Carry Your Heart

by K. Ryan

  Just as I was about to respond, Becca appeared from the bathroom, with Elena right behind her, and she was staring down at her phone as she walked towards our chairs, a deep frown etched across her face.

  Lexie and I exchanged a confused glance as Becca flopped down on the other side of me.

  "Hey, Becs," I started hesitantly, glancing back at Lexie over my shoulder. "What's up?"

  As it turned out, Becca didn't really need to say a word. Instead, she held her phone up for me to see and I squinted to get a better look. It took me a couple moments to understand what I was seeing, but when my brain finally caught up, my heart had already lodged itself in my throat.

  Because staring back at me from Becca's screen was a picture of Ariel and Caleb, probably taken a few years ago. They were smiling happily into the camera from what could only be his bed here in the clubhouse, judging by the wide black flag with the Iron Horsemen MC emblem pinned right above the headboard. The caption read, "This weekend is going to be the best! Can't wait to see the person I've been missing more than anything in the entire world."

  Lexie was leaning around me to squint at Becca's screen and her eyes widened before shooting right to where Ariel was chatting up one of the guests.

  "And then," Becca related grimly as she flicked her thumb to scroll up the page. "She literally just posted this two minutes ago."

  Two minutes ago—which probably would've been right after she and I had our awkward, albeit tense, conversation. This was probably going to suck, but I had to look. I couldn't force myself not to. It was yet another picture, but the only thing that was visible was Ariel's bare back and an intricate rose tattoo with the initials CS etched into one of the petals right in between her shoulder blades. No caption needed. The picture said everything Ariel wanted to say. I couldn't even take comfort in the fact that the tattoo itself, minus the initials, was about as generic and impersonal as it gets.

  And just like that, all my resolve, all my forced confidence, and everything I thought I knew about my relationship with Caleb vanished into thin air.

  "You don't think Caleb's seen this, right?" Becca asked in a hushed whisper.

  Lexie and I shook our heads at the same time.

  "No," I answered for the both of us. "He's not on Facebook."

  And even if he was, he definitely wouldn't be sitting by the computer refreshing the screen, especially for someone that still carried a flip phone.

  But Becca was on Facebook and apparently, was friends with Ariel, who Ariel also knew would see those suspiciously-timed updates. It didn't take a genius to figure out who those updates were really meant for.

  "When is she gonna grow up?" Lexie muttered under her breath. "Hey, look, Isabelle, I'll talk to her, okay?"

  "No," I shook my head firmly. "Don't do that. This is your party. Your wedding is tomorrow. That's all you should be concerned about right now."

  Besides, Ariel was doing this for attention and to stir up drama during her supposed best friend's shower, which was a really shitty thing to do any way you looked at it. Why give her what she wanted?

  "You okay, Isabelle?" Lexie asked and rested a hand on my shoulder.

  All I could muster was a quick nod. I wasn't so sure I could do anything else convincingly.

  From across the clubhouse, Skyler started waving her arms, signaling that it was time for Lexie to open all her presents.

  "Well," Lexie laughed. "I better head over there before Skyler gets all over my pregnant ass."

  I waved a little as Lexie stepped back into the crowd of guests and I settled back into my chair next to Becca, and a careful distance away from Ariel, who'd positioned herself right in between Skyler and Lexie. Annoyed didn't even begin to describe the emotion I felt as I watched Ariel throw her head back and laugh at something Lexie said.

  "I really hate that bitch," Becca whispered.

  Heinous bitch is more like it.

  It was right on the tip of my tongue to ask her why she was even friends with Ariel on Facebook if she hated her so much, but then, connecting online didn't really mean anything anyways. Killing the messenger wasn't really fair to Becca when all she'd done was be a good actual friend.

  "I mean, who seriously does that?" Becca went on in a loud whisper. "Who posts a goddamn selfie with their ex-boyfriend in bed like that? When you know the new girlfriend will see it?"

  Someone who wants the ex-boyfriend back. That's who does that.

  "Are you gonna say anything to her, Belle?"

