16. Vincent
16
VINCENT
O f course everything was blowing up the day before Paul and Chloe’s wedding.
It was an all-hands-on-deck scenario at the Manhattan Building, Chloe’s beautiful but challenging venue. The à la carte aspect of the exposed brick, boho chic building was tough enough, forcing them to find vendors willing to bring every single spoon and napkin to the top floor, but the fact that the service elevator had gone out was a new layer of challenge.
And Chloe was falling apart.
The entire wedding party assembled at the building to try to help Avengers-style since building management was MIA, and their wedding planner was off with another client for the day. I could see the panic in Chloe’s eyes, the way her hands kept clenching and unclenching as though she was trying to physically keep herself from crumbling to pieces. Obviously, throwing money at the problem was my go-to solution, but elevator repair on such an old building required an expert, and they were hard to come by these days. Even with all our connections, we had to wait for a service call without any sort of clear timeline.
“Why did I pick this place? It’s my fault, everything’s falling apart…” Chloe’s voice cracked, her eyes wide as she looked around. “Tomorrow is going to be a disaster! We should just…just postpone the whole thing.”
We’d clearly reached a new level of insanity.
Her bridesmaids rushed over to comfort her, and all the guys turned to watch what Paul would do next.
Which was freeze in place.
Yeah, it looked like the pressure of the whole ridiculous spectacle of a wedding was about to break him. When I finally caught his eye, I beckoned him to follow me to the stairwell.
“Yo,” he said glumly once we were alone. “Wake me when it’s over.”
I didn’t have the heart to tell him that if his marriage turned out anything like the ones I’d seen up close and personal, thanks to my father as well as Dominic and his ongoing marital woes, the nightmare was just beginning. Paul rubbed his temples, then refocused on me.
“It shouldn’t be this hard, you know?”
I shrugged noncommittally. Telling him what a crock marriage was wouldn’t help at this moment. All I could do was be supportive.
“We’ll make it work,” I said as I gestured around me. “The next twenty-four hours won’t be easy, but we’re going to do everything in our power to make sure tomorrow will be perfect. We’ll get the elevator guy out here, he’ll fix it up, and the setup can begin. There’s plenty of time, and if things get tight later in the day, I’ll make it worth the staff’s while to stay as late as it takes to finish up.”
Paul’s half smile wasn’t at all convincing.
“I appreciate that, and I know tomorrow will be great, but there’s collateral damage, you know? Chloe has poured everything on this one single day. She’s been obsessed. And for a while we were fighting about it constantly, because she couldn’t see reason. When I mentioned that the wedding fights were taking over our life, she stopped talking about it to me at all .” He waved his hand in front of his face like he was trying to wake someone from a trance. “We went from full-on brawls to nothing. It’s like she bottles everything up and then she explodes, like what we just witnessed. When she manages not to explode in front of me, that’s even worse. She’ll act like everything is fine but then I’ll hear her crying in the shower.”
“She is coming across a little…manic,” I agreed. I didn’t want to insult Chloe—the woman was an absolute sweetheart, and I knew she wouldn’t be acting like this if she wasn’t stressed beyond belief. “And I’m not calling her a bridezilla. It’s not like she’s being unreasonable. I mean that she seems like a stick of dynamite with the wick burned all the way down.”
“Exactly,” Paul agreed quickly. “It’s not healthy for her or our relationship. We should be able to talk through everything, but she’s totally cut herself off from me. I shouldn’t feel distant from the woman I’m marrying the day before our goddamn wedding, you know?”
I searched for a way to comfort my friend but came up empty, because long-term commitment was a mystery to me.
We both stared at the ground with our arms crossed. There was plenty more to say but no way to put it into words.
“Hey, did someone call a meeting without alerting the rest of us?”
Paul and I turned to find Trent, Aiden, and Dominic storming toward us.
“Yeah, what’s going on over here?” Dominic asked. “You guys look intense .”
Once again, Dee’s Lost Boys showed up for each other. It didn’t matter how much we’d grown and changed in the years since college; we had an unbreakable bond. When things got tough, we were there.
