Erin paled, not easy for a girl with her fair Irish complexion. “I’m just gonna take that gown out of here, OK honey? Be right back.” She set her coffee cup on the tray and grabbed the dress, scurrying from the room with a worried expression.
I watched her go, a vise squeezing my heart. “That dress was the one, Coco. I felt it the moment I put it on. Now I’ll never wear it again.”
“You might,” Coco said hopefully. “You never know.”
“I won’t. I’ll die an old maid, cold and alone. I won’t even have cats because I’m allergic to them.”
She rolled her eyes. “Mia, please. You’re twenty-seven.”
“But I wanted to be married by twenty-eight, and now that’s impossible! I wanted to start a family by thirty, and I’ll have to scrap that plan too!”
“Now you just sound ridiculous. Your uterus is not going to shrivel up and die at age thirty.”
“Sorry for being ridiculous about my dreams.” My chin jutted out. “But that’s how I feel.”
She rubbed my back. “You want to talk about it some more?”
“What’s left to say?”
“I don’t know. Are you…are you sad about losing Tucker? Or just about the wedding?”
I swallowed hard. “Both, I guess.”
“Do you still love him?”
My first reaction was revulsion, but then his handsome face swam before my eyes. And I could still smell him on the sheets. He always smelled so good, and dressed so impeccably. And he could be thoughtful and generous and fun. We’d had so many plans together, starting tonight. Tucker, how could you do this to me? My throat tightened. “No. Yes. I don’t know.”
“I wish you would have said something about those doubts you had. I feel awful that I didn’t sense them. I see you every day. We talked about this wedding nonstop.” Her blue eyes were full of guilt.
“It’s not your fault. I put on a good show.” I shrugged. “People were always saying what a perfect couple we made. I was trying to be that.”
“You looked perfect,” Erin clarified as she returned to the bed. “But no one knows anything about anyone else’s relationship for real. Look at my parents—married for twenty years before my mom got sick of his closet alcoholism and mean behavior and left. People were shocked. I can’t tell you how many of her friends said to her, ‘Your marriage seemed so perfect.’” She shook her head. “They were clueless, even her best friends, because in public he was so charming. She kept it all in because she was embarrassed.”
I grimaced and brought my coffee to my lips. “I know that feeling.”
Coco toyed with her coffee cup. “How was it between the two of you when you were alone? Did things feel right?”
“I guess so. I mean, he’s not the most open person in the world. He didn’t talk about his feelings a lot, but he did say he loved me. And he was romantic in some ways, always getting me little gifts—or big ones, even—and taking me places and stuff.”
“Yeah, he loved showing you off, that was obvious.” Erin’s tone was harsh. “And showing off how good he was to you.”
“But what about when you were alone alone?” Coco went on. “Was the sex still good?”
“Not as good as it should have been.” I shrugged. “It was OK. He’s hot, and he got the job done, I suppose, but there wasn’t much variation on the theme.”
Erin laughed. “What was the theme?”
“Fast and clean.”
Coco choked on her coffee. “What?”
“Yeah,” I said, warming to the subject. It actually felt good to finally speak the less-than-perfect truth. “He has two positions he likes, and once we get into one of the Approved Positions, that’s how we stay until he’s finished—which doesn’t take long. He doesn’t like moving around because that causes wet spots on the sheets. He has an aversion to bodily fluids.”
“Oh my God.” Erin’s jaw hung open. “You must be joking.”
“No. And he doesn’t like o**l s*x for the same reason.”
“Not even blow jobs?”
I shook my head. “Nope. And forget about the other kind. Oh, and after he’s finished, he races to the bathroom to clean himself up. Whether I’m finished or not.”
Both of them sat there blinking at me in disbelief. “Holy shit, Mia,” Coco said. “I’m pretty sure the universe did you a big favor here. You deserve a way better man than that ass**le. I don’t care how good looking he is. Or how rich. Any man that jumps out of bed to go clean himself up before making sure his woman is satisfied is a prick.”
“Agreed.” Erin nodded emphatically. “I wish you had said something about this sooner.”
“Why? I wouldn’t have listened to reason. I was too busy planning metro Detroit’s most glamorous wedding of the year,” I said, quoting from the article in Wedding Chic magazine. They’d done a whole profile of me, complete with photo shoot. “Oh, God, that stupid magazine article…all those pictures.” I slammed my eyes shut.
“Forget that. No one reads that magazine anyway.” Erin put her hand on my arm. “And some other scandal will replace you on Facebook.”
I opened my eyes to see Coco glaring at Erin. “It’s on Facebook?” They’d confiscated my laptop days ago, probably so I couldn’t check social media.