Chapter 27
The single lane drive to Mountain Ridge Outdoor Adventures was choked with rented SUVs and car service Lincolns filled with out-of-town guests.
Liam knew that he was cutting it close showing up only fifteen minutes before ‘I do’ despite his role as a groomsman, but he wanted to make this day and the interactions he had as abbreviated as possible, so he’d spent it alone in his office downtown.
As he made a left into the gravel lot, he saw it was packed, each vehicle a little chromed shrine to someone’s idea of success.
Liam eased his Range Rover into an improbable slot between a candy-apple-red Rubicon and a Mercedes G-Wagon.
He let the engine idle an extra second, watching the sun bleed out behind the ridge line, and considered putting it in reverse, pulling, out and leaving.
Honestly, if Poppy wasn’t beside him in the passenger seat, he might have done just that.
His baby sister let the silence edge up to uncomfortable, then sighed dramatically. “Sooooo, is the plan to just sit here until the engine runs out of gas?”
He killed the ignition and stared straight ahead.
The main lodge loomed on a rise, strings of Edison bulbs blinking one by one along the veranda.
The soothing, melodic sounds of Hilary Hahn playing the classical Bridgerton version of Taylor Swift’s “Wildest Dreams” were coming through the speakers.
His dad had operated on one of the world-renowned violinist’s relatives, and she’d told him if he ever needed anything to let her know, he’d called in his favor for this.
Liam watched the guests arriving. He knew every person walking up the path in the distance was more than likely someone he’d known since childhood.
Every person who’d ever cared what he’d done or who he’d become was, at this moment, fifty yards away, drinking, judging, but pretending not to judge the fact that his dad was marrying the woman who’d worked for him and also cared for his mother when she was dying, which he still wasn’t sure he knew how he felt about.
Probably twenty percent of the anger he had for his dad was for the way he’d treated him, the other eighty percent was that he wasn’t there the weeks before she passed.
He was gone. Cora was by his mom’s side.
He’d always thought that was because his dad didn’t care, but now, now he didn’t know if that was because he cared too much.
While he was at the office, alone, he’d had time to think.
His mind was trying to reconcile what Cora told him at the rehearsal dinner with the man he knew, but he was struggling, so he’d looked up the civil lawsuit against the hospital.
It wasn’t that he didn’t believe Cora, but he needed to see, to read for himself instead of from a third party.
And he got what he was looking for. He saw the photos of what his dad did to those security guards, he read the reports.
The damage he’d done was much worse than a broken nose and dislocated shoulder.
His dad fucked them up. He knocked out teeth and broke fingers, ribs, and one of their orbital bones. And they were both big men.
Cora also said that his mom told his dad she wanted him to get his shit together and be strong for him and Tristan. Was that why he’d stayed away those two weeks? Because he couldn’t do that?
And then there was Frankie. In addition to his legal research, he watched some of the show she’d talked about.
She’d said The Summer I Turned Pretty, was like her diary.
From what Liam could tell, the main character, Belly, was in love with two brothers.
Liam skipped ahead, and it seemed like in the third season she chose the youngest brother and was going to marry him, so that hadn’t been reassuring.
He wasn’t sure where Zion fit into that narrative or plotline and he wasn’t that enthused about finding out.
“Okay, I tried to be jokey, but I’m just going to ask you, what is wrong?”
“Nothing. I’m fine.”
Poppy reached up and touched the end of his nose.
He recoiled. “What?”
“Just making sure it’s not growing, Pinocchio.”
His eyes cut to hers.
“Okay, it wasn’t my most clever, but I’m trying here.” Poppy’s arms flew up in exasperation. “You know, you’re allowed to be not fine. And I don’t know if anyone’s ever told you this, but not only can you have feelings, you can actually talk about them.”
When he didn’t respond, she exhaled as her head dropped back in exasperation.
As soon as she straightened back up, she said, “Okay, can I at least know what flavor of fine it is we’re dealing with?
” She twisted so she was facing him, tucking her knees up under her.
