A Guy's Best Friend by Shawna Hansen, Chapter 1

Emma had only seen Ryan twice over the summer.  She’d stood her ground and come home to work for her parents’ B&B for the summer.  Both visits, he’d been eager to get out of North Conway.  He wasn’t the guy she’d lived with in Florida anymore and he wasn’t acting like she’d expected him to after they’d made up yet again.  She had to admit he wasn’t doing anything differently than he’d been doing since New Year’s. 

Ryan hardly called her and took forever to call her back.  He didn’t email or return her email except an occasional text message.  He’d cancelled plans to come up for the weekend so many times, she knew she close to getting the courage to make the one decision that would put a complete stop to all the makeup weekends and tell Ryan that she wasn’t going to marry him. 

Emma spent the last three months getting used to the idea that loving and marrying Ryan wasn’t her reality.  She couldn’t imagine not loving him or being married to him, but the guy she’d loved had been a fantasy.  The real Ryan was someone she’d never met until she met her best friend, Austin.

Every time she was on the verge of forcing herself to say the words “I am not going to marry you, Ryan”, he’d call or email and they’d start over again.  Breaking up over the phone or by email was impossible and she’d tried to say it and failed every time they were together.  She wanted to hold onto the fantasy she’d loved for so long.

Since the long drive from Florida to New Hampshire in June with her best friend, Katie, she’d been working nonstop at the B&B and had jumped right into writing for the local paper about restaurants, tourist events and White Mountain destinations.  She’d been having a great summer with Katie and her new boyfriend, Gabe, Austin and all their other friends. 

Breaking up with Ryan would screw up the balance in her friendship with Austin.  Being Austin’s best friend was the third biggest relationship in her twenty-two years behind being a daughter and sister, Katie’s best friend and Ryan’s fiancée.

Emma promised Ryan she’d give them a real chance and a make a decision in October about whether she’d marry him and move in with him in California after he had started classes at Stanford.  Lately he’d been pushing her to change her mind and come out with him in August.  The more he pushed, the more she wanted to stay in New Hampshire with Katie and Austin.

As stupid as she felt for being upset with Ryan when he didn’t call her, she admitted he had been under a lot of pressure this summer with his new business and when he did call and write, she could tell he was trying to keep their relationship alive. 

It wasn’t all Ryan’s fault the summer hadn’t gone the way they’d wanted when they made up in DC.  He’d flown down to Florida after the graduation ceremony and missed her and Katie.  He got a ticket to DC and met her there.  In DC, he’d given her her engagement ring back and she’d left DC on cloud nine thinking things would work out.  Then, he’d given her a brand new Jeep as a surprise gift on the 4th of July.  She knew she was asking a lot from him after he’d shown her he wanted to be with her. 

Ryan had given her big signs that he wanted to get married and she’d only given him one simple promise:  to make a decision in October.  She knew she shouldn’t throw it all away because he was busy, but deep down she’d felt rejected and ignored by him on a daily basis since Christmas.  He was good at saving the day and giving her big messages but even better at forgetting to show her the small signs that he loved her.

Emma reminded herself again that he was extremely busy.  He’d promised her on the 4th that he’d be up in a week, but he’d cancelled.  He’d promised he’d try to get up to see her for the last three weekends and cancelled.  He hadn’t called her to make a promise for the coming weekend yet.  He had to be in California before Labor Day, but Emma had her doubts he was even going to go to Stanford.