29. Lizzie
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
LIZZIE
I’ve never seen Claudia look better, and I wish I had the guts to wear a black wedding dress. Heck, I wish I had the guts to take Matt’s hand in mine and ask him if he’ll dance with me. I did ask him to be my date for the wedding, and he agreed. He even came to the Big House and picked me up.
I staged it so that I would be the only one home, which wasn’t that hard because Ry and Hillary don’t live there anymore, and Emma has been flitting around with the flowers since this morning.
Claudia, of course, has been here for hours, and Tahlia came to help her get ready since neither of her parents came for the wedding.
I took a half day off work and went home to do my hair and makeup and shimmy into this beautiful red dress that Claudia bought for each of us. Matt stopped by on his way home from work. I know because his white shirt and tie are the same ones I saw this morning when I double-checked with him to make sure he was still good to come with me tonight.
I don’t know how much longer I can sit at this table with this Etch-a-Sketch smile on my face, like everything is okay. The problem is, dessert has barely been served, and then there’s going to be a whole cake cutting and then dancing, and then who-knows-what-else Claudia has planned.
Oh, wait, I do, because she’s gone over every detail with those of us still living in the Big House at least a dozen times.
I try not to have bitter feelings, and I really don’t. I’m super thrilled for Claudia and Beckett because, while they didn’t get along for the first few years of their relationship, they really are made for each other.
Maybe I get along too well with Matt. No matter what, if this red dress—with all of its lace, its form-fitting curves, and the bit of cleavage peeking out—doesn’t alert him to the fact that I’m a single woman, nothing will.
“Are you done?” I ask him and stand up as if I’m about to bus the table. I reach for my plate, pure foolishness moving through me.
He looks up at me, surprise etched on his features. “I mean?—”
I put my plate back down, and it still holds half of my slice of strawberry cheesecake. “I need some air,” I say, turning away from the table of my friends, where Emma’s eyes have locked nervously on me.
“I’ll come,” she chirps and gets to her feet too.
I simply walk away from the table, adding an extra sway to my hips as if Matt will be watching me. Of course, he won’t be. He barely seems to know I’m alive. Familiar frustration froths through me, and I might have to do something drastic, like spell out for him that I want him to ask me out on a date.
Maybe I just need to ask him if he’s straight or not. Or I could ask if he’s been hurt in the past and simply doesn’t want to date right now. Something would be better than not knowing and torturing myself with the unknown day and night.
I expect Emma to catch me quickly, but she doesn’t. Another warm body comes up beside mine, and it’s decidedly not female because of the clean, crisp, pine-scented cologne.
Matt.
“Hey,” Matt says almost breathlessly, like we’ve just run into each other at the grocery store and he’s in a hurry to checkout and get home.
“Hey,” I say back, because what else am I supposed to say?
“There’s going to be dancing later,” he says. “At least according to Liam.”
“Yep,” I say. “There is dancing later. ”
I push out of the Grand Hall, where Beckett and Claudia are having their wedding luncheon. Thankfully, Claudia only wanted to get married in the park, and that ceremony only took about twenty minutes, so we didn’t have to sweat to death or have makeup running down our faces. In the last hour, we’ve eaten, toasted, and celebrated the amazingness of their love.
“I kind of have two left feet,” Matt says. “But would you dance with me anyway?”
I look over to him. “You want to dance with me?”
“Well, we came to the wedding together,” he says.
I stop and fold my arms, cocking out my hip in what my brother calls my Danger Pose. “Well, I don’t want to do it, if the only reason you’re asking is because we came to the wedding together,” I bite out.
Matt pauses too, staring at me like I’ve morphed into a giant, human-sized ogre. When he doesn’t say anything, I sigh and turn away from him, pushing myself to go faster in my heels. But there’s no way I can outstep a man like Matt. He was probably born in shoes like that, and he has the body of a runner. Now, whether he runs or not, I don’t know, as we’ve never gone out on a date so I could ask him personal questions.
Even my thoughts are sharp and demanding, and I remind myself of the mess Emma has found herself in for letting her tongue become too pointed.
Matt falls in step with me again, and I don’t know where I’m going. I just know I needed to get away from the table with Hillary and Liam, Ryanne and Elliott, then me, Emma, Tahlia, and Matt.
“Listen,” I say as I approach the front door of the hall, realizing I’m going to have to turn around and go back the way I came, because I certainly don’t want to go outside. “Do you not date?”
“Do I not date?” he asks, clear confusion in his voice.
“Yeah,” I say. “I’ve been throwing myself at you ever since I got the promotion, and you barely act like you know my name.”
“I know your name,” he says, plenty of defense in his voice. “I didn’t hesitate to come to this wedding with you, did I?”
“No,” I say. “But only after I fell all over myself to make sure you knew it was just a friend thing.”
I reach the door and put my hand on the bar like I’ll push it open and go outside. I don’t dare look at Matt, even though he comes to stand right beside me, and I can sort of see our reflections in the glass. He’s looking at me, and I’m pretending not to look at him.
“Do you know anyone who dates at ChemTech?” he asks.
