Chapter 32 How Am I Supposed to Behave?
How Am I Supposed to Behave?
Darcy
Eric leaves, and I tidy up the bedroom, which means plucking a two-hundred-dollar tie off the pillow and gently smoothing the silk.
I can’t quite get over all the things we’ve done together. The ottoman. The necktie. The satin ropes around my wrists.
His gray eyes at close range, staring into mine as he comes.
God. How am I supposed to behave after this? For the rest of my life, salty ocean air is going to make me feel sexually frustrated.
I take a long, luxurious shower, then check my texts. The first one is from my mother.
Mom: Tell me everything! Is the wedding gauche? Is there a chocolate fountain? Is the bride arriving by horse-drawn carriage?
I ignore her, because otherwise I’m likely to point out how fascinated she seems by a wedding that she never wanted me to attend. I read Eric’s text next, because he’s much easier to talk to.
Eric: My parents are here. Dad is taking part in the rehearsal.
Darcy: That’s good, right? How is your mom?
Eric: She’s pretending like everything is fine. Like she didn’t throw a tantrum yesterday. So now I have to make small talk with her until this rehearsal is done.
Darcy: Oh jeez. You need me to come downstairs and be your buffer? I could hurry.
Eric: You enjoy your shower and take your time. Maribel has us folding programs. Come down for cocktail hour at seven on the patio. That’s the place with the string lights over it.
Darcy: Will do!
I dry my hair and touch up my manicure. While my nails are drying, I check my phone again and find a series of texts from Zoe, each one a little more urgent than the last.
Zoe: Hey, bestie.
Zoe: So? Um…?
Zoe: OMG remember me? Where is my update? Not one text about drunk groomsmen or other people’s unfortunate fashion choices? I thought you loved me.
Darcy: I do. Just busy!
Zoe: As in… getting busy?
Darcy: You’re fishing.
Zoe: As your best friend, I’m just doing my job.
I hit the call button. “Can I ask a paranoid question?” I ask when she picks up.
“Sure?”
“Are you the only one who’s curious? If there’s gossip from that bonfire photo, I need to brace myself.” The idea of the whole team gossiping behind my back makes my skin crawl.
“I haven’t heard a word. I mean—Chase saw the pic and said, ‘That looks cozy.’ But since I have literally no information about just how cozy it really was or wasn’t… the conversation died there.”
“Okay.” I take a deep breath. “I’d freak out if people whispered about me all next season.”
“I get that,” Zoe says softly. “I really do. Hockey players are supposed to have sex lives. But a woman involved with someone at work…”
“… Is a skank,” I finish.
“It’s a terrible double standard,” Zoe says mildly. “Which means that if you two are busy falling in love, I can see why you probably need to keep it quiet for a while. So…”
“So…?”
“ARE YOU?” she practically shouts. “I’m dying here. Have you done anything a best friend would be legally entitled to hear about, under the best friend code?”
I let out an awkward laugh. “There may have been some, um, friskiness.”
“Omigod!” Zoe hoots. “Oh. My. GOD. That’s incredible? Wait—was it incredible?”
“Shh,” I warn.
“Don’t shush me. Chase is at some celebrity golf thing with his agent. I need answers.”
“Well…” My face is blazing already, and I haven’t said a word. “Being with Eric is next level. Those fantasies I had about him? They were not misplaced.”
Zoe lets out a dramatic sigh. “Wow. That’s… wow. I’m almost sorry I asked.”
“Why?”
“Because my boyfriend isn’t here for me to jump on. And because I don’t know how I’m going to keep my excitement bottled up inside.”
“Zoe!” I yelp. “This is in the vault!”
“I know, okay? I won’t let you down.” She lets out another dramatic sigh. “Did he put on the tux yet?”
“Nope. That’s tomorrow night.”
“So, that bow tie thing might happen?”
I say nothing, but my heart pounds so loudly that Zoe can probably hear it. Either that, or my silence is a dead giveaway.
“OH MY GOD!” she squeals. “He tied you up?”
“Shhh!” I say again. “The whole neighborhood probably heard that.”
She only laughs. “Wow. You’re my idol. And here we thought that DM was a disaster. It was the smartest thing you ever did!”
“Let’s not get carried away.” I still cringe when I think about it.
“No, I’m serious. That boy needed a shove. What do you think will happen after the wedding?”
“Nothing,” I say quickly. “This is just a fling.”
“Is it though?” she asks, excitement in her voice. “What if the season starts back up in August and you realize you can’t keep your hands off each other? What then?”
I try to picture it—Eric sneaking into my hotel room on road trips. I just can’t stay away, he says. I’ve just never felt this way about anybody else.
Then I laugh. “That is not how these things work. He sleeps with A-listers and dates nobody.”
