Page 7 of Fall For Me
“I do have a few options from the drivers’ uniforms.”
He steps forward and lays three pairs of black pants and a box of socks across my desk.
I stare at the trousers. None of them match the fine wool of my jacket. All of them are disastrously short. The fabric is a cheap, shiny polyester blend. One pair is a funereal charcoal, another a faded black that’s closer to gray.
“Thank you, Adam.”
He gives a quick, sympathetic nod and backs out of the room, closing the door behind him.
I stand, gritting my teeth against the protest from my shin, and pull on the longest pair. The fabric stretches over my thighs, and the hem ends a full humiliating inch above my ankles. I look at the reflection in the dark window. I’m ridiculous. A circus clown playing dress-up.
But I don’t have time to go home and change. Showing up looking like an idiot is still better than not showing up.
I grab a pair of socks from the box. Pulling up the left one is another test in pain endurance that prompts me to pop a couple of Tylenols before I shove my feet back into my scuffed-up dress shoes.
I’m borderline unpresentable, but I exit the office anyway, steeling myself for a night of thinly veiled disappointment. The painkillers must be kicking in faster than I thought possible because the first thing I hear as I step toward the lobby is her voice.
3
PEYTON
I stand rooted on the concrete, watching the motorcycle’s taillights disappear around the corner, and scream after him.
The sound tears from my throat, raw and furious, but the wind snatches it before it can reach him. Not that it matters. He’s gone, leaving me alone with only the smell of burned rubber and my rage.
Another chilly gust blows on me from behind and whisks my fury away, draining me.
My legs give out.
I sink onto the curb, my dress pooling around me like a deflated parachute. The concrete is shockingly cold against my ass even through the many layers of fabric, but I don’t move. I try to hug my knees to my chest, but the gown is too bulky, the boning too rigid, and I end up clutching fistfuls of dirty tulle instead.
I’m tempted to give up. To lie down and succumb to hypothermia wearing the world’s most expensive straitjacket.
My obituary will be humiliating.
Runaway Bride Found Frozen After Fleeing Nuptials, Arguing with Hot Motorcyclist, and Eventually Succumbing to the Curb.
Matt’s family will come dancing on my grave.
Another vicious gust of wind slams into me. It whips a few escaped curls across my face and makes my teeth click together in a violent, uncontrollable clatter. I should get up, keep moving, find shelter.
But the will to do anything beyond sitting here and becoming one with the pavement is fading fast.
Then I think of him.
That reckless, arrogant, infuriatingly handsome jerk with his leather jacket and his stupid, perfect cheekbones and his condescending tone. Who does he think he is, calling me crazy? I’m not crazy. I’m cold and tired, and my feet are bleeding, and I almost died because he was driving like the town was his personal racetrack.
A new heat burns through my chest, warming me from the inside out, pumping enough adrenaline through my system for me to stand up. I check my phone. The battery is down to 5 percent. I plonk it into my corset and gather my skirts in both arms like I’m wading through a river.
I wish I could say I march toward my destination with purpose and dignity, but the truth is, I still hobble. Each step pure agony.
I make it fifty yards before a black luxury sedan glides down Main Street like a mirage, gold lettering on its side gleaming under the streetlights: Rockwood Resort.
I wave my arms, nearly losing my balance. The car slows and pulls to a stop beside me. The driver, a middle-aged man in a crisp uniform, gets out and opens the door for me with such professional courtesy I want to weep.
I fall into the backseat, the leather blessedly soft and warm. The door closes with a satisfying thump, sealing me in a cocoon of climate-controlled heaven.
The driver settles behind the wheel and glances at me in the rearview mirror. “Where should I take you, ma’am?”