That gets me to look at him. I search his face for the answer—and I find it. “No.”
“That’s because ChemTech has one of the most rigorous employee dating policies in the world,” he says .
“In the world?”
“It’s very rigorous,” he says. “In fact, because I came to this wedding with you, I had to get a packet from HR.”
“A packet?”
He nods. “I didn’t fill it out,” he says, turning his attention back out the window. “I’ll probably get a reprimand or something, or I’ll just have to lie and tell them I didn’t come.”
“Just to come to a wedding with a friend?” I ask.
“Yep,” he says. “And dating for real, Lizzie?” He shakes his head. “It’s a whole three-ring circus.”
He reaches out and takes my hand off the bar, threading his fingers through mine. “You’re not gonna actually go outside, are you?”
“No,” I murmur as fireworks and pops zing through my body from where his skin touches mine.
He works in an office, and his hands feel like they’re made from vanilla-honeyed cream cheese—soft, silky, and smooth. I look down at my hand just to make sure that it’s really being held by his, and my eyes confirm it.
“If there’s anyone I would go through the red tape of paperwork for,” he says quietly. “It would be you, Elizabeth.”
“Lizzie,” someone calls, and I turn away from the door. Matt drops my hand like it’s been covered in fire ants, and he steps away from me at the same time. Emma looks at him, then at me, gesturing for me to come with her. “They’re doing the cake, and you won’t want to miss it.”
She’s right. I don’t want to miss that, so I hurry to follow her, Matt at my side. I don’t know what to say to him on the way back, so I simply stay quiet.
Inside the Grand Hall, Claudia has changed from her black wedding dress into a little black party dress that is somehow ten times as fantastic as her gown. She and Beckett are already standing next to the five-tier wedding cake at the back of the room, right where I’ve entered with Emma and Matt.
It feels like every eye zeroes in on me, like they all know Matt touched me. Heat fills my face as I try to duck out of the way, but my foot catches on something.
This can’t be happening , I think as I fall to one knee, my heel dragging the microphone cord with it. Thankfully, Beckett and Claudia haven’t picked up the mic yet, but the stand still teeters, sways, and falls. I watch it even as Matt comes to my side.
“Are you okay?” he asks.
The microphone hits the ground with an ear-splitting electrical screech that causes the whole crowd to cry out and groan as the awful reverberations slice through the air.
I’ve only gone to one knee, and I put my hand in Matt’s as I stand. “I’m fine,” I huff. I kick off my shoe, which is still tangled in the microphone cord, as Beckett steps over and picks up the mic .
“Whoopsie,” he says into it, which is such a Beckett thing to say. He looks over at me, and that only draws more attention to where Matt and I stand close together.
“Now that everyone’s here,” Beckett says, which only shoots another round of humiliation through my bloodstream. “We’ll cut the cake, and anyone who wants second dessert can come get some.” He grins out at everyone who’s come to their wedding dinner. “It’s double chocolate, which is Claudia’s favorite.”
She’s already holding the slicing spatula, and Beckett puts his hand over the top of hers. Together, they cut down through the bottom tier of cake to raucous applause. I put my hands together for them too, a smile on my face despite everything that’s gone on in the past ten minutes.
“Do you want some cake?” Matt asks.
I nod, just because I need a breath that isn’t filled with the essence of Matt. He nods and smiles, then dashes away from me in the same golden retriever style he’s always had.
Emma takes his spot and asks, “What is going on with you two?”
“Nothing,” I say, watching him until he moves into the crowd, and I can’t see him anymore.
“I saw you holding his hand,” Emma says.
“Yes, well, apparently ChemTech has a massive amount of paperwork we have to do if we date other employees. ”
“So he likes you,” Emma says.
“I don’t know,” I say, though I do. The skin on my palm and between all of my fingers sizzles, telling me a different story, but I ignore it.
What if I’m not worth a mountain of paperwork? What if Matt takes me out a couple of times, realizes that, and everything at work gets awkward between us? Maybe dating a coworker would be a fiasco.
I link my arm through Emma’s and say, “Well, you made it down the aisle with Aaron. How was it?”
“Just fine,” she says. “He’s already left.”
If they’d still been dating, I feel certain Aaron would’ve been at the table with us. But since he wasn’t, and a group of eight made the table full, he’d been seated somewhere else for dinner. I don’t even know if he stayed for that, and I don’t want to hurt Emma further by asking, so I simply say, “I’m sorry, sweetie.”
She swipes at her eyes and says, “It’s fine. I should have talked to him before today.”
I don’t have any other advice for her, and I can’t make her send Aaron a text about anything. I can’t make her go next door to the hardware store and tell him she loves him. I can’t make her apologize, and I can’t make him change either.
If there’s anything I’ve learned in the past five years—from my job experience, dealing with my parents, and my disasters with men—it’s that I can’t change other people. I can only work on myself .
And as I catch sight of Matt again, joining the line to get double chocolate cake for both of us, I realize I’m at an even greater loss as to what to do about him now than I was before.
Because I was wrong: Knowing something is definitely not better than knowing nothing.