I felt so lucky to have this crew in my corner.
Paul gave them a halfhearted wave. “Hey guys. Just trying to keep calm and carry on, you know?” He hitched a thumb over his shoulder toward the steep stairs behind him. “Guess we need to get used to these.”
“Nope, absolutely not,” Aiden said with authority. “We’re getting that elevator fixed if we have to do it ourselves.”
“Yeah, it’s not like Nana Dee and the old aunts and uncles can make it up those steps,” Trent added.
Paul sighed as he nodded.
“Hold up. Whatever has you upset is bigger than the elevator, isn’t it?” Aiden asked. “What’s going on?”
Paul looked around at us. “Too much to get into now. Let’s just say I’ll be happy when tomorrow is over, and I can get back to real life. I want to be married to Chloe, but the wedding can go fuck itself.”
Dominic snorted. “Good luck with that,” he said, almost to himself.
It was no secret that our sole married friend wasn’t having the easiest time in his marriage. The one bright spot in his life was his three-year-old daughter, Hailey.
“Hey,” Trent said. “Are you sure? Because we could kidnap your ass and get you out of here?—”
I scowled at him. “Trent, stop . He doesn’t need that right now.”
“Sorry, just trying to lighten the mood. You know we all love you, man. And Chloe.”
Paul’s shoulders sagged. “And so do I. That’s not the problem at all. Chloe is incredible, and I hope you guys find someone as special.” He glanced toward me, Aiden, and Trent.
My stomach dipped when my mind immediately conjured up a vision of Piper. Yeah, she was pretty amazing. I wasn’t exactly sure where things stood between us, but I was enjoying it too much to question it.
“Maybe you’re getting all the tough stuff out of the way in the beginning. When everything seems perfect at the start, you never really find out if you know how to work your way through problems,” Dominic said, sounding injured by whatever he was facing.
I knew that for a fact. Just look at my parents. They were deeply in love, and they still wound up divorced. And my dad had kept trying to recapture the magic, only to fail time after time.
“Hey, no matter what, you know you’ve always got us, right?” I asked.
“I do,” Paul agreed. “Thanks for always having my back.”
“Listen to you with the ‘I do,’” Aiden laughed. “Are you practicing for tomorrow?”
“Don’t need to. That part will come easy,” Paul lightened up a little at the thought. “It’s all of this,” he gestured around the space, “that’s going to kill me.”
“Stop worrying—we’ve got you,” Dominic said. He glanced past us to where everyone else was gathered. “Not so sure about your bride and her crew, though. Looks like they’re all arguing with someone at the door? Let’s go see what’s up.”
The three of them stalked out toward the hubbub, leaving Paul and me alone once again.
“I’m only going to ask one more time; you sure you’re okay?” I said pointedly, locking in on his face so I could watch his expression and make sure he was telling me the truth.
“Yeah, I want to know too,” a soft voice drifted over to us.
We both turned to find Piper standing in the doorway, her face creased with worry.
“Hey, you,” Paul said, brightening a bit. “What’s going on over there with Chloe?”
“Turf war.” Piper widened her eyes, half amused but clearly feeling the tension. “Someone’s trying to come in and see the space for a future wedding, and Chloe’s not having it. She’s worried about keeping everything under control. Of course we get it, but the folks out on the sidewalk don’t. It’s getting tense.”
Paul straightened up. “Should I go out there?—”
“Not necessary, your Lost Boys are handling it, and they’re plenty intimidating,” she reassured him.
“True,” he agreed with a shrug. “One less battle for me to fight, I guess.”
“Aw,” she studied him. “You look like you haven’t slept in a week.”
Paul finally let out a real belly laugh at her unexpected insult. “Hey, thanks Piper! Just what I want to hear before I spend a day getting photographed from every angle.”
“You know I’m kidding,” she said as she slid over to pull him into a hug. “You’re going to be such a handsome groom, and I’m so proud to be a part of your big day.”
“Thanks.” Paul squeezed his eyes shut as he hugged Piper. “Chlo loves you. And so do I.”
