Page 92 of Drowning Erin

Rob starts introducing me to the other investors, and to the vineyard owner—who I never met with Brendan, thank God—and we fall into our familiar patterns. Bland social smiles, my hip brushing his thigh, his hand at the small of my back. This kind of event still isn’t my thing, but I don’t hate his role in it. I don’t hate the way he wants to show me off—the small, possessive things he does that Brendan never did.

Rob leans down. “Are you doing okay?” he asks, his breath grazing my ear.

I smile up at him and nod. “Yes. You?”

“I’ve never been happier than I am right now,” he says, his hand wrapping around my hip. He leans down, pressing a kiss to the top of my head. “I’m gonna get us a sample of the shiraz. You’ll be okay for a second?”

I nod, and watch him depart.

An older woman leans toward me. “The two of you are adorable,” she says. “Newlyweds?”

“Oh, uh…no. It’s not… No.” Well done, Erin. That made complete sense.

“Well, you should be,” she says with a fond smile. “You’d have beautiful children.”

There’s a low, unhappy laugh behind me. A laugh I could identify anywhere in the world, under any circumstances.

“She’s right,” Brendan drawls. “You’re so adorable.”

I turn slowly, bracing myself. His face is the only thing I’ve wanted to see for the past three weeks. I want to weep for how badly I’ve missed the sight of him: that sharp jaw and those slightly flushed cheekbones, eyes the palest possible blue against his tan. I’ve stared at that photo of him in a suit at Olivia’s wedding a thousand times, but tonight he puts that to shame. He is so beautiful that he breaks my heart all over again.

“Hey, man, I didn’t know you’d be here,” Rob says, coming up behind me. “You know Chris?”

Brendan’s eyes fall to Rob’s hand as it wraps around my waist, and I get a glimpse of that sneer of his. It’s a look I know well—I’ve seen it far too many times over the past few years.

“Yeah,” Brendan replies. “You?”

“Only recently. I invested in this place a while back.”

I see a hint of tightness in Brendan’s jaw, a small twitch, and then he forces it to relax. A girl comes up to the three of us, handing Brendan a glass of red. She is beautiful, curvier than me, and I hate her on sight. I hate her ample cleavage, her leather dress, her perfect hair. I loathe everything about her.

“Crystal,” he says, looking only from her to Rob, as if I’m not there, “this is my friend Rob and his fiancée.” I don’t even get a name now, apparently. Maybe he’s already forgotten.

Crystal immediately starts gushing over my ring with the precise level of enthusiasm you'd expect from a 16-year-old. "I love it!” she squeals. “Diamond engagement rings are so over.”

Rob and I exchange an awkward glance.

"It’s just a ring,” I reply. “We’re not engaged."

"Oh." She looks up at Brendan with a cute little expression of complete confusion—an expression I bet she has a lot. "You just said they were engaged."

"We were engaged, and now we're just figuring things out," says Rob.

"Well, that ring is fufleek either way," she tells me.

"Fufleek?" I ask, thinking I've misheard her. I'd assume she was just pulling from another language entirely except…come on, Crystal doesn't speak another language.

"Yeah, you know. Fleek as hell. Fucking fleek."

"Ah, of course," I say, casting a shaming glance at Brendan. "Yes, that's what I wanted. A ring that's fucking fleek. We went into Tiffany, and that's what I said. 'Take us right to your fucking fleek section'."

Brendan glares at me, but Crystal just giggles. Because of course she does.

"Right on, girl. Have you thought about music?" she asks.

"Music?"

"For your wedding."