engaged. To a woman he’d met in prison, of all things.
Not only that. They’d eloped. Or whatever you called it when two people who barely knew each other went down to a courthouse and made it legal. The story had broken online in the hours after Brooke had stormed out of Seth’s office, prompting a barrage of well-meaning but painful texts and calls from her parents and friends out in California.
Not that Brooke had issues with courthouse weddings. She respected that for some couples they were the right thing. She just hated that one half of one of those couples was the man she had been a stone’s throw from marrying.
And yet, Clay’s shotgun wedding wasn’t what was bothering her. Her pride, yes, but not her heart.
Her heartache was courtesy of a man she’d known for a small fraction of the time she’d known Clay, and yet somehow had fallen for twice as hard.
And to give Seth credit, he had called. Several times. In the first days after she’d walked out, she’d missed calls and texts and flowers.
But after those few dogged days of silence on her part, there’d been . . . nothing.
He’d given up.
Brooke wasn’t entirely sure how she felt about that. And yes, she knew that made her seem like a game player. As though she wasn’t sure she wanted him but also wasn’t okay with him not wanting her.
It was all just damn confusing.
“Do you want to go out?” Heather asked. “Grab a drink?”
Brooke gave her an apologetic look. “I kind of . . . don’t.”
“Excellent,” Heather chirped, tucking a blond curl behind her ear only to have it pop right back out again. “Me neither.”
With that, Heather bent down to the oversized tote between her feet and came up with a half-full bottle of wine and two plastic cups.
Brooke watched as Heather poured them two glasses and then acting on impulse, reached out and gave the other woman a hug.
Heather hugged her back, smoothing her hair. “I’m sorry, babe.”
“Me too,” Brooke whispered. “He was supposed to be one of the good ones. Crotchety, but good.”
“Maybe he still is,” Heather said as they pulled back. “I mean, it was lame what he did. So lame. But I think we can give him at least a little teeny tiny point for his heart being in the right place, you know? He didn’t want his sister to marry a shithead. He didn’t want you to be dragged down by your shithead.”
“I guess,” Brooke said, swirling her wine. “I just can’t shake off the sting of betrayal. Two men in a row who don’t come clean. And if he didn’t tell me about his creepy little spying plan, who knows what else he didn’t tell me about?”
“True that,” Heather said, sighing and taking a large gulp of wine.
Brooke bit her lip. “Have you heard how things are going with the Tyler wedding?”
Heather shook her head. “Sorry, no. That’s all Alexis, and she doesn’t really mention it.”
After her fallout with Seth, Brooke had reluctantly abdicated her role as wedding planner for Maya’s nuptials. She felt terrible, but there was no way she could have faced Maya, knowing what she knew about Neil, or whatever his name was, and not saying anything. She kept expecting to hear that the wedding had been called off, but so far it looked like everything was moving forward as planned, though she couldn’t imagine that Seth would hold his tongue and actually let Maya go through with marrying that jerk.
She stifled another surge of anger at Seth. This was why you didn’t go meddling in other people’s business. Finding out things you weren’t supposed to know, knowing secrets that weren’t yours . . . it messed everything up.
“Has he called lately?” Heather asked over the top of her plastic wine cup.
Brooke shook her head. “Nope.”
“How do we feel about that?”
“Terrible,” Brooke muttered. “But seeing him would also be terrible, you know?”
“Sort of. Actually, no, not really.”