“You’re an A-lister,” Zoe says immediately, like a good friend should.
“I’m the admin,” I correct her. “And a really convenient hookup at the moment. After this wedding is over, there’s no way I’ll seem like a good idea to Eric. In fact, he’ll probably avoid me at work.”
“Maybe.” She’s quiet for a second. “I can’t guess what he’s thinking, Darcy. And I’m not there. But you sound like you have everything decided for both of you. Shouldn’t Eric get to weigh in?”
I close my eyes and picture his ruddy, sexed up face right after he took off my blindfold. “He’s having fun, Zoe. Carefree fun. He’s letting off steam. And I’d be an idiot to take it for more than that.”
“But liking him doesn’t make you an idiot,” she says softly. “You know that, right?”
“Sure,” I lie. Because counting on Eric to pivot from a weekend of fun into some kind of epic love affair would be pretty damn stupid. “Zoe—it doesn’t matter, though. Whatever this is, it’s fun. I promise.”
“Oh, I believe you. Just try to keep an open mind?”
“Will do.”
“Also—red lipstick. Makes you look like a classic movie starlet.”
I snort. “Roger.”
We hang up the call, and I put on another carefully chosen Wedding Experience outfit.
Then, damn it, I put on some red lipstick before heading down to the lobby. In the elevator, I check my look in the mirrored button panel and try to see things with Zoe’s brand of optimism.
Nope. Life just doesn’t work that way. Eric was joking when he called me a bad girl. You didn’t tell me, he’d said. How good it would be. And I’d pointed out how many times he’d walked past me at work and not realized it for himself.
He was teasing. But I wasn’t. I’d been invisible to Eric for years before I accidentally propositioned him. And I know why—I’m not the kind of person he notices. We’re at opposite ends of the pecking order.
I don’t even blame him for it. It is what it is. But I won’t fool myself, either.
The elevator doors part in the lobby, and I head outside.
The air smells salty and warm, and I stop outside the doors to take in the view.
The deep green lawn. The sky that’s deepening to a purplish blue.
The gentle crash of waves against the distant sand.
Someone’s laughter carries faintly on the breeze.
The sight of Eric’s warm gray eyes sweeping my body, just before he smiles. His hands on my wrists…
Whew. My joy may be fleeting, but it’s still magical. I wish I could close my fist around this memory and carry it around with me wherever I go.
With my sandals sinking into the grass, I turn around like Maria in The Sound of Music. The beach is alive… with the sound of Eric Tremaine’s dirty talk. And it’s glorious.
I only stop when I see something moving in my peripheral vision. It’s a woman in a powder blue dress. She’s hurrying beneath a towering lilac hedge toward the party.
But there’s something almost furtive about the way she’s avoiding the main path.
Then I recognize her. “Patty?”
Eric’s mother startles. “Oh, Darcy! Good evening. Are you heading to the cocktail hour?”
I cross toward her. “I was on my way. You?”
“Yes. I was just…” She gives a guilty glance in the direction of the wedding chapel. “Having a look around. Shall we go to the patio?”
Hmm. “You go ahead. I think I’ll take a look around, too. I haven’t seen the wedding chapel yet.”
She opens and closes her mouth a couple of times. “All right. The flowers aren’t up yet, though. Tomorrow it will be lovely.”
“Oh, I’m sure. I just thought I’d stretch my legs. See you over there? Save me a glass of rosé.”
“But…”
I leave her there staring after me, and I cross the lawn in the opposite direction. Because my spidey senses are tingling.
After I turn the corner around the main hotel building, the wedding chapel comes into view. It’s on a gentle rise, nestled against the tree line. It’s built to look like it’s been here for generations—weathered cedar shingles gone silver-gray and white trim that gleams in the twilight.
I open the door and step inside, admiring the big windows toward the ocean.
The room is set up to position the shimmering Atlantic Ocean as the wedding party’s backdrop.
It’s exactly the kind of calculated New England charm that Dad’s company excels at—genuinely beautiful, designed to photograph perfectly for the marketing brochures.
In less than twenty-four hours, my brother and Maribel will stand here and pledge undying love to each other.
They’ll use words like forever and death do us part.
I’ve got to hand it to Theo. It’s pretty incredible that anyone in the Kendrick-Randolph family has the guts to do that.
We learned at an early age that love, dysfunction, and betrayal go hand in hand.
I’m happy for him. I really am. Maybe this is the real reason I came to the wedding—to witness my brother trying to break the curse. To see if it can be done.
As I do a full circle, though, I spot one thing out of place. And now I know I was right to come in here. The oversized photo of Danny is propped up against the whitewashed wall. Eric’s mom went with the darker frame from which Eric’s brother smiles out, looking a little more smug than I remember.