Picture Perfect

about what it felt like to have your dreams come true.
    The wedding was heart-touchingly beautiful. Dante and Sabrina gave Brooke away, while Todd and Sandra gave Delilah away. I hadn’t been expecting that, and it made me cry. It was so beautiful that Delilah had included her father, and I knew it had to mean the world to Todd.
    When it came time to declare who gave Brooke to Damien, Dante and Sabrina said that they did. Then it was time to declare who gave Delilah to Spencer and Damien, Dante, Sandra and Todd all indicated that they did. Sylvia was seated right next to me, and she was crying her eyes out. It didn’t escape me that Mason was choked up as well.
    Both couples had chosen to write their own vows, and there wasn’t a dry eye to be found as they pledged themselves to each other. Reaching over, I took Flynn’s hand in mine and squeezed. The block of ice that was the love of my life didn’t squeeze back, and I pulled my hand away as I held in the sound of my soul ripping apart.
    The rest of the night was passing in a blur, everyone eating and dancing to the songs that the DJ was spinning. I was in the dumps, but I think I did a good job hiding it. At least I did enough to ward off people asking questions, but I did notice that Dillon and Dominique seemed off as well, so maybe that was keeping the attention off of me.
    When it came time for the traditional first dance, I was stunned to see Flynn step forward with an acoustic guitar. I’d had no idea that was going to sing.
    Apparently, I was the only one that didn’t know because it was clear that no one else showed surprise. We all assembled around the small dance floor that had been set up under an open-air tent in the sand and applauded as he took a seat on a stool and adjusted the mic in front of him.
    Brooke and Damien glided onto the dance floor as Flynn began strumming the opening notes to Jason Mraz’s “I Won’t Give Up,” as the happy couple beamed at each other. After spending the last week deprived of everything that was Flynn, I almost lost it at the sound of his voice.
    When Brooke and Damien’s dance ended, Delilah and Spencer walked to the floor. I melted when he started to sing The Beatles “In My Life”. My emotions were all over the place, and I wanted to run from the beach and scream. I’d never have what Delilah and Spencer did, and it hurt.
    Instead of running, I stayed in place and applauded with everyone else when the dance ended. Spencer shared a look with Flynn and nodded his head, and the next thing I knew Flynn had broken into, “Having My Baby.” We were all a mixture of laughter and tears after that. The song was cheesy, but Flynn’s voice made it beautiful.
    He’d finished singing and was moving to get off the stool when Sylvia called out and told him to play a love song that made him think of me so that everyone could dance. Any piece of my heart that was left intact cracked into a million pieces as I waited for him to tell her that no love song reminded him of me because we were over.
    Instead, he nodded his head and began to strum out a song that I immediately recognized. It wasn’t a mainstream song, but it was one of my all-time favorites, and I couldn’t believe that of all the songs in the world, he’d chosen that one. The song he sang was Damien Rice’s “Cannonball,” and it was the most beautiful thing I’d ever heard in my whole life. As word after word came from him mouth, his eyes never left mine. Tears ran down my face unchecked as he sang, but I was helpless to stop it.
    By the time he was finished singing and had put the guitar down, I was as close to unglued as I’d ever been. It physically hurt at the deepest level that what had started out so beautiful had turned so ugly.
    Once the guitar was down, he was across the dance floor in a flash, grabbing my hand as he guided me toward the house.
    “Get your purse, we’re leaving in five minutes. I’m exhausted from pretending around them that everything is fine with you and I just want to go home. I’ll tell my family that we’re leaving. Meet me at the car.”

Chapter Thirty-Seven

    For more than ten days, I’d been living in fucking hell. Tessa was everywhere in my life and it was destroying me.
    I’d been paying for a suite at the Mondrian for her for the last nine of those days. Every night before I fell asleep I promised myself that the following day I would move her out of my house and into the hotel, and every day I