Chapter 8
CHAPTER EIGHT
ROB
Sophie may have relented at the last minute, but she made it pretty clear that she wants me to leave.
I follow her out of the room, fully intending to make my way to and then through the front door, but I’m riveted by the way she’s moving, the intention and resolve carrying her down the stairs, her shoulders primly set back. It has nothing to do with the long slope of her neck, revealed by the dress’s sweeping open back, or the way the fabric is gathered just above her perfectly rounded ass, but once I’ve noticed those things it’s hard to unnotice them.
I barely register that I’m passing Hannah before she stops me with a palm to my chest. I jolt to a stop, my eyes finding hers.
“She’s the bride and the groom,” Hannah says, looking amused. “If you’re staying, you can sit on the couch. No crashing the proceedings or offering yourself up as tribute.”
I feel my ears burning. “I was only?—”
Following her like a kid chasing an ice cream truck.
I don’t bother to finish the sentence. I just go over and join Otis on the couch. Because even if Sophie still wants me to leave, I’m not sure I can. My mind feels messy and confused, and the only not-confusing thought is that I want to see how this plays out.
Sophie doesn’t glance back at me even once as she comes to a stop in front of Dottie, who’s holding a crown made of woven flowers. But Sophie turns slightly, and I can see her profile, her hair tumbling around her face, cupping it in soft waves. The red lipstick that reminds me of a target: kiss here .
I shake my head at myself.
Otis murmurs, “I know, man. I know.”
But he doesn’t. I don’t either. All I know is I can’t look away.
He nods to the champagne Hannah brought out for me earlier, but I shake my head, my gaze still glued on Sophie.
“Oh, my dear girl,” Dottie says, pressing her palms together. “I’m so honored to be here to conduct this ceremony. Self-love, when taken to an extreme, is an ugly thing, but we must accept and love ourselves if we’re going to properly love our friends and neighbors.” She gives Sophie a warm smile. “You, my dear, are making an important pact today. Do you, Sophie Ginnis, vow to love yourself?”
Sophie hesitates, like she’s unsettled by this generic promise.
Again, my curiosity is stirred. Who is this woman?
Then she clears her throat and says, “I do.”
“And do you vow to be true to yourself from this day forward?”
Again, there’s a heavy pause as Sophie considers this standard aphorism with more intensity than it deserves. Finally, she nods. “I do. I will.”
Dottie beams at her. “And will you, Sophie, support yourself through all of life’s bumps and upsets with the dignity and respect we all owe ourselves?”
To my shock, Sophie’s eyes look like they’re shining as she nods. “I’ll try,” she stammers, then adds more firmly, “I will.”
“Oh, my dear, dear girl. You don’t know how happy I am to hear you say that. I hope you chase after life’s experiences and suck them down like nectar. All of them. And now, by the power vested in me by myself, I declare you your own life partner.” She places the circlet of flowers on Sophie’s head, and something in my chest melts.
Fuck me. It’s so… wholesome . They’re both emotional, and Sophie doesn’t look quite real, dressed in that perfect gown that’s shaped for her body, with a diadem of flowers resting on her thick, wavy hair. It’s a travesty of justice that she usually leaves her hair up. It would have been a crime against humanity if she’d married my brother.
He never would have appreciated her.
He never would have seen her vulnerability as beautiful—only as convenient.
“Well, that was weird,” Otis mutters as he lowers his smartphone and downs the rest of his champagne. “Can we go to the bar now?”
Hannah, who’s been standing beside the couch, swats him lightly with her palm. “Have some respect.”
I’d say something, but I can’t talk. My mouth is too dry. I should probably leave, I know that, and yet…
“Here,” Hannah says, handing me something. I take it without registering what it is, then look down and see a key chain—a circlet of dried flowers in resin.
“What is this?”
“Party favor,” she says with a lift of her eyebrows. “Mrs. and Mrs. Ginnis made them. The paper lanterns too. She’s shockingly crafty.”
That’s when the truth hits me like a stack of bricks. The guitar strap she gave me for Christmas…
She hadn’t bought it off some vendor. She’d made it for me herself.
Dammit. I’m pretty sure I blew it off with an insincere thank-you before shoving it into the back of my closet. I’d seen the gift as an offering from a woman who thrives on fulfilling obligations, but it was more thoughtful than I’d given her credit for. Way more so than the grocery store flowers I’d picked up for her and Patricia, who’d accepted hers with a sniff and almost certainly thrown them away before lunch.
