Chapter 53
Dylan’s mouth dropped. “She’s…what? Your sister?”
I nodded. “Yep.”
“Wha…why didn’t you say anything before? Does Logan know?”
“Because I didn’t know that’s who he was married to. I found out along with everyone else here,” I said. “I don’t know if he knows or not. I doubt it.”
“I don’t understand. How did you not know your sister was married to your boss?” He asked.
“I didn’t know she was married at all. Up until fairly recently she was dating my ex-boyfriend, who decided to propose to her instead of me when we all went out of town together recently.”
“I’m sorry…what??” Dylan’s eyes grew wide.
“I think that’s a story for another day,” Maria said gently.
“Right,” I hadn’t meant to trauma dump on the poor guy, but I was spiraling just a little bit. “Sorry. She didn’t tell me she had gotten married.”
Maria gasped. “I wonder if your parents knew and didn’t tell you.”
“Surely not,” I said, then thought it over. I also gasped. “I bet they did, those mother fuc…I mean…those sneaky…jerks.” I censored myself. I didn’t want to throw too much family drama at poor Dylan tonight. “I’m going to call them, excuse me.”
I walked through the ballon tunnel and out into the hallway. I scrolled through my contacts until I got to mom and pushed the call button.
“Hazel?” Mom said when she answered.
“Hey mom, quick question. Did you know Natalie is married? To my boss??”
Mom hesitated, then said, very unconvincingly: “What? Oh my god, we had no idea.”
“Okay mom, clearly Natalie did not get those acting skills from you,” I said. “How could you keep something like that from me?”
Mom sighed. “We only recently found out ourselves. She asked us to not tell you, what could we do?”
“Oh, I don’t know, maybe not favor one child over the other?”
“Hazel I…”
I pressed the end call button before she could finish her sentence. I wanted to scream and throw things. But I didn’t have anything to throw and screaming would alarm the guests, so I decided to drink about it instead.
I stomped back towards the balloon arch, and almost ran into someone who was coming through from the other side.
“Oh, I’m so sorry!” I said while my eyes adjusted to the dark.
“Hazel?” A male voice said.
My vision finally adjusted, and I could make out the man in front of me.
“Oh, Logan! I need to talk to you,” I said. “It’s urgent.”
“I’m sorry Hazel, not here or now. We talked about this,” Logan brushed past me and hurried down the hall. He typed on his phone as he walked away.
For a moment I considered following him but then my phone buzzed. I looked at the screen. It was from Logan:
“I need you to keep your distance tonight, please. We do need to talk. Let’s talk over lunch Monday, okay?”
I sighed. I didn’t want to wait, especially not a whole weekend, but clearly he wasn’t going to listen tonight. “Okay,” I sent back.
I walked back through the balloon tunnel into the party. Maria and Dylan were standing where I left them. I made my way to them.
“Well?” Maria asked, impatient. “Did they know?”
“Of course they did,” I said.
“Oh my god,” Dylan said. “Your family sounds…” He paused.
“Like the worst? They are,” I finished his sentence for him. “I need to talk to Logan, but he doesn’t want me to be around him at all tonight. I just found him in the hall and he blew me off, said we’ll talk Monday.”
Anger crossed over Dylan’s face. “Excuse me,” he said, then walked through the balloon tunnel towards the hall.
Maria looked at me, confused. “What was that about?”
Dylan stormed into the hall. He had seen Logan walk out here just moments before. He debated whether he should go look for him or wait for him to return.
Luckily he didn’t have to debate long. Logan appeared at the end of the long, dark hall. Dylan stomped over to him.
“Oh, Dylan!” Logan said, then noticed the look on his face. “What’s going on?”
“You need to stop ignoring Hazel,” Dylan snapped.
“What are you talking about?”
“She told me she tried to talk to you and you blew her off. When she tried talking to you about the situation with that Peter guy you blew her off. You treat her like shit and she…” he shook his head, unable to finish the thought. He thought of the way he’d seen Hazel look at Logan, and the way she hugged him. He couldn’t understand why she did when Logan treated her like this.
“I can’t talk to her tonight, Natalie…” Logan started to protest.
“Oh, fuck Natalie. What has she ever actually done for you? I’ll wait.”
Logan struggled to think of something, but when he couldn’t, he said, “I’m not with her for what she can do for me. I want to make her happy, and keeping my distance from Hazel is one way to do that. Whatever Hazel has to say to me can wait.”
Dylan scoffed. “You’re a goddamn idiot.”
He stormed off towards the bathrooms, hitting Logan’s shoulder hard with his own as he passed.
Logan clenched his fists and watched Dylan walk away. He pictured himself going after Dylan and punching him in the face, but he didn’t want to ruin his own party. He took several deep breaths instead, trying to calm down.
I waited near the entrance of the balloon tunnel with Maria, watching for either Dylan or Logan to return. But I was too anxious to wait for long. I looked around and spotted Natalie standing with one of the board members. She looked like she wanted to be anywhere else. He turned for a moment, and I watched Natalie take that opportunity to scurry away to the drink table.
“I’m going to talk to Natalie,” I told Maria.
“What are you going to say?”
That was a good question. I didn’t know. I just knew my anxiety was through the roof and I needed to be doing something, anything to fix this. “I…will figure it out on the way over.”
“Do you want me to go with you?” Maria offered.
“No, but if I start blinking SOS in morse code at you, come save me,” I said and started walking away.
“You got it,” Maria called after me.
I walked up to Natalie, who had just set down an empty champagne glass and picked up a full one.
“Nat, can we talk?” I said.
She snorted at me. “Don’t you have a desk to pack up?”
I took a deep breath, struggling to keep my cool. “I just want to work out some sort of compromise with you. Some way I can still work here and we both be happy.”
“Hmm,” she said, taking a sip of her drink. “I don’t think that’s possible, because if you’re anywhere near my man I won’t be happy.”
My heart skipped a beat. “Nat, please, think about someone other than yourself for once in your gd life.” My anxiety had quickly turned to anger and I wasn’t able to keep myself composed anymore.
Natalie didn’t say a word. She gave me a fake smile, then before I could register what was happening, she lifted her glass of champagne and dumped it out on top of my head.