The brother-sister moment tugged at my heartstrings. Paul had told me he and Piper weren’t super close since they’d already done most of their growing up before their parents got married, meaning they never spent a lot of time living in the same house and learning to be siblings, but it looked like things were changing thanks to the wedding.
Maybe the tradition wasn’t all terrible?
“Paul! The elevator guy is on the phone,” Chloe called from a distance. “Paul! Get over here, please !”
He jerked away from Piper like he’d been electrocuted. “Hell yes, the answer to my prayers!”
He ran off, leaving me alone with Piper in the stairwell.
“You’re the only one who got him to relax a little, you know that?” I asked her.
Before she could respond, a frazzled bridesmaid whose name I couldn’t remember jogged over to us.
“Piper, Chloe wants you to run upstairs and check if the tables were delivered. The event company claims they were, but they were supposed to text a photo of them to her yesterday, and they never did. She only just remembered.”
“You got it,” she replied with a salute. She turned to me when the woman ran off. “ Where is that wedding planner they hired?”
I glanced up the stairs. “Grab your carabiner, it’s time to summit this place.”
Three flights of stairs later, we walked into a bright, light-filled room that was indeed crowded with tables, though not in any discernible arrangement.
“Okay, one less thing for her to worry about,” Piper said with a nod. “Although when are they going to get set up?” She peered around the room. “And where are the linens? Okay, now I’m starting to get worried too. How are they going to pull this off in twenty-four hours?”
“Piper, I’m on it,” I said as I gently grasped her arms. “I have a backup team for all of this, ready to deploy with one phone call. I didn’t want to step in and take over right away, but the minute they need my support, I’m here. There’s no way I’m letting anything go wrong on Paul’s big day.”
Her mouth dropped open. “Seriously? That’s the sweetest thing I’ve ever heard!”
“Nah, it’s nothing,” I said, a little uncomfortable about exposing my soft side, even to Piper. “I just think it’s important to have a backup plan, you know?”
She pushed closer and wrapped her arms around me. “You’re absolutely amazing, you know that?”
The sensation of her pressed against my body was enough to make me go hard instantly. She touched her nose against the base of my neck and inhaled.
“I freaking love the way you smell. And it’s not just the cologne, because I’ve smelled it in the bottle, and it’s different. It’s the way it smells on your skin.”
She inhaled again and kissed the spot, over and over as her hand slid down to my crotch.
“Piper,” I groaned. “We can’t…”
She pulled away to glance around the empty room. “There’s got to be a closet somewhere up here.” She rubbed her hand against my hardness.
“Okay,” I relented. “Maybe a quickie, before anyone can miss us.”
Piper laughed at me. “There’s no such thing as a quickie with you.”
I caught her smiling mouth against mine, and she melted into the kiss. My body went electric with the need for her as her hands raced along my back to grab my ass.
Yeah, we were doing this.
I started backing her toward a door across the room, never breaking off the kiss and hoping that whatever was on the other side was at least semi-private so I could bury myself in her. By the time we reached it, I was desperate and ready to rip her sundress off.
And the fucking door was locked .
“Damn it,” I said, jiggling it.
Piper let out an angry noise.
The sound of footsteps and voices echoed up the stairs to us.
“Fuck,” I sighed. “They’re coming.”
“Yikes, I need to calm down then.” Piper ran her palm over her hair to smooth it. “Do I look like I was just about to attack you, or do I look like a virginal bridesmaid?”
I laughed at her. “Honestly? You look a little unhinged. And I like it.”
She scowled at me and straightened the sundress I’d just been pulling up her thighs. I leaned over to kiss her once more, and she nipped my lip.
“I promise it’ll be worth the wait,” I murmured to her.
A group of people in black slacks and shirts crested the staircase, no doubt to begin setup in the room. Luckily, they were too focused on what needed to be done to notice the horny, messy couple hovering in the corner.
Piper smiled at me and took my hand.
“We should get down there. Stuff is happening,” she said.
Yeah, stuff was definitely happening inside me as well. I stared at Piper as we headed for the stairs and back down to the madness.
It was an unfamiliar sensation for me, but as long as it felt this good, I wasn’t going to question it.