My Favorite Souveni- Penelope Ward , Vi Keeland Page 0,102
onto the floor, and his shoulders slumped. His anger seemed to dissipate into sadness, and that broke my heart. I took a few steps toward him and reached out, but Brady held his hands up and stepped back.
“Don’t. Don’t touch me.”
I shook my head. “We didn’t mean for this to happen, Brady.”
“How long? How long have you been screwing my best friend?”
I looked down. “We met when I went to Vail.”
He scoffed. “That’s perfect. Did you fuck him in the honeymoon suite I’d booked us?”
I shook my head again. “That’s not how it was. You have to believe me.”
“Oh I do, do I? Why is that? Because you’ve been so honest with me lately? I spent time with the two of you together. You guys must’ve had a good laugh at my expense. What a dope he is for not catching on.”
“Brady, I swear, we randomly met in Vail at a hotel, and neither of us had a clue that we had a connection to each other. We had absolutely no idea until Matteo walked in the door at that bar you and I met at for a drink a few weeks ago.”
“Yeah, that sounds believable. The two of you meet in Vail, where you were both supposed to be for our wedding, and with totally common names like Hazel and Matteo, and it never dawned on either of you.”
“We…we weren’t using our real names.”
Brady’s eyebrows jumped. “Oh! Right. Everything makes a lot of sense now. Thanks for filling me in. I understand completely how that could happen. It’s crystal clear.”
The fact that Matteo and I had used fake names for two full weeks, and we’d never figured out the reason we were both in Vail, were the same reasons it really did seem ludicrous right about now. The story sounded so far-fetched, it was almost unbelievable to me.
Brady and I stood in silence for a long time. He stared at the ground, at the pictures of Matteo spread all over the floor, and shook his head.
When he looked up, his eyes were rimmed with tears. “Do you love him?”
I wasn’t sure if I should be honest or not, but I thought if Brady was ever going to believe any of the crazy story of how Matteo and I had met, I needed to start being truthful right now.
I nodded. “I do.”
Brady shook his head. “Athena never meant anything to me. I was just dumb and scared. I might’ve cheated first, but it was just sex, Hazel. Cheating of the heart is much worse.”
It felt like the wind had been knocked out of me. “Who…who’s Athena?”
Brady scoffed. “Great. So this wasn’t even you getting even with me? You had no clue I’d screwed up when you went and started fucking my best friend. You know, I always thought you and I were different, that you were too good for me. But it turns out, you’re just as big a piece of shit as I am.”
I shook my head, still not fully understanding. “Who’s Athena? The woman you work with?”
Brady waved me off. “You know what? I’m done here. If you want the details of what happened between Athena and me, ask your boyfriend. He was such a trusted friend to me that I told him all about her.”
Holy shit. Hot anger rushed through me as I realized how long I’d blamed myself for the end of our engagement. And no one had been telling me the truth.
He caught my eyes one more time, then turned around and walked out the front door.
Chapter 30
* * *
Matteo
“Come on…pick up.” I paced back and forth in my apartment.
My mom frowned. “She’s still not answering?”
I dragged a hand through my hair and shook my head. It had been three days since Brady had called, slurring his words, the night Hazel flew home. My cell phone had woken me at four in the morning East Coast time. No call that comes in at that hour is ever good, but when I grabbed my cell off the nightstand and saw the name flashing on the screen, I knew. I knew.
I’d been a coward over the last month, sneaking around behind my friend’s back, so I’d answered, steadying myself to take my lumps. But Brady was barely comprehensible in his drunken state. I’d managed to make out that he’d been waiting at Hazel’s house after she landed and found some photos of the two of us on her camera. After that, the rest of the conversation mostly