“You two need to sort your damn shit out,” Nash continues, looking between the both of us. “As much as it pains me to say …” He laughs once under his breath before continuing with all sincerity, “Y’all are perfect for one another.” He turns, looking up at Harley. “Forget about what I said this morning. I was confused and hungover. I didn’t mean what I said.”

Harley flashes me a look I can’t read, but before I can think too much into it, Nash continues. “I told her about the fight,” he says. “I won’t let y’all break up just because I’m a dickhead.”

But something in Nash’s words seems to cause Harley to stiffen, his broad shoulders tensing obviously as his stubbled jaw clenches, and my brow furrows in confusion as I witness a darkness cloud over his eyes, and it suddenly dawns on me.

No. Please, Harley. Please don’t.

“It was all a lie,” he finally murmurs, his raspy voice almost lost within the breeze rustling through the leaves of the elm tree hanging above us, and my stomach drops as I watch him, as his dark eyes intently focus on me.

“Huh?” Nash asks, sufficiently confused. “What was all a lie?”

After a few intense moments of silence, Harley tears his gaze from me, looking down at Nash in anger. “This whole damn thing was a lie!” He laughs another humorless laugh. “Me and her,” he says, nodding his head in my direction and referring to me as if I’m a piece of shit, which actually hurts more than I ever could have imagined. “We’re not together. We never were.”

A lump of dread balls in the back of my throat, and I stare down at the grass because I can’t bear to see the look on Nash’s face when he learns of my vindictive scheme.

“She made it all up because … Hell, I don’t even know why. She wanted to make you jealous? She didn’t want you to think she’d been sitting around all this time waiting on you to come running back to her? She didn’t want you to be happy with anyone but her? Who fuckin’ knows!”

Tears sting my eyes as I slowly lift my head, but when I find Nash looking at me with eyes full of confusion and an obvious hint of betrayal, Harley with the ghost of an ‘I told you so’ smirk pulling at his lips, all I wish is that I could go back to the beginning of the week and change everything.

“Murph?” Nash finally speaks, his voice so quiet. “Is that true?”

All I can do is nod because it is true. All of it. And, while we’re talking of the truth … “And, I laced the wedding cake samples with laxative hoping Anna would eat them and get so sick she couldn’t make dinner, because I wanted you all to myself that night.”

Nash’s eyes bulge.

Harley’s jaw drops in realization.

But I ignore them both as I continue with a quiet, croaky voice full of emotion, “And I’m pretty sure I elbowed her in the face on purpose when we were playing flag football on Sunday.” Both of them are gaping at me, clearly shocked by my confession, but I don’t stop there. “I made it all up—Harley and me—because I wanted you back,” I say, looking at Nash before turning and meeting Harley’s steely glare. “And it was all a lie.” Harley blinks hard, looking away. “Until Wednesday night when I realized that I—” I snap my mouth shut, contemplating my words when the reality of what I’m about to say crashes over me in a wave.