  "No. Absolutely not," I shook my head furiously. "She's obviously delusional about how this weekend is gonna go. Why add fuel to the fire?"

  Becca nodded carefully and I knew I was starting to crack under the pressure.

  "If that's what you want...I don't know, Belle. If I were you, I'd get in her face, claim my man, and put that bitch in her place."

  I shot her a wary glance. "I'm not gonna get in her face. If I do that, then the terrorist with her immature psychological warfare wins."

  "Yeah, you're right. Sorry," Becca shrugged sheepishly. "I guess I'm still just a little pissed I got stuck with garbage duty again. Hey, how did you get out of it? I've been slaving over dirty dishes and sticky floors for the past six months and you and Caleb are together for what, a week, and all of a sudden you're helping in the kitchen? That sucks."

  Skyler had her reasons for setting things up the way she did and I knew better than to question why I was with the other old ladies in the kitchen and Becca was picking up garbage.

  When Lexie unwrapped her last present, the clubhouse doors burst open to let in a stream of black leather cuts herding through the hallway and right for the food. Becca got up to meet Eli, leaving me alone among a sea of people, some familiar and some completely foreign to me.

  With a familiar blonde head still MIA, I couldn't stop myself from watching Ariel out of the corner of my eye and my heart thudded unsteadily as she smoothed down her hair and her dress before scanning the flood of leather anxiously.

  She even stood up on her heels to look for Caleb as if no one else was in the room, as if she couldn't care less who was watching. My teeth sawed on my bottom lip when Caleb, who had a tattooed arm wrapped around Dominic's shoulders, finally came into view. I almost stood to go to him before Ariel had a chance, but right now, the better choice was just staying put.

  Because of the crowd and because I was still sitting on the opposite end of the room, Caleb would see Ariel before he'd ever see me, regardless of which one of us he was actually looking for. And because the masochist in me reared its ugly head, I decided to hang back and see how this whole sorry show played out.

  From my vantage point across the room, it seemed like everything was happening in slow motion. Dominic and Caleb strode into the clubhouse's main floor together and from where I sat, it looked like Dominic caught sight of Ariel first. He bent down to mutter something in Caleb's ear and Caleb's head snapped to Ariel's direction.

  With a shaky breath, I watched, practically wringing my hands helplessly, as Caleb and Ariel saw each other for the first time in four months. It was Caleb's face I was fixated on. That was the reaction I needed to see.

  He stood locked to the floor, blinking back at Ariel and from what I could tell, seemed genuinely startled, if not bewildered, to see her standing less than 10 feet away. Then an indecipherable mask slipped on over his face as he and Dominic walked the short distance separating them from the girl who'd thrown him into a pit of whiskey-fueled despair. Dominic reached down to pull her into a quick embrace and then stepped away to find Lexie, leaving Caleb and Ariel alone.

  They both seemed to reach for each other at the same time. Seeing Caleb putting his arms around his ex...I hadn't anticipated the knife in my heart would twist this brutally. Their arms seemed to linger around each other a little too long, even though I was, admittedly, biased, and then Caleb gently pulled away from Ariel.

  He was speaking to her now with a small smile spreading on his face and then he nodded
to her. My stomach churned when Ariel beamed back up at him, her entire face brightened just by this fleeting moment they'd just shared together, confirming all my suspicions and her motivation for those stupid, pot-stirring Facebook posts.

  Just as my chest was beginning to heave from a panic attack, Caleb turned on his heel and started to backpedal away from Ariel. He was weaving around the crowd now, sidestepping the throngs pushing up to the food table, his eyes anxiously scanning the crowd.

  He was looking for me.

  His face broke out into a wide grin when he finally found me and I held myself back, letting him come to me. Then I felt his warm, rough hands slide around my waist to pull me into his arms as he leaned down to give me a quick kiss.

  "Hey, babe," he murmured into my ear. "Havin' fun?"

  I barely had a chance to nod before he was leaning down to kiss me again. He gestured with his head to the beer in my hand and arched a curious eyebrow at me.

