It Was Always You

My fiancé and I had just been seated at my best friend’s rehearsal dinner when my ex-husband walked in. It’s not that I was blindsided by this, seeing as how Ryder was Brea’s brother, but try telling that to my nervous system. As Brea’s maid of honor, I’d made it my mission to know everything about her wedding down to the most minute of details. The largest one being that Ryder Wells was not due to fly in until early tomorrow morning.

At 5:25am to be exact.

On his own private plane to Velana International Airport.

Yet, somehow here he was, towering over the ornately decorated table looking directly at me. My heart thumped so wildly in my chest that my breath stalled out.

“Wells.” The nickname slips out, barely a whisper from my lips.

“Ryder!” Brea leaps from her seat, rushing him with a hug and flurry of questions.

“What are you doing here?” She breaths. “I thought you couldn’t make it until tomorrow?”

That made two of us.

Clear blue eyes meet mine for the briefest of moments before Ryder’s stoops low, enveloping his sister. He looks the same, yet so much is different. Older. There’s an unexpected pang to my heart at how much I’d missed over the past five years.

“I wouldn’t miss my baby sister’s rehearsal dinner.” he says. At least that’s what I’m pretty sure he said. I can’t be completely certain as my ears have started ringing. I busy myself, twisting my engagement ring around my finger, back and forth, back and forth. The weight of it suddenly feeling very wrong. Something I’m not willing to look too closely at right now. I’m not sure how long I stay that way, staring at my hands in my lap before the deep timber of Ryder’s voice pulls my attention. A magnet, just as it always was.

“Elle.” Is all he says, but I feel it in my bones.

Liam, my fiancé, picks this moment to finally look up from his phone and by the look on his face I can’t decipher what direction this is going to go.

“Oh hey, mate.” He says, his English accent unmistakable. “I thought Ellie mentioned you weren’t coming in until tomorrow.”

Passive aggressive it is.

Ryder’s eyes lock on mine now, their hold unrelenting, but his lips pull up at the corner. He knows how much I hate being called Ellie. I look back and forth between the two. Male dominance on full display.

It’s then that I notice the entire table has gone silent and all eyes are on us and Ryder must notice too because he nods subtly and watches me as he says:

“Yeah, mate. Change of plans.”

#

“Change of plans?” I seethe, pacing our overwater bungalow. See, this was the problem. I couldn’t possibly think of anything else when Ryder was around. I’d nearly forgotten what it was like to be in his orbit having not seen him one single time in the last half decade. But the feeling was back now and it was…overwhelming to say the least. The wedding party and Brea’s family had spent the past three hours together at a celebratory party on the white sands of the beach and although Ryder was conveniently absent after dinner the interaction still had me reeling.

Liam was back on his phone again, texting the partners at his firm about some case they’d been tediously working on all last week. The promise had been that the phone would be put away for the week while we took the opportunity to have a vacation in paradise for Brea and Everette’s wedding and it hadn’t escaped my attention that he’d been working all night. Come to think of it he’d been glued to his computer the entire flight to the Maldives too.

“Are you listening to me?” I ask, stepping between his knees where he sat at the small dining table of our hut. It’s when he still doesn’t look up that I say, “Liam?” This finally garners enough attention for him to pause his endless typing.

“I’m sorry, Ellie.” He says, looking sheepish. “I know I promised I wouldn’t work on this trip it’s just that…”

I take a step back.

“No, it’s okay. I’m going to go for a walk. I need to…clear my head.” He eyes me momentarily and shrugs.

“I’ll use the time while you’re gone to finish this up so we can spend time together when you’re back.” I nod, forcing a smile to my lips. He won’t. We won’t. And maybe that’s just how it was going to be with Liam.

“Yeah, that sounds nice.”

Only problem was, I really wasn’t sure anymore if that was true.

