Chapter 28 #3
“Sorry…that’s really sweet, but…” Poppy looked back and forth between Frankie and Lauren, confusion written large on her face.
“I still don’t get it. My brother does not paint.
He doesn’t even doodle. If you asked him to draw a cat, he’d probably just write the word ‘cat’ on a sticky note.
I’m not saying that to be mean. I’m a liability on family game nights, and we commiserate in our lack of artistic ability.
Are you sure that Liam really wanted the sunroom for art?
” She was clearly still stuck on that one detail, that her brother purchased his house with a singular confusing criterion.
Lauren nodded.
Karina, who’d been rolling the stem of her glass between her forefinger and thumb, cut in. “Maybe he just wanted it for the vibes.”
Lauren grinned. “Have you met him? He’s never home. The man is at the hospital twelve days a week and runs trail marathons for fun. But he was fixated on this sunroom thing. He waited fourteen months until that house came on the market.”
Fourteen months? Liam asked for that sunroom fourteen months ago?
How could Frankie make that puzzle piece fit?
Not only is the room her dream…literally, she’d talked about that sunroom for years, mapped out the dimensions, the window placement, the bricks, the cement flooring, even the direction it would face, but that he’d asked for it when she’d still lived in New York and was engaged to his brother and they hadn’t spoken in a decade.
Zion must have sensed she was about to blow a fuse, because he gently nudged Frankie’s elbow as Lauren, Poppy, and Karina continued speculating about why Liam bought the house for the sunroom.
She snapped out of it. “What?”
He leaned close to her ear, voice low, so only she could hear. “You okay?”
Her mouth was dry, but she nodded.
Karina mercifully steered the conversation to safer waters by asking Lauren about her latest season of Home Sweet Home.
Lauren shared a story about a disastrous “tiny house” episode, where the entire crew had to camp out in a 250-square-foot trailer for a week and the producer developed a spontaneous allergy to synthetic plaid.
The group laughed, the tension receded, and for a moment, Frankie thought she might be able to let the thing go—tuck the knowledge about the sunroom into a back pocket for the rest of the reception and then speak to Liam after.
But Zion’s hand found her shoulder and squeezed once, briefly, the way he had during every bad breakup or funeral or catastrophic test grade in college, and he leaned down and whispered in her ear, “You need to speak to him.”
She glanced up at him, her smile in place, her lips not moving. “No shit, Sherlock,” she replied sarcastically, doing her best ventriloquist impression.
His smile spread from ear to ear, and there was, well, glee dancing in his eyes, there was no other way to put it as he gave her a slow clap.
“What?” she snapped defensively.
“You’re back. I haven’t seen that fire in your eye since I left and your world imploded. Now I know you’re gonna be just fine no matter what happens. My work here is done.” He kissed her on the top of the head.
Then, as if the universe, or at least the wedding DJ, sensed that she’d needed a karmic reset, the music stopped and the DJ’s voice boomed over the speakers, announcing that it was time for the bouquet toss.
A ripple of excitement rolled through the room as he instructed, “Single ladies, assemble on the dance floor!”
“You’re up, chickadee!” Zee pointed at Poppy.
Frankie, now halfway through her second French 75, followed Zion’s lead to the edge of the dance floor. Poppy joined a cluster of women near the center: Jenna, Tiana, Kiki, and about ten others, all jockeying for prime position but pretending not to strategize in their gameplay.
The air was thick with an anticipatory charge. Frankie’s gaze remained fixed on the bobbing heads and pastel dresses assembling for the bouquet toss, but she felt Zion’s presence beside her like a steady gravitational pull.
“So,” Zee leaned in, lowering his voice beneath the swell of Beyoncé and the shrieks of encouragement from the crowd. “What’s your game plan?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted, dragging a knuckle along the condensation tracing down her glass. “I just know I need to talk to him.”
“Just talk?” Her bestie emphasized, his eyes following the gaggle of single women as they fanned out in a loose semicircle. “The man bought the only house in California with your dream sunroom whilst you were engaged to his baby brother, and he hadn’t spoken to you in over a decade.”
