I open the door for Myla, and she gets in, only for me to follow. Once we’re buckled up and the driver pulls away from the hotel, I talk quietly. “What are you doing here?”

Matching the pitch of my voice, she answers, “A deal was a deal, Ryot.”

“It was stupid of me to ask you that. Selfish. I was going to handle it. You don’t have to be here. I know you don’t want to be, and I’m absolutely okay with that.” I miss you so much, and I’m already so lost without you.

She turns toward me and looks me in the eyes, those bright blue irises shining brightly. “I’m not about to create drama around someone else’s wedding, okay? So let’s just do this wedding thing and then move on.”

The way she says it . . . it’s different.

There’s no malice.

There’s no anger.

It’s almost as if she’s given up, surrendered, and now she’s simply going through the motions.

I don’t want to make her mad, go into detail about how she’s feeling, or ask how she came to this conclusion because I know it won’t get me anywhere. So instead, I reach over to her, take her hand in mine, and give it a squeeze.

“Thank you, Myla. This means a lot to me. I know I don’t deserve it, but I appreciate it.”

She doesn’t say anything.

She just looks out the window.

So I do the same.

* * *

“Dude, what the hell is going on?” Banner asks as he meets me in the bathroom.

Yup, guys gather in the bathroom too. It’s not just women.

“I don’t know.” I push my hand through my hair as I lean against the wallpapered wall of the most elaborate men’s bathroom I think I’ve ever seen. And I’ve been to my fair share of nice places. “She said a deal was a deal but, fuck, man, that kiss.” I shake my head. “I felt it to my very soul.”

“It looked real as shit.”

“It was,” I say as Banner walks up to me. “It felt so goddamn real, like nothing has changed between us. Absolutely nothing.”

“So what did change?” he asks, and this is where I hang my head low.

“Me,” I answer. “I’m the thing that changed and not for the better.”

“What do you mean?” he asks, folding his arms.

“I really fucked up, man. I was so focused on what I was going to do to make myself feel better about retiring early that I didn’t think about what I was supposed to be doing when I retired. It was supposed to be about Myla and me. I stepped all over that. We had plans for my retirement, and I completely neglected her by making decisions for myself. Not for us.”

“Wait, you didn’t talk to your wife about what you planned on doing?”

“I mean, I did, but I didn’t talk about it, talk about it. Just skimmed. It wasn’t up for discussion, and I can see now how that was a huge fucking mistake.”