Backstage Romance: An Austen-Inspired Romantic Comedy Box Set by Gigi Blume (ebook reader with highlighter txt) 📕

it was my brother being weird, talking about himself in third person. Or maybe Stella or somebody with a droll sense of humor hijacked his phone.

Ha ha. Got your brother’s phone.

Like he was a toddler and they were pretending to catch his nose but it was their thumb all along. I dunno. It was two in the morning and I had just been kissed like there was no tomorrow. I was kinda loopy.

But then I realized, through the copious amounts of cracks (seriously, how did he deal with that phone?) that the texts were from some guy named T Dawg. I scrolled, just to be sure, and that’s when I found the long string of texts from this T Dawg guy about my brother. More specifically, my brother’s wedding to Beth and the vendor pass he acquired for Wyatt for his exposé story.

My heart dropped to my navel with a definitive thump. The top-secret news story Wyatt was looking forward to. It was about my brother. And not in a good way. What sort of gossip did he think he would uncover? Since Will met Beth, he became even more boring than he was before. All sappy lovey dovey let’s stay in and cuddle tonight kind of boring. Nobody was cheating. Beth wasn’t prego. Not a gold digger in sight. There was literally no dirt a slimy gossip writer could dig up on my brother and his bride. Slimy being the operative word here. I felt slimy. Or rather...slimed on. Wyatt was just another guy using me to get to my brother. And I fell fast and hard. Stupid me.

I felt numb all over. I didn’t even notice I was crying until my eyes puffed up so much I couldn’t see straight. Wyatt was just a blurry form to me as he came into the living room. All I could make out through my foggy vision was this blob of a man bouncing in all jolly and clueless then freezing at the doorway.

Jig’s up, blockhead. I can see right through that adorably klutzy facade.

“Georgia...are you okay?” asked the traitor. “What happened?”

“What happened?” I spat. “I fell for your...your...deception. That’s what happened.” I wagged the phone around. “Who’s T Dawg?”

Understanding dawned on his face—at least what I could see of his face through the rainstorm in my eyes. I wiped them with the heel of my thumb so I could see better. See the disappointment in Wyatt’s silly and annoyingly handsome face.

He took a step toward me. “I can explain—”

“Don’t come any closer.”

He paused, looked at the tray, twisted left and right, then resolved to set the tray on the floor for lack of a nearby table. I just stood there waiting to see what kind of two-faced, phony, rascally explanation he would come up with. He raked his hands through is stupidly beautiful hair.

“I was going to tell you.”

“Oh? When, pray tell? Or were you too busy lying to me? Telling me you luuurve me.”

“I do love you.”

“Stop. Just stop.” I tossed him the phone. It slipped through his fingers and landed at his feet. He didn’t make a move to pick it up. “Just tell me something that isn’t a lie.”

He exhaled a heavy sigh and squeezed his temple. “Alright. T Dawg is one of my old roommates who moved to L.A. and now works at some catering place.”

“The wedding caterer?”

“Yeah. The thing is, I still owe him some rent money and when he caught wind of this wedding, he thought we could both cash in.”

“That’s an asinine idea,” I snapped.

“I see that now. But I promise you—I’m not going to go through with it.”

I huffed. “Of course not. You won’t get anywhere near my house.”

“Georgia, please...”

“You know what?” I hissed. “As angry as I am with you, and believe me I’m raging mad, I blame myself. I let you in. Exposed my heart. And that just makes me really freaking sad.”

I couldn’t speak any more. The tears were burning my throat. Wyatt just stared at me. A deer in the headlights.

“Goodbye, Wyatt.” I turned on my heel, puffed up my chest, and strode across the living room out the front door. It was one of those these boots are made for walkin’ moments. I was empowered.

I will survive, suckah!

Until the arctic blast attacked me and I noted the flaw in my dramatic exodus. I left my coat inside. Also, I had no idea how to drive that RV so I scurried back into the warm house. Wyatt was still standing there with the tray at his feet except now Reeses was digging into the cookies.

I raised my chin, trying to play it cool. “I have decided to leave first thing in the morning.”

I began toward Vicky’s room, forced to pass Wyatt on the way. He stopped me with a light touch on my arm.

“Can we discuss this in the morning?” he begged.

I shrugged him off. “We’ll see.”

I gave Reeses one hearty scratch and went to bed. Not that I slept at all. Around four thirty in the morning, sooo over the tossing and turning, I gathered my things (which consisted of my coat and the empanadas Anita packed for me) and paced the living room. Maybe I’d call an Uber? I had no plan. I only knew I had to be gone before Wyatt woke up.

“You still up?”

I turned to see Steven shuffling over, scratching his bed head and yawning as he spoke. His eyes weren’t completely open, either.

“Actually,” I admitted, my throat thick with tears, “I need to go. Do you think I could use the phone to call a taxi?”

He blinked at me, clearing the sleep from his eyes, then furrowed his brows when he saw the state I was in.

“Are you okay?” He looked around. “Where’s Wyatt?”

I shook my head, willing the tears away. “I just need to go home.”

The head shaking didn’t work. Thunderstorms flooded from my tear ducts.

“Okay, okay.” Steven sprang into crisis responder mode. Husbands with babies were good at that sort