Chapter 3 #2
“Ah, just got roped into a corporate job that Harry got me and… I don’t know,” I say, reframing his words in my mind.
Cheryl makes a noise of disgust at a pair of kitten heels, tossing the box aside in favor of something less grotesque, apparently.
Maybe Harry is truly just trying to help me?
Kat blinks, the dark liner around her eyes bringing me comfort.
Of all the ways her style has evolved, black eyeliner is a constant and because of that, it brings much familiarity and safety to me emotionally.
A lot of work for an eyeliner to be doing, I know.
“What?” she presses, likely able to see the way I’m gaslighting myself because she’s my best friend and I’m always doing that. Especially where men are concerned.
I lick my lips, my skin flushing hot at how ungrateful and petty I suddenly feel. “Nothing. I should just be happy to have a paying job in my field.” I force a smile, and feel like I should send Harry a text message and apologize. “Nothing, it’s nothing.”
Kat’s smile is as wide as mine, but real instead of forced. “Yeah? You yelled at Cheryl over a wedding dress.”
A small sniffle. “I feel strongly about taffeta.”
Her laugh is small, but soft. Elle giggles, too. “What did Harry do now?”
I open my mouth to defend him, to defend his honor because he did just get me a job in my field (which I myself struggle to do) and if Harry and I ever get through this rough patch and we get married, I will not have wanted to air our every struggle to my best friend.
“He got me a job. And I’m being a brat.”
Kat doesn’t buy it. Thankfully. “What did he say about the job he got you? Because I know Harry. And I know you. And you’re hurt.
So tell me what he said, or didn’t say, or…
I don’t know. Just spill it.” She glances back at Cheryl who has three boxes of heels open, all of them a variety of red bottoms. “Cheryl knows men are assholes. She works in a bridal salon. Don’t be scared of Cheryl knowing.
” A glance to Elle, then back to me. “And hey, if anyone knows about assholes, it’s Elle. ”
Elle smiles, but something deeper lingers behind her eyes. A moment of tension dances between them, and I almost think she knows how I feel, that it’s been obvious and unhidden, and she knows. But she smiles so quickly that I talk myself out of what I saw.
“I do indeed bear a healthy knowledge of assholes,” she quips, getting to her feet to find another champagne flute, asking Cheryl.
Cheryl doesn’t look up from the pincushion strapped to her wrist, where she carefully slides in pin after pin, preparing for Kat. “Not all men, but a great sum of them,” Cheryl adds, deadpan, without looking up. “Yeah, I have another flute. Give me a moment.”
Kat nudges me. “See? Cheryl’s cool.”
I swipe at a rogue tear and sigh. “It’s not that I am against taking corporate jobs, in theory.
It’s that I don’t think he believes I’m capable of more.
Like…. My dream of becoming an actual photographer is something he knows with certainty won’t happen, but he’s letting a kid have a dream or something.
I don’t know.” Maybe that’s my own insecurities talking, and I’m projecting? I don’t know anymore.
“The man you’re meant to be with will believe in you,” Elle adds casually as she cleans the rim of the flute with the hem of her soft pullover.
Kat nods her head while she listens, and when I’m done, she asks a pointed question which I almost don’t want to answer. “What did he say to you today that upset you?”
The fact that I waste no time reciting back the exact words that hurt me tells me that they hurt more than I’m even allowing myself to consider. “You need actual work under your belt or you’re not a photographer, you’re just an unemployed dreamer.”
“Fuck that,” Kat says, making sure to enunciate every syllable. Her phone rings, and she holds a reluctant finger up to me. “Hang on, and then I’ll tear Harry apart with my full focus.”
I nod, and watch Cheryl roll a measuring tape around her two fingers, trying to give Kat a sliver of privacy for her phone call.
She’s a real estate agent with her uncle and cousin at their company, Mercer Properties.
She never misses a call. Missing a call could equate to walking away from an egregiously sized commission, after all.
“Hey, Dad,” she says. Those two words make my heart leap into my throat, and my pulse stutters, growing tacky and erratic.
I swallow the knot of excitement that appears when I hear his muffled, rough timbre through the receiver of Kat’s cell phone.
I don’t know what he’s saying, but I can just barely hear the perceptible notes of him.
Ford Mercer.
Kat’s father.
The Speakeasy God of the West Coast.
The most handsome, funny, inked man I’ve ever met.
A man I’ve known since I was just a preteen.
The man I’ve been in love with ever since.
A man completely off-limits.
I glance at Elle, who is watching me, and when we make eye contact, my cheeks flush.
I force my eyes to the wall behind her, at the dresses there that have no detail at this moment, and then I look at the tiaras in the glass case, trying to convince Elle that looking at her was a fluke. Not with purpose.
Kat bobs her head, and the rough scrape of Ford’s tone lifts off the phone, making bumps rise up along my arms and bare legs.
I smooth a palm over them, over the hair standing on end, and hope that Kat or Elle don’t notice my sudden (arousal based) chill.
My guilty, whoring eyes dart to Cheryl, who hasn’t given us a second glance, thankfully.
“I know, I will.” She moves her head side-to-side, indicating that her father is rattling on about something. His trivial small talk is something I’d eat up with bated breath, but I roll my eyes and fake a yawn, playing along with her like I always do.
Because she can absolutely never know that I’ve been thirsting after her father since before I knew what I was even feeling. Our entire teenage years were filled with friends acting foolish around him, or with girls trying to befriend Kat just to get closer to Cade or Ford.
