38. One Frosty Pucking Meet Cute - Sneak Peak （Andi）

My wedding veil is on the passenger seat, my poofy ass dress is trying to suffocate me in the tiny little car, and I'm officially on the lam.

That's me. Bride on the lam. Nuptial Nomad. Hitched Houdini. Or for thriller fans, I could go with Gown Gone Girl.

I smile, aware I must look like a complete lunatic. I've cried through my makeup, my bare feet are filthy from my unplanned escape, and I'm pretty sure I got some forest debris in my hair.

It's fine, though. Totally fine. Between the twigs in my hair and the ruined wedding dress, I probably look like a forest nymph. A beautiful, crazy, confused forest nymph.

Right now, I imagine my family is calling everyone I know to track me down. The police might even be involved. Am I in a high speed police chase?

I check my rearview mirror and sigh with relief. It's just me and the open mountain road winding up toward the sleepy little town of Frosty Harbor. I've got the chilly winter air, the towering Vermont mountains, and the only slightly smelly interior of my old car to myself.

It's moments like this when a girl realizes she could have made a few practical decisions during her bridal bailout. Putting on underwear, for example. Swinging by the apartment for toiletries and a few changes of clothes? Yep. Those would've been good ideas, but today is apparently not a day for forward thinking and good ideas.

I'm driving to Frosty Harbor because it's where my brother was planning to spend the holidays. One of their star players is injured and lives in a cabin there, so all the starters were going to set up a home base in the small town to keep him company and cheer him up.

Is my overprotective big brother going to be happy that I'm about to show up and finally meet all his hockey friends for the first time? Nope. But where else am I supposed to go? Running away from your life sounds all fine and dandy until you realize you have to run to somewhere.

I know I should call my brother and let him know I'm not dead. He's probably combing the forests of New York at this very moment, searching for my cold, lifeless corpse.

But I can't bring myself to confront anyone. Not yet. Not even my brother.

I just need some more time and some more space because I'm afraid I'll do the easy thing and agree to go back–back to a life I can now see was never meant for me.

Mortification and shame hit me as I replay my grand escape in my head. I ran away from my own wedding. I can't even begin to run the math on how many people I upset, screwed over, and at the very least, inconvenienced. It's a nuclear level mistake–the kind that leaves radioactive fallout no amount of cleanup efforts can actually erase.

Usually, singing loud to silly songs and dancing always cheers me up.

I'm currently mouthing the words to "WAP" as it blares over my radio while mascara-laden tears roll down my face.

"Macaroni in a pot," I whimper, stirring at the air with my free hand as I let out a confused sob.

I do a quick internal double check and make sure I'm not crying because I think I made a mistake. Nope. I'm not crying because I'm sorry I won't be marrying Landon Collins, heir to his father's pharmaceutical fortune, rider of horses, and owner of a fleet of expensive collector cars. Landon wasn't a bad guy, and there were good times between us. But reality snuck up on me right before the ceremony and smacked me across the face.

I saw all the little signs I'd been trying to drown with optimism and positivity for months. The missed dates, the cold touches, the way there wasn't a spark anymore. I've always been a romantic, and I knew I would never forgive myself if I settled on anything less than true, toe-curling love. I just can't believe I was trying to fool myself into thinking I was feeling it all this time.

So, yeah, I'm crying, blubbering, and then rapping a little when the song gets to the good parts.

The road narrows and the shoulder starts to look a little icy, but my trusty little beat-up car chugs along as to-go cups roll around the foot space of my passenger seat.

I sniffle and use my wedding veil to give my nose a very lady-like dab. I glance in the rearview and sigh. Look at me. Thirty-two years old–a practical dinosaur–a known veil vanisher, dirt poor, and thinking about starting over from scratch.

But I can already feel my trademark optimism doing its thing. Dinosaurs deserve love, too, right? And what's crazier, dashing through the forest in a wedding dress to escape your own wedding, or marrying somebody you know you shouldn't marry?

I mean, nice guy or not, I can see it so clearly now. Within six months, my married reality would've been watching my husband pulling out his phone, wincing, and telling me he just checked his calendar and noticed we haven't copulated in several weeks. Then he'd ask if I wanted him to pencil me in. Would I be needing oral, or would penetration do for our appointment? He could schedule both, but he wasn't sure if that would work this week.

First of all, always oral. Second of all, no. I want my husband to break down doors with his broad shoulders, carry me to bed, ruin my favorite clothes and underwear in the process of getting them off (and of course, offer to buy me new ones in a cutesy little couple's shopping trip later) and ravage me.

