Money For Something

14 - No One Knows

**Willow**

The screeching emanating from my phone had finally subsided. I gingerly lifted it back up to my ear. "Maddy?"

There was no mistaking the long exhale of breath in my ear. She might not be shrieking anymore, but Maddy was still clearly not happy.

My head had almost exploded when I finally decided to face all my missed calls and messages. When trying to prioritise my calls, I'd made the mistake of thinking that my best friend would be less shocked and disappointed by my hasty, secret marriage than my family and had called her first. Best friend love before familial disappointment, right? My mistake. Maddy was livid. Not so much that I'd done the stupid rock star wedding thing, but that I'd been dodging her calls.

Oops.

She was right. I should have called her, but I hadn't been confident in my ability to lie to her. I still wasn't. I still wasn't sure that I should even try lying to her, but it felt wrong to consider telling my best friend the truth, when I knew that Ace hadn't told his. It didn't feel fair to tell Maddy the whole sordid tale when I knew that not telling Josh had upset Ace more than he was willing to admit.

I decided to tell Maddy a version of the truth, something that wasn't totally a lie, but that also didn't divulge just how badly Ace and I had messed up. She'd find the real story hilarious, and Ace probably wouldn't mind too much if I did tell her, but it didn't sit right with me. Ace and I had been in this together from the beginning, now was not the time to back out.

"I'm really sorry I didn't call you. I was too embarrassed to tell you the truth about breaking up with Jack." I had a wild hope that she'd let me leave it at that. After all it was kind of the truth. I had broken up with Jack, she didn't need to know that I'd literally met and married Ace on the same day. The snort that echoed in my ear made me think of a horse. I had a vision of Maddy swishing her long ponytail in irritation.

"You were embarrassed to tell me about breaking up with Jack?" Every word dripped with disbelief. "That was what embarrassed you? Not that we had a conversation, literally the day before you flew out to Vegas, supposedly to meet Jack and move to LA with him, when in fact you were flying out to marry a rock star? Not that you didn't even tell me that you'd met Ace Whittier?"

When she put it like that my version of finding the truth inside the lie didn't quite cut it. Why did she have to be so logical? I shouldn't have been such a coward. I should have called her straight away. She'd have been in a bar then. Alcohol and the noise levels might have dulled her senses enough that she'd have bought my bullshit. Time to suck it up and find another truth inside the lie.

"You know what Maddy, you're right. I was embarrassed about all of it. I know you've never liked Jack and I was ashamed to admit how right you were about the things he got up to when we were apart. He's been enjoying the rockstar lifestyle way too much. Jack is a slimy fuckboy cheater."

At least that was entirely true. It was the main reason I'd allowed Ace to persuade me to have dinner with him. Normally my best friend was the first person I'd have called. Even though I knew she was above it, I was terrified that whatever she'd have said to me would have come with an unspoken 'I told you so'. Ace had been there, ready to offer nothing but support.

"So after breaking up with Jack, you hooked up with another slutty rockstar instead?" Maddy was rightfully sceptical.

"Ace is a good guy. He isn't like that," I protested. The truth is I didn't really know if Ace was slutty or not, but I did firmly believe he was a good guy. A bit impulsive, okay a lot impulsive, but generally a decent human being. As his spur-of-the-moment Vegas bride, I couldn't exactly judge his impulsiveness, and his willingness to look after me no matter how our charade worked out had convinced me of his good guy credentials.