“Wow,” I manage, eloquence itself, running my finger over the key chain before pocketing it. “That’s pretty damn impressive.”
“Right?” Hannah asks with a wink. “If she hadn’t already snapped herself up, I’d marry her.”
I get up, possibly to leave, but Sophie approaches me, that flower diadem still positioned across her forehead.
She parts her lips, and I feel?—
Well, I feel things you definitely aren’t supposed to feel about a woman who was almost your sister-in-law.
“It wasn’t that bad, was it?” she asks.
“It was beautiful,” Dottie says, walking up behind her. “I’m sure everyone here will remember it always.”
Otis mumbles something disparaging, but he doesn’t seem like he genuinely minds much.
“I thought it was going to be dumb,” I admit, surprised when Hannah’s the only one who scowls at me. “But it wasn’t. I wish my dad had done that instead of marrying his second wife. But if he had, I guess none of us would be here right now.”
Hannah bustles out of the room, heading back toward the kitchen with purpose, and Dottie smiles at me. “I certainly wish I’d done that rather than marry my ex-husband. But I’ve had two great loves since, and I never would have met them if I hadn’t suffered through that marriage. If we don’t go through hardship, we don’t have the wisdom to appreciate true happiness.”
“That sounds like a crock,” Hannah says, reappearing with a plate of cupcakes. There’s a little cake topper on one of them with two women in wedding dresses. “Let’s eat these in the dining room.”
We follow her into the dining area, connected to the living room by an open doorway.
“Grandma said we could use her china,” Otis reports as he pulls the plates out of the glass-front cabinet positioned against the wall.
They’re unsettling, porcelain plates with curlicues around the edges and giant eyes in the center.
“Gorgeous,” Dottie says. “Simply gorgeous. I’ll have to ask Penny where she got them. Set one extra, loves, so we can pretend our Briar is here.”
“As long as I get her cupcake,” Otis jokes, setting an empty plate at the end of the table. Its eye stares up vacantly.
We position ourselves around the table, Sophie sitting across from me and next to Briar’s empty spot. I watch unabashedly as she pulls the topper out of her cupcake and sucks frosting off the end of it.
They’re spice cupcakes with cream cheese frosting—another surprise, because I’d heard my stepmother say the wedding cake was vanilla upon vanilla, something I’d laughed about with Travis.
The others make small talk, but I keep quiet, lost in my head. After we finish, I nod to Otis. “Let’s clean up, man.”
His mouth opens, closes. “Jonah never cleans up.”
“Which is why Jonah isn’t getting married, or getting laid,” Hannah says archly, tilting her head. Her red hair brushes the tops of her shoulders.
“I don’t have any sexual prospects at this table,” Otis replies.
She snorts in disgust, or amusement, I couldn’t say which. “You wouldn’t if Briar were here either, you know.”
“And you won’t have any prospects anywhere if you don’t learn to clean up after yourself,” I say, figuring the kid could use some solid advice. I always cleaned up after myself. At my mom’s, because she needed me to clean up after her too, more often than not. And at my dad’s, because Patricia gave me a hard time when I didn’t.
I can feel Sophie watching me curiously, or maybe suspiciously, as we clear the table of dishes before settling around it again.
“Oh goodness,” Dottie says, her gaze flying to the clock positioned over the door. “I have to go home, my loves. Bear and I are babysitting for some of our grandchildren tonight.”
She hugs everyone, ending with me. Before she pulls away, she says, “I can feel you’ve been carrying around the stone I gave you. I’m glad, my boy. Good things are coming your way. There’ll be some bumps, but when aren’t there?”
I gape at her as she turns and leaves, and the rock feels like it’s become warm in my pocket. “She’s…”
“ Brilliant ,” Sophie says, with a warning note in her voice. It’s obvious she won’t tolerate anyone saying anything different.
“Yeah, I like her.”
Silence hangs for a beat. The natural thing would be to leave. I delivered my warning, I overstayed my welcome, possibly by a lot. My job here is done.
“I’d like to buy you a drink,” I tell Sophie before I can think twice about it.
“That’s nice, Rob,” she says. “But unnecessary. You already bought us tea the other day.”
“And tea cakes,” Hannah adds, lifting a finger. “We added those after you left and Dottie shared the news of your generosity.”