  "Beer, huh?"

  It wasn't my usual vodka and soda, but well, if I was going to be in this world, I wasn't going to do it half-assed. Go big or go home. Or more accurately, when in Rome...

  "Yeah," I shrugged. Because I was already a little off-balance, the words fell out of my mouth before I could really think about the implication of them. "Elena got it for me."

  Confusion flickered across his face like he couldn't quite place the name or what significance that might have, but when he followed my gaze to the pretty, petite brunette, who was stuffing some leftover wrapping paper into a garbage bag by a nearby table, his Adam's apple bobbed violently. His eyes darted back to me, laced with some apology, a little bit of embarrassment, and mountains of uncertainty.

  "You okay?" Caleb asked finally, frowning his eyebrows down at me to give me his full attention and focus.

  That was probably the only one of all my awkward interactions today I was the most comfortable with, at least where his past was concerned, so it was easy to let my lips curl up into a smile and stand up on my toes to kiss him.

  "She was...respectful, I guess?"

  He nodded tightly. "Good. You eat yet?"

  "No, I haven't gotten a chance."

  "Figures," he muttered, pulling me with him to the long and winding food line.

  Keeping both hands gripped on my waist, he walked me to the end of the line and just that light touch pretty much set my body aflame. I'd only been away from him for a few hours for the party and that time apart seemed like a few days, rather than hours.

  "By the way," he whispered behind me as we waited our turn for the barbeque. "You look smokin' today, babe."

  I laughed, grinning widely as his hand slid around my stomach to pull me closer to him.

  Glancing over my shoulder, I rose an eyebrow. "I think you just might be saying that because you're gonna miss me tonight."

  His eyebrows flew into his forehead and I shivered at the sensation of his hot breath next to my ear. "I don't have to stay at the clubhouse tonight, you know. Screw Dom. He can have his last stag night without me."

  My shoulders shook with laughter and I turned around so I could wrap my arms around his neck. "Your best friend is getting married tomorrow. You're staying here tonight. Besides, I'm pretty sure I'll find a way to survive without you for one night."

  "You wish, babe."

  He wrapped his arms around me a little more tightly now that I was facing him and took the opportunity to kiss me again. It was that moment when my eyes wandered over Caleb's shoulder, only to collide with Ariel, who was standing like a statue about 10 feet away.

  She was gaping back at us with wide, pained eyes, her face pale and twisted with grief. I quickly turned myself back around in Caleb's arms and he slid his hands around my waist again, none the wiser that his ex had just witnessed our entire exchange.

  Part of me wanted to fist pump in victory, or at the very least, post a picture of this moment on Facebook just to rub her nose in it.

  The other part of me knew it wasn't that simple.

  Regardless of the terse encounter we'd had before, I didn't want to play these games with her. As far as I was concerned, no good could come from engaging Ariel in any way. This was Lexie and Dom's weekend and the last thing I needed right now was to find myself in an all-out brawl with Ariel and put Caleb in the middle of it, mainly because I didn't see the point in testing fate if I could help it.

  After we'd eaten together and Caleb gave me a quick kiss goodbye, he and the rest of the club high-tailed it out of there before the last plate was cleared. Since all the girls, Becca included, were already at work cleaning up the dirty dishes and assorted garbage, all I could really do now was sit back and hope this weekend wouldn't end in a tragedy.

  . . .

  With the clamoring and whoops echoing through the reception hall, it was just that much more difficult to pretend like something, or rather someone, wasn't grinding a million nails into my heart. Somehow, I had to figure out how to make it through the rest of this night in one piece, and I resolved to do just that as I stepped through the hall's threshold with Becca at my side.

  The wedding itself went off without a hitch. Lexie looked radiant in her form-fitting white dress as she strode up the aisle, proudly displaying her baby bump for all to see. And when the opening notes of Aerosmith's "I Don't Wanna Miss A Thing" started playing as Lexie floated up the aisle, I couldn't keep from smiling along with the rest of the wedding guests. I probably shouldn't have expected anything less from a biker wedding.

