Chapter 34 Easton #2
I raise a brow. “It’s not Nick Mercer from The Wedding Date, right? That guy’s got to be pushing sixty by now.”
She laughs. “No, though he might put out if you play your cards right.”
I force a smile, already well aware that this surprise won’t be a welcome one.
It’s probably Aiden, and that’s fine, but it’s not going to lead anywhere.
I grab my place card, which informs me that I’m at table twelve.
There are so many people milling around beneath the tent that it’s hard to even locate my table and. ..fuck.
I’ve found table twelve.
Thomas is the surprise. Sitting there in a tux, smugly proud of himself for pulling this off.
I know Kelsey thought this was what I wanted. I never said otherwise. But Thomas is the last person I want to spend this day with.
“Hi.” I attempt to smile, but I can’t quite manage it. “I didn’t expect to see you.”
I’m not going to make a scene, but Thomas knew I didn’t want him here.
He shrugs. “You said that it was too late for Kelsey to change the numbers, but I figured with that storm coming in, at least one person must’ve backed out.”
I guess I did tell him that it was too late to change the numbers, but what I really meant was that I didn’t want him to come. I chose not to ask Kelsey when I could have, easily, and he chose to ignore that fact entirely.
“I thought you’d be happier to see me,” he says.
I press my fingers to my temples as a dull throb kicks in between them. “Thomas, you dumped me on the night you’d planned to propose and were then seen publicly with another woman. Maybe I don’t want everyone here thinking I’m so pathetic that I took you right back.”
He frowns. “I already told you there was nothing going on with Sofia. She was just on the boat.”
Right.
“And I was only seen with her in one picture,” he continues. “This really isn’t the big deal you’re making it into.”
I sigh. This is par for the course with us—when he doesn’t get his way, he just kind of keeps on arguing until I finally give up.
“Look,” he says. “Can we go somewhere to talk?”
I slap my hand to my forehead. The reception hasn’t even begun, and he’s already trying to make it about himself.
“No,” I say firmly, “I’m the maid of honor. I need to be here when Kelsey comes in, and I’m going to stay here until it ends.”
He throws up his hands. “Fine, fine,” he says, and this is familiar too. He’s inserted himself where he wasn’t welcome, but now he’s acting as if I’m the unreasonable one.
“I’ve got to give my speech pretty soon, but please just—” I shake my head. I’m sick with nerves at the prospect of speaking in front of all of these people. I want to tell him to go away and I can’t. “I need to focus, so give it a rest.”
“Get ready, everyone,” someone says into the mic. “I understand Mr. and Mrs. Boudreaux are on their way in!”
The guests rise and for a moment I forget my irritation. The senior Mr. and Mrs. Boudreaux walk in first, followed by Judy and Mrs. Cabot...and Elijah, who glares at me, then Thomas, in turn.
Thomas stiffens beside me. “That’s the guy I saw you with online, isn’t it?”
“He’s Kelsey’s brother,” I say.
“Did you sleep with him?” he asks.
I roll my eyes. I might feel sort of guilty under other circumstances, but...I didn’t even want Thomas here. I’m not taking any shit about this. “You broke up with me, Thomas. And, as it happens, we’re still broken up. You don’t get to ask me questions like that.”
“I guess that’s a yes, then.” He pushes both hands through his hair.
“Fine. I deserved it. I want to have a nice time with you here, and this is all going incredibly poorly. Can we just start over? Can you pretend you’re happy I braved three flights to get here in time, and I’ll pretend I’m not furious about what you might have done while I was gone? ”
I give him a half-hearted smile. “It would be easier if you didn’t sound furious while you suggested it.”
He laughs and squeezes my hand. “I’m working up to it.”
Same, Thomas. Same. I pull my hand free.
I go to the bar and order a gin and tonic, which gets a serious side-eye from Thomas, though he’s wise enough not to comment. We move slowly through the crowd as half the people here know exactly who Thomas is and stop us to take selfies. The other half couldn’t care less. I’m on their side.
“So that’s him, eh?” Mrs. Cabot asks. “He’s handsomer on TV.”
I introduce him to Mark Patton, the high school boyfriend whose ass Elijah threatened to kick—Thomas isn’t jealous in the least, but gets a little annoyed when Mark gushes about how smart I was in high school—he prefers all the gushing focused on himself.
Then we talk to Mrs. Stapleton, who owns the one fancy store in Oak Bluff, and Mrs. Adamson, who led the Girl Scout troop I couldn’t afford to join, and Martha, who runs the Stop-n-Shop.