#

The sky-high heels I’d worn to the rehearsal dinner had seemed like a good idea at the time, but then again so had the two extra glasses of rose I’d had on the beach mere moments ago. That was until I’d found myself with a heel stuck between the planks of the dock on my way back to the bungalow. With the luck I was having today it would be no surprise if I wound up in the water with the sharks or whatever was down there at night. The thought had me frantically pulling on my leg and eventually falling onto my butt, legs splayed to either side.

“Those pesky planks get you?” Ryder’s voice passes over my skin from behind me, leaving goosebumps in its wake. I whip around as quickly as I can with one foot still stuck to the boards. The situation would actually be funny if it wasn’t so on par with the happenings of the day.

“It’s more these pesky shoes.” I say, placing my phone and empty glass next to me as I struggle with the ankle strap of my heels. Ryder and I glance down at my phone at the same time. I’d tried calling Liam three times to come join me on the beach with no reply. The screen goes black and a I sigh a breath of relief.

“Here let me help.” Ryder says. Lowering to a crouch in front of me, he takes ahold of the delicate ankle strap and unfastens it with nimble fingers. I suck in a breath when he gently wraps his hand around my ankle and slides my foot from the cursed shoe. We stay like that for some time, his hand on my calf, staring at each other. So many unsaid things passing between the two of us, but I jump at the sound of Liam approaching. He pulls to a halt behind me assessing the situation.

“I saw your missed calls.” He says, looking sleepy and apologetic.

“Were you sleeping?” I ask.

He nods. So much for spending time together. The real problem is that I’m not even mad about it. It feels like the normal for us the past couple months. Ever since he made partner.

“It’s okay.” I say, making to stand up but quickly toppling back over. When Liam makes no move to help, Ryder offers a hand and pulls me to a stand.

“It’s not really okay.” Ryder says, suddenly.

“What is that supposed to mean?” Liam counters.

“It means that somehow you are engaged to the best person I’ve ever met and you are here with her in paradise and she obviously wants to be with you judging from the rock on her hand but you have been nothing but absent.”

“That’s saying a lot coming from the guy who left her in the first place.” Liam is red in the face now which I know means he’s losing his cool. Ryder stops cold and looks down to where I’m standing between the two of them. His full lips pulling down at the corners.

“Not really how I remember it.” He says and turns to walk away.

He wasn’t wrong.

#

Nineteen hours later I’m standing dateless at Brea’s wedding reception and somehow feeling lighter than I have in a long time. Liam and I spent the night and early morning hours talking about our relationship and his job and settled on the fact that although there are no hard feelings, our engagement needed to end. Ultimately, I was not okay with spending a life together but mostly alone and he wasn’t okay with not giving one-hundred percent to his career that he’d worked so hard for. I couldn’t blame him.

“Now you have time to focus on yourself!” Brea says, rushing me with a glass of champagne. “Are you sure you’re okay though?” Her eyes are big and bright, but full of concern for me on her wedding day, which was entirely not going to work for me.

“I promise you that I’m feeling better than I have in a really long time. I’m happy and I’m so grateful to be here celebrating you and Everette and the love you have for each other. It gives me hope that I can find that one day.”

“Hmm.” She smirks. “I kinda think you already have if you are willing to look at what’s in front of you.” She says and makes her way to the cake cutting table with a flourish, her beautiful ivory gown billowing around her. Brea and I had become best friends in high school and she had been a huge advocate for me and her brother once she got over the fact that her best friend was dating her brother in college. Ryder and I had eloped shortly after graduation, but I’d been so afraid that I’d made a decision without living my life to the fullest that I’d bailed two months in. It wasn’t my proudest moment and I was just now coming to realize that it wasn’t the smartest either. I glanced across the room finding him instantly. Ryder was watching me too, over the rim of his champagne glass, a slow smile played on his lips and when we toasted to the happy couple he shot me a wink that was a shock straight to my heart and it that moment I knew. Nobody would ever compare because nobody else was him. It had always been him.