“You wanted to go out in your dress,” I point out.
“I still do, but we’re a package deal,” Sophie says, gesturing with her champagne flute at her cousin and her friend.
“You, yourself, and you, or you, Hannah, and Otis?”
“Both,” she says, but she’s smiling now. “I go nowhere without all four of them.”
“So, let’s all go. I’ll be your designated driver.”
“You haven’t had any champagne?” she asks, sounding surprised. She looks for my flute but doesn’t find it. Because I never claimed the one from the coffee table.
“No, I don’t drink alcohol.”
Sophie drops her champagne flute. It hits the porcelain plate beside her at exactly the wrong angle, and the thin, brittle porcelain cracks in half, leaving a fissure down the center of the eye.
“Oh no. That feels like bad luck,” she murmurs. She looks shaken by it, like luck isn’t a random thing, but a force guided by some invisible handler that’s taken a disliking to her. I understand the sentiment, but I’ve stopped believing in things like luck. I’ve had to.
“Nah, old things don’t last forever,” I say. “They’re not meant to.”
“I don’t know why anyone would want eyes staring at them in the middle of a special occasion anyway,” Otis says. “We can get Gram something normal.”
“So it was good luck,” I add, smiling at Sophie. “You don’t have to eat off a plate that’s watching you anymore.”
She laughs, but there’s something off about her, an unease that’s crept in. So I usher them out of the house and into my car. Otis calls shotgun, but I remind him it’s sort of Sophie’s wedding day. I open the door for her, and she looks up at me in surprise.
I have to laugh. “Let me guess. I’m an alcoholic, hard-partying loser who doesn’t do anything good without an angle or for money.”
She blushes as she settles into the seat, pulling in her lacy skirts after her. She looks like a cupcake. A greeting card. An invitation to sin.
I crush that last thought.
“I’m sorry,” she says quietly. “I know he’s a liar. I’m not sure why it keeps surprising me. I should just assume everything he said was a lie.”
“It wasn’t all a lie,” I admit. “Some of the things he said used to be true, and it would suit him to believe they still are.”
“He didn’t even tell me he had a brother,” Hannah interjects from the back seat. “He said he was an only child.”
I’m not sure why I care, after everything, but that hurts too. It’s like Jonah took an eraser and tried to rub out my existence.
“I knew he was a dick,” Otis says victoriously, and I reach into the back seat and high-five him—only realizing mid-act that I’m leaning directly over Sophie, so close I can feel the whisper of her lacy dress and the warmth of her breath against my flesh.
I can feel my body responding to her, awakening, and it’s disconcerting as hell. This is Sophie. Pollyanna . I remind myself of that fact again as I shut her door and circle around the car, sliding into the driver’s side.
“Where to, gang?” I ask.
Hannah shoots Sophie a sly look from the cramped back seat. “The Ginger Station.”
The Ginger Station is the only ginger beer brewery in town.
Sophie gasps. “No. We can’t just ambush her.”
“We don’t even know who she is,” Hannah says. “So ambushing her would be impossible. But if we happen to meet her…”
“ No ,” Sophie repeats. “I texted her from that app and my phone. She knows. What she chooses to do with that knowledge is up to her.”
“What if he got to the messages before she saw them?”
She worries at her lips, her gaze out the window, before turning back to Hannah. “I’m not showing up in a wedding dress. She’ll think we’re crazy.”
Hannah shrugs. “Who cares. Maybe we are crazy. Besides, we don’t have to talk to her tonight. It’s an information-gathering mission, and I’d really like some ginger beer.”
“It is refreshing,” Otis says. “It tastes like soda, though, so you have to be careful. Grandma Penny drank one of mine by mistake when I got a four-pack. She got really sentimental about this framed baby picture, thinking it was of my dad. I didn’t have the heart to tell her it had come with the frame.”
I glance at Sophie, sensing the nerves radiating from her. “It’s up to you, Sophie. It’s your wedding night.”
Personally, I feel like it’s kind of a bad move to make any part of this night about my brother, however peripherally. But Hannah probably knows Sophie better than I do by now. Maybe she knows Sophie needs this.
One final woman to save.
Maybe I need to see it through too. To undo the harm Jonah has done to other people, since there’s no undoing what he did to me.
She thinks for a moment, then nods, her hair dancing around the shoulders of her dress. “Okay. Let’s go.”