I love Kat for the person she is.
That love can never be conflated with what I feel for Ford, and as long as I keep my feelings exactly where they belong–buried deep in my guts–there shouldn’t be a problem.
After all, if Kat felt that all these years I was using her just to be in Ford’s orbit, it would break my heart because it is absolutely untrue.
“Oh yeah,” she says, perking up some as she smooths her fingers over the veil Cheryl has laid out next to her. “Yeah, she’s with me, actually.”
My spine straightens and I can’t help but swallow a sudden rush of saliva in my mouth. Ford asked about me? Brought me up? He has in the past, but as far as I know, his interest has only ever been legitimate. Still, I wait for a crumb of his interest like a starving beggar, I swear.
I pretend to be unaffected by the fact that they’re talking about me, and quietly ask Cheryl if she has any matching veils, aware that Zennie would love to take photos in matching veils–just for photos, not for the ceremony.
A moment later, I hear Kat tell Ford that she loves him, and in my head I tell him that I love him too, and they end the call.
She stuffs her phone into her slouchy black bag, and squares her shoulders with mine.
“Okay, I’m sorry, that was important,” she says of the phone call that whole heartedly has all of my interest. But sadly, Kat moves the conversation back to Harry.
“Okay, hear me on this,” she says, clamping her hand around my bare knee, giving it a tight squeeze.
“You are a photographer, whether you are known or not. Your art is capturing photos, period. Don’t let Harry get in your head.
” She smiles. “You’re not just a dreamer. ”
I shrug. “I tried to explain to him that my skillset isn’t like his.
It takes time to build up my work, and time to find clients, and then time for word of mouth.
I’m okay with my career needing years to percolate, but I don’t think that Harry believes it ever will.
” I sigh, because that goes good after a shrug.
“Enough about me. Enough about Harry.” I nod to her purse, where her phone is stashed. “Was that Ford?”
I feel Elle’s eyes on me as I stroke a piece of hair behind my ear, casually.
Kat smiles, her eyes suddenly glittering with excitement as she scooches nearer to me on the bench, our thighs pressed together. “Wanna see what we were talking about?”
I shrug like I didn’t hear every word and like I’m not dying of curiosity.
Why did Ford ask about me? “Sure.” Kat gets to her feet, and begins digging through her black bag until she produces a small black velvet box.
She presses it to her heart. “We refer to this as her, because it’s as special and important as a real person. ”
She’s with me, actually.
So he didn’t ask about me, he asked about the her that is inside that black box. I try really hard to prevent Kat from seeing the way my face falls, and I recover quickly, pasting on an excited smile.
I should feel more excited than bummed, but knowing he didn’t ask about me after thinking he did is like getting kicked in the stomach, I think.
She opens the box, revealing a glittering white gold wedding band, a huge diamond centered on the simple setting. “This… was hers.” Kat rolls her lips together as she stares at the ring, emotion making her nostrils flare. “My mom’s ring,” she adds, but I knew.
Elle is on her feet, moving around the boutique, collecting accessories. I’m not sure if she’s avoiding the talk about the ring and Katherine, or if she’s really just being helpful.
Kat and I rarely talk about her mom. Years have gone by, but the loss is still fresh and painful for Kat. I run my fingertip along the band and over the stone, a small gasp leaving my lips at the sight of it.
Katherine Mercer’s wedding ring.
“I understand why it’s a her,” I say, blinking down at the large, classy setting.
This ring screams Ford Mercer, and heat blooms low in my belly as I continue to stare down at it.
My eyes even warm, thinking of the man I love seeing this ring and thinking to himself, “this, for the love of my life.” Hell, I wasn’t even born when Ford fell in love with Katherine, but in my brain, somehow, it still hurts picturing him loving her.
Picturing him picking this ring for her.
Foolish me, and my foolish pain. “It’s the most beautiful ring I’ve ever seen. ”
She sighs. “I know. I’m having it resized for Zennie, gonna give it to her at the wedding.
And if Cade ever stops being a grouchy, book-obsessed uptight grandfather, and decides to get married, he gets her wedding band.
The engagement ring,” she says, looking down at the very band that her dad slipped onto her mom’s finger years back, “is mine. Well, Zennie’s but you know what I mean. ”
I swipe at a tear, and feel traitorous guilt tear through my veins. I am crying over Harry and Ford, not the beauty of the ring. What an asshole I am. Seriously. “It’s gorgeous, Kat. My god, it’s so beautiful.”
It is. And in that moment, I forget Ford and Harry, and I think of the beauty and happiness that the ring represents.
I think of my best friend finding her soulmate, and how well Zennie fits in her life, the way they shape one another to be the best versions of themselves.
The ring is gorgeous, but so is the reason why we’re here.
I wipe another tear away and from my periphery see Kat do the same.
“He was just calling to make sure I have it. Elle was at his place, said it wasn’t on the counter where he left it. It sent him into a panic.” I face her and she smiles. “I picked it up on the way here, and put his mind at ease as soon as I told him.”
Cheryl clears her throat. “You have forty seven minutes left in this appointment."
Elle was at his place?
Kat bobs her head and salutes. “Have me Cheryl. Have me, dress me and make me a bride!”
I sink into the tufted mini couch and pour myself a flute full of champagne, centering one of the rating cards on my knee. Cheerily, I smile and snap a ton of photos on my phone, and thoroughly enjoy watching my best friend find her wedding dress.
The champagne helps with the disappointment that Ford didn’t ask about me, and my tiff with Harry.
I love champagne.