me. Then I braced myself. “Mother. I hope you’re sitting down. I, uh, I have big news…”
Then I swallowed the sudden bile rising in my throat and spilled it all… or our own manufactured truth about the romance, the wedding, everything.
Chapter 4
Katya
I finally made it home from work around eight p.m. with my phone still turned off. I pulled into the darkening parking lot of the condo I shared with Heath in Orange. Gathering my things, my mind raced through the crazy events of the day, still in disbelief of all that had transpired.
Almost absently I studied the single piece of mail Lucas had delivered to me from his car an hour before. As I’d suspected, the return address on the envelope was imprinted with the logo of a familiar law office in Vancouver. With no desire to know its contents, I stuffed it in my bag, vowing to feed it into the shredder as soon as possible, unread.
But I needed a moment to catch my breath as I fell back against the raggedy seat of the old 90s Honda Civic I’d inherited from Mia. Straightening my shoulders, I decided the best way to distract myself was to brave the messages on my phone before facing my real-life—and likely very irate—roommate.
Holding my breath, I turned on my phone and began to scroll through the scary amount of text messages queued up in my text app.
So many messages, in fact. Some from people I barely knew. Some from a few numbers that weren’t even in my contacts that said “Congrats!” and “How wonderful!”
But the ones from my closest friends, I saved those for last.
Mia had only sent me some info about the move to Lucas’s house on Saturday and when she and Adam would be showing up to grab my boxes. But the rest… they were a mess. Most of them included the letters WTF? A whole lot of question marks and even more exclamation points.
Rather than repeat myself and copypasta a generic message for each of them, I opened up a group text instead, to April, Jenna, Alex and yeah, even Mia and Heath.
Katya: Hey all, thanks for the wonderful well wishes. Yep, Lucas & I did tie the knot. I know that’s hard to believe but… whirlwind romance and all that. And maybe the curse of Mia’s bouquet getting caught in my hair at her wedding.
Mia: Heyyyy no fair. I didn’t do that on purpose.
Alex: I can’t believe you did it. You married Jedi Boy! Does that mean you get your own lightsaber? Did he use a Jedi mind trick on you?
Jenna: Sounds like it was probably more like a Jedi sex trick.
April: Damn it, Mia. I should have slipped you a few hundred to aim that sucker at me so I could at least savor the terrified look on Jordan’s face when I caught it.
Mia: You enjoy tormenting that man so much. I love every minute of it.
Jenna: Kat, least you coulda done was warn us so we could have given you a bachelorette and hired a hot male stripper.
Heath: Did someone say hot male stripper?
Alex: I can’t wait to see your ring!!! Send us a pic ASAP!
Mia: Heath did you know about this secret romance all along and kept it from me?
Heath: This vault holds many secrets, dollface. Do you really want that door opened?
Mia: Hmm. Maybe not.
Alex: No really, I need a pic of your ring. Like… NOW.
Kat: Not available yet. They’re on order. Will do as soon as we get them. I’m exhausted, ladies and gent. Gonna go hit the sack.
April: What? It’s still super early
Jenna: Must be from all that hot newlywed sex she’s having.
With a sigh I tucked my phone in my bag, hopefully having mitigated that disaster for the evening. There would be more, though, certainly.
Like facing the roommate. He’d probably be as little amused as Lucas was that the secret was out.
I opened the front door of our condo softly and shut it, while walking on tip toes, as if that might help at all. If only I could make it to my room unnoticed, I’d bar the door and have some physical protection. As bad luck would have it, Heath sat on the couch watching some survival reality show on the History Channel, his back to me as I snuck through the room. I was halfway into my bedroom doorway when he spoke loudly in his deep baritone between clenched teeth.