How to Lose a Groom in 10 Days Read Free Page A

bouquet on the passenger seat. The whole car smelled like peonies. She dabbed her eyes and picked up her phone again.
    Don’t worry about me , she typed with shaking fingers. She needed to show Grady that he was wrong about her. About marriage. Go to Atlanta and settle in your new place.
    He’d needed a moving service to transport his things to Atlanta ahead of them. She’d been able to fit half of her stuff in the trunk and back seat of her dinky car, a sad testament to how little she owned. How vastly their lifestyles differed.
    She didn’t just have cold feet. She was frozen all the way through.
    Her phone chimed again.
    I’m not leaving town without you , his next text informed her. We chose that house together.
    Right. And since he’d been in Atlanta sending her pictures of houses as he drove around town with a realtor, he had missed the almost-panic attack she’d had then too. But back then, a whole month ago, she hadn’t even been thinking about those homes as a place for them as a couple. Marriage hadn’t even entered her head four weeks prior. She’d just been helping him choose a cool place to live because he was a hot guy and she’d been wild about him.
    Knowing that he would move on without her in a kick-butt home in Atlanta while she stayed behind in Kissimmee had hurt at the time, but at least it had seemed… imminent.
    To get married instead? Total ill-advised craziness. She’d figured it was just another fun adventure like when they danced in the rain on the ball field one night after the rest of the team went home. Or like the time she’d dared him to see how far he could launch a ball she pitched to him and he’d broken his neighbor’s window. It had just been fun. Goofy. A spring training romance with an expiration date.
    The phone was heavy in her hand as she typed.
    I chose the house for you , she reminded him in her next text.
    She’d used a lifetime of knowledge about travelling ball-players and steered him toward a place equidistant from the stadium downtown and the private airfield used by the team. The neighborhood was appropriately affluent to give him privacy but not so stuffy that he couldn’t have a big backyard barbecue with some of the rowdier teammates. It had a guest house in case his parents wanted to visit him and three garages since she’d never known a major leaguer who was content with just one vehicle.
    The next incoming message lit up. Then we’ll choose a different one together , he replied. For both of us.
    Melanie squeezed her phone so hard she accidentally shut off the screen. How could he be so freaking nice to her after she’d just ditched him at the courthouse? Clearly, he didn’t get it. Didn’t get her.
    She’d done too good of a job hiding her deepest insecurities. Her true self. Even her family. Closing her eyes, she knew she had to stop this farce of a marriage before it went any further. For his sake as much as hers.
    I can’t do this , she texted and set aside her phone.
    Enough was enough.
    Reaching for the rear view mirror, she tilted it down to look at herself. Her mascara had smeared spectacularly. A tissue wasn’t going to cut it. She dug in her glove box for a wet wipe and tried not to get the alcohol too close to her eyes.
    Owww.
    It stung anyway. Damage done, she swiped the cloth over the rest of her face, not wanting to see any remnants of the careful makeup job she’d done in her old, empty apartment that she’d kept even after she moved in with Grady last month. She’d known even then it was a temporary move. She’d told him she was spending the previous night at her parents’ place, unwilling to admit that she’d kept the old apartment and spent the night before waiting for him to call and break it off. That’s what spring training guys did. They broke it off when their real life called at the beginning of April.
    She’d woken this morning disoriented from lack of sleep, still half expecting Grady to show up at the courthouse