"Right, so when do you leave?" asked AJ, scrambling for something to write on. He spotted Sarah out of the corner of his eye, trying to get his attention, but he could ask her about it later. Right now he needed a pen and paper more and gestured at her to get one for him. "Okay," he said once he had it in his hands. "So where's this thing gonna be, then?"
He jotted the address down without looking up at her again, then doodled on the margin of the page while Kevin kept talking. "No, I'm already meeting someone that night. Can we move it? Right, on the Saturday, we already have plans."
Kevin put him on hold and Sarah tried to say something again but AJ waved her off. No telling how quickly Kevin was gonna come back. And it was only a couple minutes before Kevin returned with the news that yeah, they could move the session to Sunday. AJ jotted down the time on a piece of paper he was sure to lose if Sarah didn't tack it up somewhere and said his good-byes.
"No, wait," Sarah blurted out, right as AJ heard Kevin hang up. He held the phone halfway between his ear and the table. "Did you remember to ask him where they got their invitations?"
AJ rolled his eyes where Sarah couldn't see. "No," he admitted finally. "You should've reminded me while I had him on the phone."
"What do you think I was trying to do?" she asked, throwing her arms in the air in defeat. Then, as AJ watched, she curled a hand behind her head and rolled her neck and visibly calmed herself down.
AJ set down the phone and busied himself tracing the letters of the note he'd written to himself so he wouldn't have to respond to her.
"So what were you and Kevin talking about, then?" she asked finally, slumping down into a chair on the opposite side of the table. "You need to do something?"
"It was just work stuff," he said, tracing carefully around an N, not looking up. "You wouldn't be interested."
"Since when am I not interested in your work?" she countered, resting her head on her hand and watching him through big, brown, heavily-mascaraed eyes that AJ only allowed himself a glance at.
"You wouldn't be interested in this," he insisted. "It's just meeting stuff. Group stuff. It's hard to explain."
"AJ McLean you do not need to talk down to me," she snapped, slapping her palm down on the table. "You think I haven't known you long enough to know all about group stuff. What's with you, anyway?"
"What do you mean? Nothing. Nothing. It's just boring stuff, Sarah, you don't need to get all upset about it. Contract details and all that stuff. Do you really want me to get into it?" She fell silent. "I didn't think so."
"You could've just said," she murmured. "You used to just say that stuff."
"Sarah," he said, finally looking up at her and sighing. "I'm just tired, okay? It's been a long week."
She nodded her head though she didn't look like she agreed, entirely. "Well," she said finally, "it's a good thing we're going away this weekend then."
"Going away?" he echoed her, frowning as he tried to remember their plans. He was so sure they hadn't made any. "Where are we going?"
"Well, you just told Kevin ... " she said vaguely, waving at the phone. "About us doing something on Saturday. Don't say you didn't, AJ, I heard you."
She'd heard him, all right, she just hadn't understood. "I am doing something Saturday," he said slowly, "but I didn't mean ... I mean. It's with someone else, is all. You didn't say anything about wanting to go out this weekend, baby, so I made other plans ... "
"You made other plans," she said dully, nodding her head again. She wasn't even looking at him anymore, which wasn't a good sign. "Did you know that ever since you asked me to marry you, all this week, we haven't done anything together? We haven't gone out; we've barely even stayed in."
"I've just been busy," he said weakly. "Seeing friends, helping Jerry out ... "
"I talked to Jerry this morning," she interrupted him. "He congratulated us. He also said you'd only been there once this week ... "
"There are only seven days in a week, Sarah," he said defensively, "and we haven't even gotten through all of them yet. We just haven't had many chances to go out yet."
"I thought maybe you'd take me out somewhere, to celebrate," she admitted, sounding more sad than angry, really. Disappointed.
"And I will," he said quickly. "Just ... next week."
"Because you already have plans this weekend."
"Right," he said, feeling like nothing he said right then would be the right thing today. Feeling like he was walking through a minefield. "And it would be rude to break them now. But we have our whole lives ... "
"Look," she interrupted him again, twisting the ring on her finger. "Something about this whole thing hasn't felt right, all along. And I don't understand why so I'm just gonna ... I have to ask, AJ. Is there someone else?"
"Is there someone else?" he repeated slowly, buying time while he not only figured out the answer to that question, but whether to tell it to her or not. "Would I do that?"
From the expression on her face, he'd already told her everything she needed to know. "There is," she whispered, her eyes going wide. "Oh my god, there is ... "
"Sarah, you don't understand," he said quickly. "It's not what you're thinking ... "
"Who is she?" she asked, like she hadn't heard him say anything. "Tell me who she is."
"You don't understand ... " he started, but the truth was that Sarah did understand. She understood better than AJ did, he was starting to see. He sighed and stared at the table and gave in. "Not she," he said finally. "He."
"He," she repeated dully, then let out an almost identical sigh. "Oh, AJ."
"Sarah, you have to believe me, I didn't mean to. It's just that we have so much in common, we always did, I just didn't see. And it just ... happened."
She was silent for so long that he finally looked up just to see how she was reacting. She had her own eyes closed, her lips pressed together as she came up with and discarded reaction after reaction. AJ got that same look on his face sometimes, for that very reason.
"It's Nick, isn't it," she said finally. "Oh, AJ. Does he even know?"
"Nick? Wait, no," he said, frowning again. "No, not Nick. Justin."
"Justin?" she said, her eyes flying open again and suddenly staring directly into his. "Justin?"
"Justin," he confirmed, both to her and to himself, for the first time. "And no, he doesn't know."
She was back to nodding again, absently, her lips pressed together in a tight line. Twisting the ring and pulling it half off her finger before pressing it down again. "Well," she said finally. "Don't you think you ought to go tell him?"
"What, now?" he blurted out, surprised. "I can't, he's out with Joey and the kid again. Sarah ... I don't get it."
"Then let me spell it out for you," she said, pulling the ring off and closing it in her fist. "You already made a mess of this relationship, AJ, so you might want to salvage that one. Or you aren't going to have anything left."
"Sarah," he breathed. "Sarah ... I never meant for this to happen. You have to believe me."
She let out a short, sharp laugh. "I don't have to believe anything you say," she snapped, then sighed. "Except I do. I know damn well you never meant to go fall for a guy, a guy like Justin especially."
He looked at her closed fist, then her eyes, awkward and fidgeting. "Would it help to say I'm sorry?"
"Not yet. But it will," she said, looking away from him. "I really, really don't want to see you for a while, AJ. I need to make some calls. Let people know the engagement is off. Cancel a few appointments."
"Sarah ... "
"I'm really not ready to hear it," she interrupted him. "You might want to make a few calls of your own. Starting with your publicist." He just nodded this time, not daring to speak. "Then you're probably gonna want to go find Justin. Don't fuck it up, AJ." And she met his eyes again, her own expression softening a little even as she shook her head at him. "I mean it. I'd rather you be happy with him than miserable with me. Even though I'm about five seconds from tearing out your throat with my fingernails right now."
He nodded again and stood up from the table, almost tripping over the chair. He needed a cigarette. And a drink. But he'd settle for the cigarette.
"And I'm keeping the ring," she said finally, tightening her fist around it.
"Yeah, keep the ring," he said quietly, tapping his fingers on the table. Was now the right time to leave? Were they done? He was poised to leave the room but didn't quite move yet. " I love you."
"I love you, too," she whispered, closing her eyes. "Now go."