No calendars. That's right. I want to be married to a man who doesn't need to remind himself on a calendar to sleep with me.

I just want some excitement. Spontaneity. True freaking love.

But what now? What the hell am I going to do when I get to Frosty Harbor? I have nothing but my badly torn wedding dress, a tube of chapstick, one slightly used floss pick, two quarters and a dime, and a hairpin. I don't even have shoes. For all I know, now that I'm a missing person, Jake isn't even going to leave New York and come to Frosty Harbor like he planned. I'll become the weird homeless lady in a wedding dress. Kids will make up scary stories about me.

Nope. No mopies. It's fresh start time. The mopies can come in a few weeks when I face all the problems I caused by running away and figure out how to make it up to everyone.

For now, I'll hide out in Frosty Harbor for a while until tensions back home cool off. Jake will show up eventually. Probably. I'll hang out with my brother and the teammates he's always refusing to let me meet. It will be just perfect. I hope.

My car sputters, gives a concerning shake, and then starts smoking. I try to steer off the side of the road and the steering wheel feels like it weighs a million pounds.

I'm no mechanic, but my gut tells me that's not a good sign.

I pull hard on the wheel and something beneath the car makes a loud noise. Now the wheel weighs nothing, which is great, but it's spinning like a kid's toy and apparently useless.

"Not good!" I shout, still shaking the wheel side to side because I have no idea what else to do with my hands. I feel like a toddler pretending to drive her mom's car.

I slam on the brakes because I see a bend in the road coming up and the car is drifting toward the steep shoulder. The brakes only manage to make the car spin, throwing me back against the seat.

The last thing I see is the road, but my car is going backwards and then there's a split second of weightlessness followed by a deafening crash.

I blink a few times and feel like I just woke up from a great nap–only the reason I woke up from my great nap is somebody hit me in the forehead with a bowling ball. I put a hand up to my forehead and find a drop of blood there. Blood?

Did I just crash my car? Awareness cuts through the groggy fog and I look around, recognizing what happened bit by bit.

I look at the dashboard, still confused. The airbags came out and already deflated. The windshield is cracked. The whole car smells kind of like gunpowder for some reason.

For a few long seconds, I just sit there in the driver seat of my suddenly unfamiliar car. I conduct a comprehensive "limb thereness" test. Four limbs. That's the right number, isn't it?

Once I've confirmed two arms and two legs is all I had before the crash, I decide I'm the luckiest woman alive for surviving that crash practically unscathed.

I notice the check engine light politely flashing on the dash.

"Oh, that's helpful," I say. My voice sounds distant and muffled after the bang of the crash and the airbags.

I scoop up my veil from the passenger seat, and then I have to throw my shoulder into the door a few times before it creaks open.

"This is great," I say, breathless from the effort. "I'm talking to myself now, and not just in my head. We've gone full crazy because we're talking out loud. And look. I just crashed my car. Is this like some kinda on-the-nose visual representation of the state of my life right now, universe?" As usual, the universe declines to answer my questions.

I walk in front of the car and consider checking under the hood, then I realize the state of the engine probably doesn't matter since my car is wedged into a ditch. Then again, even if the car wasn't stuck in a ditch, the only thing I know about engines is metal thing makes car go vroom vroom. Unless words of encouragement can fix mechanical problems, I have no hope of getting this thing running again.

I cross my arms, suddenly noticing the cold bite in the air. At least it's not snowing, but my bare feet are absolutely not going to cut it out here. Somewhere in the distance, a twig breaks and echoes dramatically. A little creature chitters. Wait. How do I know it's little? Do bears chitter?

Of course not. That's ridiculous. Bears don't chitter.

But aliens might.

I slowly sink into a defensive stance, lifting my veil in both hands like I'm about to go Jack Reacher on whatever comes at me from the woods.

For the first time since my tied knot trot, the reality of my situation sinks in. Yes, I've been thinking about nothing but what I just did for the last few hours. But there's a difference between thinking about something and feeling something.

Right now in this moment, I feel it like a punch in the gut.

I slowly lower the veil and decide the cold air and my lack of proper clothing or heat is the only real threat I'm facing. Well, unless being subject to my obviously poor decision making for the rest of my life qualifies as a threat. It probably should.

I let out a long sigh. What the hell am I doing?

The answer seems to come straight out of the ether. You're acting like an idiot. Call your brother. Ask for help.

