Chapter 35 - Beth
Beth
I arrive at the venue looking like I got into a fight with the wind and lost.
One side is plastered flat against my skull. The other side has achieved a volume that suggests I stuck my finger in a socket. There's a smudge of something on my blouse that could very well be engine grease.
I hope it's just chocolate, though.
I push through the doors of the Arbor House event hall and immediately spot Harper across the room, standing near a trellis archway with a clipboard pressed against her chest and her mother hovering at her elbow.
She's wearing the specific expression of someone who is holding it together by a thread.
Maren and Luna are already there, huddled near the floral display, and they both look toward me when the door bangs shut behind me.
"Beth!" Harper drops the clipboard and crosses the room, grabbing my arms. "Oh my God, you're here. You're actually here."
"Told you—I would be." I'm slightly out of breath. "I'm sorry I'm late, I—"
"It's fine Beth, you're here, that's all that matters." She pulls back and looks at me, and something in her face shifts from relief to confusion. "Wait. How did you get here?"
"Hitched a ride."
"You—" Harper blinks. "With who?"
"A very nice woman named Dolores," I pull in one last, deep breath, letting it out slowly as my heart rate finally settles back to normal. "She drives a livestock trailer and has strong opinions about the current season of The Bachelor."
Harper stares at me. "You rode in a livestock trailer."
"The cab of a livestock trailer." I pause. "Important distinction."
Ben appears at Harper's shoulder, looking relieved and slightly harried in his rehearsal-dinner button-down. "Beth, thank God. I can't believe they found you and—" He glances past me toward the doors. "Wait, where are the guys?"
I frown. "What do you mean?"
"Knox, Mason, Arthur." Ben looks at me like I've asked him what color the sky is. "They picked you up, right?"
Harper turns to Ben with a look like she's delivering a eulogy. "She got here in a livestock trailer, Ben."
"Fuck." Ben drags a hand down his face. "They left over an hour ago to come get you."
The floor tilts slightly.
"They what?"
"Mason called me," Ben says. "Or—I called Mason. After Harper got your text. And he just... mobilized. All three of them. They've been driving toward your location pin since—"
"Since before I got picked up," I finish, something enormous and slightly terrifying expanding behind my ribs.
They're on the highway right now. Crammed into Mason's truck, burning down the interstate toward a blue dot on a map where I'm not even standing anymore.
"Oh no," I say softly.
Harper's eyes go wide. "Oh no."
Ben already has his phone out. "I'm texting them right now. Turn around, she's here, she's fine." He types fast, then looks up. "Okay. Sent. But they're at least an hour out even if they flip a U-turn immediately and—Fuck, let me call them."
Harper presses the clipboard to her forehead. "The rehearsal starts in twenty minutes and we only have the venue for another hour..."
"Shit," I say.
"Okay, alright, everything's fine," Harper says, dropping the clipboard to her side. She takes one breath. Two. Then the General Harper switch flips. "Okay, we need stand-ins."
***
"Three stand-ins," Harper announces after ten minutes, checking something off on her clipboard. "Dev, Jonah, and Tyler. That should be enough for a walk-through."
"Look at you," I say. "Assembled a party in ten minutes flat."
"I could coordinate a royal wedding in ten minutes flat if the catering was already handled," she says with pride.
I believe her.
I find a quiet corner near the coat rack and try to finger-comb my hair into something approaching a shape. My reflection in the window is... a lot. But I'm here. I made it.
My chest is still doing a thing, though. Because somewhere between here and my dead rental car on the shoulder of the highway, three alphas piled into a truck without a second thought. Mason heard my phone was dead and just went. Knox and Arthur didn't ask questions either.
I press my hand flat against my sternum, take a breath, smooth my blouse, and scrape my hair behind my ears and accept that this is what we're working with.
Then the front doors open and a small crowd pushes in.
Dev walks in first—tall, easy smile, already rolling up his sleeves, reporting for duty.
Behind him is a lanky guy with kind eyes who must be Jonah.
Next to Jonah is a guy I don't recognize either, compact build, quiet energy, who gives a small wave to Ben, Tyler, I assume.
And behind them all, with his hands in his pockets and a smile that makes my skin prickle... is Grant.
He looks exactly the way he always looks. Tailored. Pressed. Every hair in place. He's got a sweater draped over his shoulders like he's posing for a catalog and an expression of polite helpfulness that I'm sure, from years of experience, is a mask for something much less generous.
Dev jerks a thumb over his shoulder. "Grant was at the bar with us. Said he'd tag along in case you needed an extra set of hands."
I watch Grant scan the room, his mouth arranged in a half-smile.
Harper's gaze flicks to me. Fast. Checking.
I realize, in this fraction of a second, that I have a choice. Old Beth would send Harper a look that says get him out of here. But my alphas are away on a highway, and, aside from a slight annoyance, I don't feel much.
In fact, it's impressive how little I feel.
"Let's just start," I say to Harper.