“Is it wedding fine, family fine, or is it—” She paused dramatically. “—Frankie fine?”
Hearing her name out loud stung more than he’d expected. He wasn’t sure if it was the sound of it or just that someone else had said it, confirming that Frankie was a real person and not a symptom of his own unresolved crap. He tried to mask the reaction, but Poppy was unnervingly observant.
“Okay, got it,” she stated decisively as she snapped her fingers and pointed at him with finger guns.
“Got what?” He played dumb.
“Got that you are upset about Frankie.”
He shook his head. “I’m not.”
“You do know you’re a terrible liar, right?” she explained. “Like, epically abysmal.”
“It’s just…it’s complicated.”
“When is it not?!” she asked as if it was the most common thing in the world to feel the way he was feeling and have the problems he was having despite not being privy to either of those pieces of information.
“Okay, so what did you do?” she sing-songed.
“Me?” He turned towards her. “Why do you think I did something?”
“Because you have a penis,” she stated matter-of-factly.
Hearing his baby sister use the word “penis” in reference to him caused him to inwardly cringe.
She must have noticed because she rolled her eyes. “Grow up, you’re an ER doctor.”
“So?” He didn’t know what his profession had to do with hearing his sister refer to genitalia in his presence.
“So, what happened? Give it to me. My own love life is Shit City, but I’m actually scarily good at giving others relationship advice. Like, scarily good.”
“It doesn’t matter.” He shrugged.
“Of course it matters!” Her hands flew in the air, but then she lowered them again and took a breath, seeming to try and calm herself. “Can I ask you just one question?”
“Sure. You just did.”
“Ha, ha, ha.” She swatted his forearm. “Have you talked to her about it…whatever it is?”
He didn’t answer.
“I knew it!” she concluded with a loud clap. “Why are men so stupid?”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You didn’t have to.” She took a deep breath in through her nose and exhaled through her mouth. “Look, I don’t know what is going on, but I do know that you, my dear brother, live in your head. You are always thinking a gazillion—”
“That’s not a number.”
“Semantics,” she waved him off.
It was inaccurate, not semantics, but he figured she wouldn’t appreciate him pointing that out.
She continued, plowing ahead, “—a gazillion steps ahead, which is great when it’s just you. But this isn’t just you. You can’t decide things for her.”
“I didn’t I—”
She held up her hand. “If you haven’t spoken to her, then yes, you have. You’ve decided for her.” With that declaration, Poppy grabbed her purse from the console, opened the door, and climbed out. “Oh, and don’t worry about giving me a ride home, I’ve got that covered.”
Before he could respond, she shut the door and headed down the path, following the signs to the wedding.
Liam lingered in the car after Poppy left, her perfume hung in the cabin, a sweet-floral haze that didn’t match the tension she’d left behind.
He watched her stride away, her coat flaring open like a matador’s cape, then disappear into the small, mingling crowd on the gravel path.
A silver Navigator pulled into a spot behind him.
Four men who looked vaguely familiar, most likely colleagues of his dad, exited laughing loudly.
He waited, letting the cold from the window glass creep into his shirt sleeve, until the parking lot was nearly silent again.
With a sigh of resignation, he reached into the back seat for the jacket he’d picked up from the Gunnarson Haberdashery that morning and climbed out.
The temperature had dropped now that the sun was setting.
In the distance he heard a group of kids, their laughter drifting up the path and being muffled by the vibrant, passionate violin notes.
Liam set his shoulders and walked up the incline toward the lodge where, twenty feet overhead, bulbs on a wire cast golden halos over the congregation of evening gowns and tuxedos.
In his sight was the lobby, with its wall of glass facing the valley, glowing like an aquarium.
He second-guessed every step—he hated staged, Instagrammable destination weddings in general, and having this be his dad’s added another level of abhorrence—but he’d promised Cora and wouldn’t forgive himself if he was a no-show.
He pressed on, following the sign for “Groom’s Party Holding,” which led to a private lounge as he’d expected.
He traveled down a dirt path behind the lodge, shielded from the main event.