I glare at nobody in particular. That was supposed to be a hypothetical question, but I pull my phone out anyway and make a call to my brother in tears. I explain where I am, what happened to my car, and brace for impact. I might even ask for confirmation that aliens aren't chittering at me as we speak.

His deep voice comes very slowly and very controlled. "Andi. Tell me you're not hurt. That's all I care about right now."

"I'm… I bled my own blood a little." I tap my forehead and find the cut has already started to dry over. "It's not bad, though."

"Fuck. I'm going to call an ambulance."

"No!" I shout. "No. Please, I can't afford a freaking ambulance. I'm so broke I was actually relieved to crash – now I don't have to figure out how I was going to pay to fill up the gas tank."

"I'll pay for it. For fuck's sake, Andi. You crashed your car. We're all worried as shit here. I've been looking through the forest for six hours trying to find you. I thought maybe you had a seizure, wandered off, and fell down to freeze or something."

"Sorry," I say, fidgeting with the torn edge of my wedding dress. "No. I just… realized Landon was never the right guy. I didn't want to believe the magic was fading, and I kept thinking I could fix it later. But this morning I realized I was acting crazy. I should know it in my bones when a guy is right. I shouldn't have to talk myself into it or make excuses. And… well, then I became the altar aviator."

There's a long pause. "Where are you right now?"

"Like half an hour outside Frosty Harbor on some random ass forest road and suddenly thinking maybe going commando in my wedding dress wasn't the most climate appropriate decision."

"You wh–" He pauses again. "I'm going to call the guys and have them come pick you up. They should just be finishing up practice now."

"You mean I finally get to meet your teammates? All it took was a betrothal bypass, a car crash, and a lack of proper winter gear?"

"Could you please stop coming up with weird phrases to describe what you just did, Andi? This is serious. There are like a hundred people here right now trying to figure out where the hell you are. When I tell them–"

"You can't tell them. They'll all just try to make me come back, and I can't do that. I need this. I need to hide out for a while and get my head on straight. Please, Jake. You can call your teammates, but don't tell anyone else I talked to you."

He sighs. "They're going to find out eventually."

"Then I'll deal with it eventually. But not right now. Please."

"Dammit, Andi."

I bounce on my feet a little, already feeling the bitter cold from the dirt trying to sink straight into me. Maybe I need to just wait in the car and hope it isn't about to explode or something.

"How is Landon handling it?" I ask, wincing even as I say the words. It feels like that time I asked my doctor if the three headaches I had last month meant I had a brain tumor. I really didn't want to know the answer, but I hoped I was just being paranoid, and I knew if I didn't ask I wouldn't be able to sleep at night.

Turns out, three headaches in a month is perfectly normal. Who knew?

"Fine, weirdly enough. Was there something going on I didn't know about? He looks like he's worried for you, but not upset about the wedding being called off. His parents seem pretty pissed, though."

"Good," I sigh. "Not about his parents, but I'm glad Landon took it well."

I hear a door slam.

"What are you doing?" I ask.

"I just got to mom and dad's place. I'm not going to be able to get there till tomorrow morning, but I already texted Jesse while we've been talking. They're leaving the rink now and coming your way."

"Okay. So if a car full of beefy hockey guys pulls up, I just get in, right?"

Jake sighs again. "Don't call them beefy. Actually, don't even talk to them. Don't make eye contact. They're all convinced they're God's gift to women, and it doesn't take much encouragement to get them excited."

"I just pulled the old matrimonial mirage, Jake. Do you really think I'm already planning on getting in another relationship?"

"How many stupid phrases have you come up with for being a runaway bride, Andi?"

I grin, even though I'm shivering and my teeth are clattering hard now. "It was a long drive, but I'm almost out of phrases, so we need to wrap this conversation up. But, um, Jake?"

"Yeah?"

"Thanks for not yelling at me or being mad or anything like that. I'm sorry, I–" I can feel the tears coming.

Jake must sense it, too. "You're my little sister, so shut up. Of course I have your back. I always will. Now get in your car if it's not on fire. Try to stay warm. And do not tell any of the guys you ‘went commando'."

I eyeball the car, give it a cautious little kick, then nod. "Car's not on fire," I confirm. "Going to get in and try to warm up now. I'll just cuddle up with my itchy wedding gown and veil."

"I'm glad you ditched that guy. He wasn't good enough for you. But did you have to crash your fucking car and get yourself stranded?"

"Sorry. Thanks for sending in the calvary to save me."

"Any time. I love you, Wedding Vanisher."

I laugh. "That one was kind of weak. But I love you too."