Harper watches me for one more second, then nods. "Okay. Places, everyone. We're walking through the full processional. Bridesmaids, you're lining up at the back. Stand-ins, you're up front with Ben. Just follow his lead."
For the next fifteen minutes, the wedding coordinator walks everyone through the order of procession, the timing, the music cues.
Dev takes his role extremely seriously. Jonah keeps accidentally walking to the wrong side of the altar.
Tyler gives a thumbs-up every time he completes a task, which is endearing.
Grant stands near the back with his arms crossed, watching everything unfold while wearing that same persistent half-smile.
He remains mostly just a shape in my peripheral vision, though. I go about my business, adjusting Maren's sash, laughing at something Luna whispers about the officiant's mustache, and helping Harper's mom find the right playlist on the Bluetooth speaker.
Being quite unbothered is the strangest thing. Like finding out you're not allergic to something that made you break out in hives for years.
"Okay." The wedding coordinator claps her hands. "Walk-through time. We're going to pair up and do the processional exactly as it'll happen tomorrow. Bridesmaids with groomsmen—or, today, our wonderful stand-ins."
She starts pairing people off. Luna with Dev. Maren with Jonah.
"Beth, you're with—"
"I'll do it," Grant steps forward.
The coordinator looks at Harper. Harper looks at me. Tyler, cheerfully oblivious to the tension, is already backing away to fiddle with the music system.
"Sure," I say, shrugging.
Grant falls into step beside me as we line up at the back of the hall for the practice walk. He's close enough that I can catch that iron-edged scent of his, which just a few weeks ago used to coil tight around my chest and drag up baggage I'd spent months trying to bury.
Now it's just unpleasant, like passing a stranger wearing too much cologne.
We start walking. Slow, measured steps down the center aisle, matching the pace the coordinator is counting out. One, two. One, two.
Grant leans in.
"So," he says, voice low enough that only I can hear. "I heard your car broke down and you still showed up. Well done, Beth."
I keep walking. One, two. One, two.
"You know, I always admired how passionate you are. The big ideas, the vision." His tone is light. Warm, even. "I just think some people are wired for the creative side and other people are wired for, you know, execution. Making things actually run. There's no shame in that."
One, two.
"I used to love handling all that stuff for us. The schedules, the logistics, making sure everything landed on time." He adjusts his cuff, casual as anything. "So where are your alphas tonight? Running a little behind?"
I stop walking.
Grant stops too, half a step ahead, and turns to look at me with his eyebrows slightly raised. Patient. Expectant. Maybe waiting for me to look flustered.
Instead, I really look at him. And what I see is a man who inserted himself into a walk-through he had no part in, positioned himself next to his ex-fiancée, and is now spending the entire walk down the aisle feeding her backhanded insults.
"I'm sure they're doing their best. It must be hard when you—"
I slap him, my palm connecting with the side of his face with a sharp, clean crack that echoes off the exposed beams of the Arbor House ceiling.
The room goes silent.
Grant's head turns with the impact. His hand comes up to his cheek. His mouth opens.
And here is the thing:
I'm not angry, I'm just done.
The way you walk out of a situation you've been staying in for way too long, wondering why you ever put up with it.
Grant stares at me, his cheek red. His perfect composure has cracked right down the middle.
"Don't talk about my pack," I say, my voice level. "And while you're at it, don't talk to me either."
He opens his mouth. Closes it.
The room is still completely silent. I can feel every pair of eyes in the venue on me: my girls, the coordinator, Ben frozen mid-text, the stand-ins standing very still.
Grant looks around the room, dropping his hand from his cheek.
"You're insane," he says. But it comes out thin. Reedy.
"Maybe." I smooth the front of my blouse. "But you got the message, didn't you?"
Grant stares at me for one more second. Then he turns on his heel and walks out of the Arbor House without looking back, the door swinging shut behind him with a muted thud.
Nobody moves.
Then Dev says, very quietly, "Holy shit."
And that breaks it. Harper lets out a laugh that's half sob, half war cry, and she crosses the room and wraps her arms around me so tight I can't breathe.
She's shaking, and I realize I'm laughing too, and behind us Maren is clapping while Luna has both hands pressed over her mouth, eyes wide and shining.
"So... should we take it from the top?" the coordinator asks, standing at the altar holding her binder and looking like she has seen the face of God.
"Yeah, give them a minute," Ben says.
Harper squeezes me tighter. "Thank you," she whispers fiercely into my hair. "I’ve wanted to slap that smug little toad for months, but I was so scared it would cause drama for Ben's dad's business."
"My pleasure," I breathe out. "And I have a feeling he and Jessica are going to 'suddenly' experience a scheduling conflict and miss the ceremony."
"Good riddance," Harper mutters against my shoulder, pulling back just enough to flash me a brilliant, teary smile.
I don't say anything else. I just stand there in the middle of the venue, held by my best friend and surrounded by the joyful chaos, feeling lighter than I have in years.