Page 113 of Making the Save

The host, a late night talk show star I recognized, was on stage starting his monologue. There was the distant sound of laughter around us, but I couldn’t really register it because of the buzzing in my ears.

“What if I didn’t go?” I said, surprising myself with the words. It was one thing to leave her, but it was another thing entirely to leave her alone to deal with the fallout of everything we’d done. The mess we made in Vegas was only slightly smaller.

“What are you talking about?” she asked. The light in her eyes flared and I couldn’t tell if she was happy or angry. “We said this was temporary.”

“I know what we said,” I snapped. “I’m telling you maybe I’m changing my mind.”

“Maybe you’re changing…” her voice was drowned out by applause. The show must have been going to commercial, because everyone started talking amongst themselves.

This wasn’t the time or the place. I knew that. But we were in it now.

“Maybe we just keep going. Until I have to go back to work. That gives us more time.”

“More time for what?” Her lips pressed together tightly. “You said that I was the last woman on the planet you would marry.”

I winced at the reminder.

“All I’m suggesting is that things don’t have to end right now. We can keep seeing each other until-”

“Until what?” she pressed me.

“We reach a natural conclusion.”

Why did those words feel so stupid coming out of my mouth? Why had I even started down this terrible road, in the worst possible place, at the worst possible time? “Let’s talk about this later,” I said, trying to dig myself out of this hole.

“No. Let’s talk about it now. So, what I think you are saying is you want to keep fucking me…for another few weeks or until we reach our natural conclusion? Whichever comes first.”

“I didn’t mean it like that,” I said, trying to salvage this.

“What’s the natural conclusion, Wyatt? When you get sick of me, when you get bored? When you meet the woman who would make a better wife for you than me?”

She was angry. Like spit fire angry. Two presenters were coming out on stage.

“Now isn’t the time to talk about this.”

“No, it isn’t. But you brought it up,” she snapped.

“You don’t need to get angry,” I said.

“You don’t get to tell me how I feel. This whole time…it’s been you calling the shots. How long this lasts, when it stops, where we should go, what we should do, how we should make love.”

Shit. She was getting loud. I looked around to make sure no one could hear us.

“The rules were very clear for me up front and you kept changing them. That’s not fair.”

“This isn’t a game, Syd,” I growled. A woman I didn’t recognize ran up on the stage after her name was called.

Syd’s angry jade eyes were filling with unshed tears. “No, Wyatt. That’s where you’re wrong. All of this has been a game. Excuse me.”

She stood, and before I could stop her, she was stepping over me, then the two people in the row next to us. I turned and watched her walk up the aisle, her wings bouncing behind her.

A fairy bride…on the run.

“Fuck,” I muttered.

Did I go after her? Did I try to explain myself better?

Two other presenters came on stage to announce the winner for best female artist.