Frankie glanced around, making sure no one had overheard Zee, thankfully everyone’s attention was on the dance floor. She’d thought those things in her head, but hearing Zion state them out loud was even more…intense. “I know.”
“It’s a pretty strong move.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“We’re talking Lloyd Dobler with the boombox outside the window in Say Anything, cue cards outside the front door in Love Actually, Jake Ryan showing up at the wedding leaning on the red car.
” He gasped. “No, it’s Noah. He did a Noah from The Notebook.
He built you the house with the wraparound porch and the blue shutters. ”
But we were never together.
“Except, you didn’t spend a summer in love,” Zee voiced her inner thoughts.
Zion inducting Liam into the Romantic Leading Men Hall of Fame was not helping Frankie remain poised and calm as she scanned the crowd searching for a chiseled jaw covered in five o’clock shadow belonging to a six-foot-three brooding man and coming up empty.
Like anything she lost, she began to retrace her steps.
Her last Liam sighting was at the cake cutting.
That was thirty minutes earlier. Had he left without saying goodbye? It would be very on-brand of him.
The DJ blew a whistle, and Frankie turned her attention back to the dance floor just in time to see women surging forward, elbows out, eyes gleaming with either hope or sheer competitive instinct.
Frankie’s mom looked like she was floating on air as Mr. Sterling held her hand and she mounted the dais with the bouquet cupped in her hand like a chalice.
She gave the flowers a one, two, three count, then launched the bouquet over her shoulder.
For a split second, the cluster of women froze.
Then the bouquet arced through the air and found its target.
Poppy looked up, and when she saw the bouquet was headed her way, her arm went up, and she caught it in a soft cradle.
The room erupted. Talia and Jenna, who were on either side of Poppy, sandwiched her in bear hugs as they cheered wildly.
Frankie joined in the clapping as she continued surveying the room, feeling like she was in a parallel timeline where everyone else operated at double speed while she was stuck on a glitching loop trying to play an IRL virtual version of Where’s Waldo with Liam being the main character.
She didn’t spot him anywhere—not with her brothers or family, not at the bar, not brooding in a darkened corner, or sulking on the deck.
The energy spiked once more as the DJ transitioned seamlessly into the garter toss, prompting a new wave of chaos.
Frankie’s now stepfather, which felt very odd to say or even think, kissed her mom’s hand before dramatically kneeling in front of her, causing her to giggle like a teenager as he slid the garter down her thigh, calf, and ankle with all the solemnity of a coronation.
The crowd whooped, phones held high, as he bit the lacy band between his teeth, playing up the moment for maximum comedic payoff.
In all the twenty-five years she’d known Mr. Sterling, she could honestly say she’d never seen a playful side of him. It was unsettling and odd to see now, but she could appreciate it for her mother’s sake.
The DJ called for “all the eligible bachelors.” The prompt sent a dozen men—Frankie’s brothers Niko and AJ among them, charging onto the dance floor.
Some were pushed by relatives to join in, others seemed ambivalent, but a few went full showman for the audience, flexing or hamming it up for their friends.
Frankie zeroed in on AJ, whose expression was blank.
AJ was typically difficult to read, but she noticed his demeanor was even more detached since he arrived today.
There was an extra layer of distance, a barrier that had not been there before.
She knew his last deployment hadn’t gone to plan.
They’d lost several members of his platoon.
Their mom mentioned that he’d refused to talk about it.
She wasn’t sure if that was because he couldn’t for national security reasons or because he couldn’t find his words, as he used to say.
She hoped that seeing him in person would put her at ease, but if anything, it had caused her concern to escalate.
Her attention was drawn back to the main attraction as whistles and cheers from the men swelled.
Mr. Sterling spun the garter around his index finger several times before turning his back to the crowd.
The men shifted and tensed, some crouched in an athletic pose, while others stood with hands stuffed deep in their pockets, clearly projecting a force field of disinterest.
The DJ counted down, “On three! One… two… THREE—”
The garter sailed over Mr. Sterling’s shoulder in a perfect, white and blue lace arc, and AJ—who must not have been paying attention—snapped his head up at the last second. The elastic band struck him squarely in the chest and fell into his palm as if by divine intervention.