  But after the ceremony, the sight of Dominic and Lexie's respective best man and maid of honor walking down the aisle together arm in arm almost sent me teetering over the edge. I'd had to fist my fingernails into my hands just to keep from screaming.

  Up until that moment, I think I'd held myself together pretty well.

  Caleb, making good on his promise to bring me as his date, stopped by Becca's apartment with Eli that morning to bring us to the wedding. Becca had spent way too much time on the loose waves in my hair, but she claimed it was because she wanted me to look dynamite and because the hair went with my dress, which was just a strapless, knee-length LBD with some fullness in the skirt.

  I'd purposefully kept everything simple because I didn't want to look like I was trying too hard, so I'd felt a stuttering glimmer of hope when Caleb whispered in my ear that I looked beautiful. I'd been able to fan that hope all throughout the morning and the entire ceremony up until its last moments.

  That glimmer of hope was on its last legs when I saw the look on Ariel's face as she walked down the aisle with her arm secured underneath Caleb's. It was a look that read triumph. Excitement. Hope. Vindication. Like she had the world at her feet and was about to regain her place in this confusing, overwhelming world. It had taken all of my remaining willpower not to stand up in the middle of all Dominic and Lexie's wedding guests and scream.

  Instead, I sucked in a breath and prayed that image wouldn't be forever seared into my memory. Of course, it didn't help that Caleb's duties as best man had made him basically absent from the pre-ceremony to the start of the reception. It wasn't necessarily his fault. This was one of the biggest days of his best friend's life, but his absence wasn't doing anything to curb the dread settling at the pit of my stomach.

  As Becca and I settled into our seats a few tables away from the wedding party, she absentmindedly scrolled through her phone and I had half a mind to rip the stupid thing out of her hands and throw it across the room.

  There was no good reason to feel that way and I knew that by feeling this way, I really was letting the terrorist win, not to mention basically ruining what should be a fun night for myself. I just couldn't help it.

  He'd already told me loved me. We'd spent every night together for the last week, wrapped around the sheets in my bedroom. He'd officially made me his old lady. We'd discussed what getting his ink meant, even if it was still a ways away. He'd been attentive, affectionate, loving, and everything else I could have ever wanted from him.<
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  So it wasn't fair to him or to myself that I had these doubts. There was nothing more he could do, nothing more he could possibly say to prove to me that this was real, that he was serious, except tackling the one subject we'd purposely skirted around.

  Ariel.

  If I was being completely honest with myself, I'm not entirely sure talking about her would even have helped. I think I'd still feel this crazy with self-doubt and unfounded jealousy and I knew if I did anything, I would just end up looking as crazy as I felt. I knew he loved me and I believed him every time he said it, but he'd loved Ariel too.

  At some point tonight, Ariel would try to get him alone. I was about as certain of that as I was that the sky was blue. What happened after that was on Caleb.

  I hated feeling like I had to be this passive, like I had to leave it alone, but all my hands were already played out. I'd gotten all the confirmation I could possibly get from him, told him I loved him back, and slept with him as many times as physically possible in the span of seven days.

  All I could do now was let the chips fall and see how it played out. Regardless of the outcome, I knew that if I eliminated the choice for him, what would I really have? On some level, wouldn't it mean more if Caleb had the opportunity to get back together with Ariel, but chose me instead? And if there was a chance that he would choose Ariel even after everything we'd been through together, and there was most definitely a chance, wouldn't it be easier if I just knew now?

  I was setting myself up for heartbreak tonight. This passive-aggressive strategy wouldn't get me anywhere in the long run, but I felt like it was the only real place I could go without making a scene and without forcing Caleb's hand.

  I didn't need him staying with me out of obligation. I needed him staying with me because he legitimately and whole-heartedly wanted to be with me.

  "Hey, Belle?" Becca's worried voice called out to me. "Are you okay?"

  It would be easy to confide in Becca because she was the one who'd stumbled across the evidence in the first place. But that would mean having to say the words out loud, to admit what I was really feeling, and I just couldn't stomach that either.