They all seemed to look down on me when I was a kid, and I wanted each of them to be peeved by my success, to be taken down a peg, and none of them are.
“You were always such a clever little girl,” Mrs. Stapleton says, turning to her husband. “I told you about her. She was the kid who told me my stomach lining would replace itself every three days so I ought to go ahead and eat what I wanted. I laughed for days—it was so cute.”
Martha says, “I knew all that brilliance would be put to good use.”
“You always acted like I was there to shoplift,” I counter, and she raises a brow.
“You often were there to shoplift,” she corrects. “I told my friends you’d either wind up in jail or you’d take over the world. I’m so glad it seems to be the latter.”
These people didn’t hate me. They didn’t look down on me.
They might have felt pity, at worst, but I can hardly fault them—I was a banged-up kid wearing her brothers’ hand-me-downs, suffering from a lack of parental care.
I told myself so many stories about my youth, about this “fuck you” moment I’d give up everything for, and there’s no one to even say it to.
I slam my first gin and tonic and go straight to the bar for a second one. “That’s really going to impact your sleep,” Thomas warns.
“I’m aware,” I tell him. “I actually have the same degrees you do.”
I’m drinking to get through this, to relax my grinding jaw, to stop resenting Thomas for coming. Mostly, I’m drinking because I want to be with someone so much that I’d have followed him anywhere, but he’s not interested in letting me do it.
Dinner begins, and we spend most of it discussing the UCSD study. This is where Thomas and I are at our best—arguing, countering each other, adding to an argument the other has made. I’d almost be at ease if it wasn’t for my toast.
Eventually, the meal ends and I’m called to the stage. I’m nervous as hell, but fortunately, nerves just piss me off, and that anger gives me the dopamine rush I need to walk to the microphone and face the crowd as if there’s nowhere I’d rather be.
“Kelsey,” I begin, “eighteen years ago, we made each other a sacred promise: that we would both marry a handsome male prostitute like Nick from our favorite movie, The Wedding Date. Hawk, you’re a decent back-up option, but I want you to know that Kelsey will never truly be happy until you’ve changed professions. ”
Everyone laughs, and then I hold up a note written in purple magic marker. “I also have our bet from sixth grade, when you swore you’d marry Niall from One Direction. I’m sorry to bring this up here, but you now owe me a trillion dollars, per this contract you signed eighteen years ago.”
Everyone laughs again.
“Also, now that it’s all done and legal—” I glance off to the side, toward the officiant. “It is legal, correct?”
He nods.
“Great, great. Then as I was saying, now that you can’t back out, Hawk, you should know that Kelsey also bet me a trillion dollars that she’d name her first daughter Karen.
And granted, it was a less controversial choice at the time, but a bet’s a bet.
Her legal counsel was Elijah, who was thirteen. You can take it up with him.”
My gaze darts to Elijah, and there’s a tiny crack inside me.
I turn away fast. “There was only one bet Kelsey and I made that didn’t involve money.
Obviously, she lost this one too. She lost every bet—by the way, Hawk, you might want to avoid ever taking her to Vegas because even you can’t afford the sort of losses she’d incur.
Anyway, this bet meant I got to call in a favor.
And what I asked her to do, a year and a half ago, was to go down to a hotel bar in Paris and meet a handsome stranger, because I found her obsessive long-distance crush on Hawk tiresome.
You all know the rest. Hawk showed up at the hotel, was furious to find Kelsey in the bar talking to someone else, and the rest is history.
Now I still have to listen to Kelsey discuss her obsessive crush, but at least it’s reciprocated.
Kelsey, I love you. You’ve been my best friend for twenty-two years and you’ll remain my best friend even after you start doing rich people stuff like complaining about the caviar.
Hawk, you struck gold when you found our favorite ray of sunshine, so please don’t forget it.
And now, everyone, let’s raise a glass to Kelsey and Hawk.
May they continue to make every other love story pale by contrast.”
This time I don’t look at Elijah, but at Thomas.
We get along well; we make each other better. But ours is definitely a love story that pales by contrast.
And I guess I’ve pretty much accepted my fate.
Kelsey and Hawk are ready to leave, though it’s mostly for show: a raging after-party will begin in a separate tent on the other side of the house minutes after they depart.
We all gather on the front steps of the Boudreaux mansion while the wedding planner’s assistants hand us each tiny baskets of flower petals.