The men exploded in a chorus of hoots, jeers, and feigned outrage.
Brawny uncles and cousins pounded AJ so hard on the back as they grabbed his shoulders that his shirt nearly untucked.
Niko wasted zero time leaping onto his brother’s back, attempting to wrestle him down into a headlock in a move that was half-WWE, half-drunken bear cub she’d witnessed hundreds of times in her youth.
AJ, the unwitting center of this circus, was easily able to maneuver out from under the move in a smooth and decisive aversion tactic.
“Get off.” His tone held neither amusement nor irritation, just flatly stating two words as the garter—lacy, electric blue, and slightly twisted from its journey—hung from his inked wrist like an absurd friendship bracelet.
The women, meanwhile, circled Poppy and gave her the kind of fawning congratulations usually reserved for lottery winners or new mothers.
Even Tiana, who had all but tackled her during the bouquet melee, looked to be hugging her with enough force to crack a rib.
Poppy, grinning and bright-eyed, raised the bouquet over her head as if she’d just earned a trophy at Wimbledon.
Frankie watched the two groups—men and women, each in their own spheres of ritual celebration—and felt a strange slosh of emotions inside her chest. Pride, nostalgia, an odd pinch of envy, and an instinctual pull that had nothing to do with flowers or garters.
Her gaze boomeranged around the room, still searching for Liam and still coming up empty.
By the time Tessa, the wedding photographer, corralled Poppy and AJ to the center of the dance floor for the obligatory Bouquet-Meets-Garter photo op, Frankie’s nerves were sparking again.
She saw her mom slip away from the crowd, bouquet-less but radiant, and approach Yaya, who was already hounding a server for another round of espresso martini, her newly discovered cocktail of choice.
Frankie took a steadying breath and, for the millionth time, glanced at the crowd.
Liam was still nowhere. She’d thought she would be able to wait until her mom was on her honeymoon to confront Liam, but after learning that he’d bought his home, sight unseen, ten grand over asking because of a room she’d talked about wanting was a game changer. She had to pivot.
She turned to Zee, lowering her voice. “Can you do me a favor?”
He cocked his head, instantly shifting into bestie/accomplice mode. “Anything.”
“If anyone asks, I had a migraine coming on and needed to lie down.”
Zion gazed at her for a long, meaningful second, most likely trying to suss out if a migraine was indeed impending—spoiler alert: it was not—before he nodded solemnly. “Migraine. I’ll even throw in my best fake sympathy face and say you stuck it out as long as you could.”
She lifted up on her toes and kissed his cheek. “Love you.”
He looked her up and down, mischief gleaming in his eyes. “Just to be clear, you are—”
“Going to find Liam? Yes.”
Zee grinned, slow and sly. “Go get your man, Mouse.”
With a last fortifying sip of the final few gulps of her drink and a deep inhale of the heady, sugar-and-citrus air, she set her glass on a table and began weaving her way toward the side exit.
She knew that the wedding party was ‘supposed’ to stay in the cabins, but Liam wasn’t really big on doing what he was supposed to do.
She pulled out her phone from her pocket, the fact that her dress had pockets was one of her favorite parts of the day, to call him and saw that she didn’t have any service. Shit.
On the walk to the parking lot to grab a ride with one of the drivers Dr. Sterling hired, she felt light taps on her head.
Surrounded by gorgeous Jeffrey pines that populated the mountain resort, she assumed they were stray seed cones.
By the time she’d made the short walk down the lit path, the tiny taps had developed into heavy thuds, and the ground beneath her was slick with raindrops.
She was steps away from the hired Cadillac Escalade when out of the corner of her eye, she saw Liam’s Range Rover in the parking lot.
He was still on site, there was no way he’d leave without his ride.
The wedding party all had cabins, but Liam had made it clear he had no interest in using his.
Maybe he’d changed his mind. She figured she’d try there first. If she struck out, she’d expand her search to other buildings on the grounds.
If she still couldn’t find him, then she’d go to Plan C… after she came up with one.