12. BAILEY
Chapter twelve
BAILEY
Saturday morning, I wake up in my own bed.
Not my own bed at home, obviously. My own hotel bed. The one closest to the window. Across the room, the other bed is rumpled but empty.
For one blessed second, relief moves through me so fast I almost laugh.
We made it through night one.
No accidental touching. No half-asleep reaching. No waking up tangled together with terrible decisions and expensive hotel sheets. Just two adults in two separate beds, behaving like people with self-control and functioning brains.
Then I roll onto my side and see Finn standing near the window with a coffee in one hand, already showered, already dressed in dark pants and a plain gray T-shirt, looking relaxed in a way that feels personally inconvenient.
His hair is damp, his jaw is freshly shaved, and he looks put together and fully awake while I am still half-buried under the comforter with my hair doing whatever it did in the night.
He glances over. “Morning.”
“Morning,” I say, my voice rough from sleep.
His mouth curves. “You look relieved.”
“I’m appreciating our excellent decision-making.”
“Ah.” He looks toward the two beds. “Very responsible of us.”
“Shockingly.”
“I’m proud.”
“You should be.”
My phone buzzes on the nightstand before I can say something stupid.
I grab it and see Aunt Diane’s name on the screen.
Wedding day has officially begun.
Aunt Diane: Bailey, if you see Lily before brunch, please tell her not to answer questions about the napkin colors. She is fragile today.
I stare at the message.
“Wedding emergency?” Finn asks.
“Napkins. I’ve been asked to protect the bride from linen-related threats.”
“A sacred duty.”
My phone buzzes again.
Mom: Brunch is at ten. Your aunt says casual but nice. Nobody knows what that means.
I show Finn the screen.
He squints at it. “What are you wearing?”
“For brunch? Jeans, sweater, boots. Something that says I remembered this is a wedding weekend, but I’m not ready to dress up before coffee.”
“Then I’ll follow your lead.”
I point at him. “Don’t be charming at brunch.”
His brows lift. “Is that a real instruction?”
“No. That would be too much to ask, but I still resent you for making my family like you so quickly.”
“Your mother is very nice.”
“She is.”
“Your dad asked good hockey questions.”
“He did.”
“And Lily seems happy.”
That softens something in me before I can stop it.
“She does,” I say.
Finn’s expression shifts too, not into anything big, just quieter. “Then today should be good.”
It is such a simple thing to say. No joke. No clever angle. No dramatic promise that he will manage the day, make it easier, or keep Evan away from me.
Just “today should be good.”
***
The brunch is in a bright restaurant downstairs. Aunt Diane has reserved a private area near the back, where sunlight spills across the table.
Lily is already there when we arrive, tucked between her fiancé, Caleb, and her maid of honor, looking beautiful, tired, and a little dazed.
The second she sees me, she stands. “Bailey.”
I hug her carefully. “How are you holding up?”
“Good. Happy. Slightly afraid of my mother. She keeps asking if I’ve eaten.”
“Have you?”
“No.”
“Then unfortunately, I’m on her side.”
Lily groans. “Betrayal.”
Finn steps in beside me, smile easy but not overwhelmingly. “Good morning. You both look very calm for people getting married in a few hours.”
Lily laughs, and some of the tightness leaves her shoulders. “That is a generous read.”
“I’m Caleb,” her fiancé says, offering Finn his hand.
“Finn. Nice to meet you.”
A few minutes later, somehow Finn ends up between my dad and one of my uncles, discussing hockey road trips, minor league bus rides, and the difference between playing hurt and playing stupid.
My father, who does not give approval easily, listens with his elbows on the table and a thoughtful crease between his brows.
Finn doesn’t oversell it. He answers questions without turning the table into an audience.
He laughs when something is funny. He asks my uncle about his knee replacement like he genuinely wants to know, then somehow ends up explaining why hockey players are terrible at admitting pain without making it sound like a lecture.
“You all are stubborn,” my dad says.
Finn nods. “Professionally.”
My dad actually smiles.
I take a sip of coffee and pretend I’m not watching too closely.
Across the table, my mother notices, because mothers develop that skill.
She leans toward me. “He’s lovely.”
“Mom.”
“What? I’m allowed to like him.”
“You met him yesterday.”
“I have strong instincts.”
A few seats down, Evan laughs at something one of my cousins says. I notice, but it doesn’t pull me out of the moment. Today the table is loud, Lily is smiling, my coffee is hot, and Finn is beside me stealing bacon from the serving platter with quiet, undeserved confidence.
“You’re very comfortable for a guest,” I say.
“Your mom likes me, so I’m basically family now.”
I shake my head, but I’m smiling.
The day stretches ahead of us, full of flowers and photos and my aunt’s terrifying schedule.
***
The ceremony is in a ballroom one floor above the restaurant, transformed with rows of white chairs, tall arrangements of greenery and blush flowers, and candles tucked safely inside glass hurricanes.
Finn and I take seats on the right side toward the front with my parents.
He waits for me to sit first. Then he settles beside me.
Across the aisle, Evan sits with a few mutual family friends. He glances over once, his gaze moving from me to Finn and back again.
I look away first, not because I’m uncomfortable, but because I don’t want to give him the satisfaction of thinking I’m checking.
The music changes, and the room settles into that hushed, expectant quiet that only happens right before a bride walks in.
Caleb stands at the front in a navy suit, hands folded in front of him, trying to look calm and failing in the sweetest possible way.
Then Lily appears, and the whole room rises.
She looks beautiful, of course. The dress is simple and elegant, her veil soft around her shoulders, her bouquet trembling just slightly in her hands.
But it’s her face that gets me. Nervous and happy, like she is walking toward a life she chose instead of one she talked herself into because it made sense on paper.
My throat tightens.
I am not usually a wedding crier, but when I sniffle, Finn quietly passes me a folded white napkin without taking his eyes off the ceremony.
I take it. “Thank you,” I whisper.
His mouth barely moves. “Didn’t see anything.”
I look back at Lily before I can smile too much.
The officiant begins, and the room settles into that hush weddings seem to create. Lily and Caleb hold hands. He rubs his thumb once over her knuckles. She laughs softly at something the officiant says, and he looks at her like that sound alone was worth showing up for.
Something in me softens as I watch them.
For a while, I thought secure looked like Evan. Polished. Successful. Predictable. A man with a plan, good manners, and a life organized enough to make everything else feel like a personal failure.
But sitting here now, watching Lily smile through her nerves while Caleb holds her hand, I wonder how much I mistook control for care.
Evan always had answers.
He just rarely asked the right questions.
Finn, on the other hand, asks too many questions when he’s teasing and almost none when it matters most. He watches. He waits. He lets me decide what I need instead of acting as if he knows better.
That should not feel as rare as it does.
The officiant talks about choosing each other on easy days and hard ones, in joy and uncertainty, in the ordinary stretches no one posts about.
I look down at the napkin in my hand.
Then, because I have apparently lost all survival instinct, I glance at Finn.
He’s watching the ceremony, jaw relaxed, expression softer than I expect. He’s not looking bored or restless. Not scanning the room for the nearest joke.
Just present and fully there.
He must feel me looking, because his eyes move to mine.
For one second, neither of us looks away.
The string quartet plays quietly beneath the officiant’s words. Somewhere behind us, someone sniffles. Lily laughs through the start of her vows because her voice breaks, and Caleb squeezes her hands.
Finn’s gaze stays on mine. Warm and steady.
Dangerous in a way I don’t have a neat label for.
I look away first.
Lily reads her vows with trembling hands, promising Caleb patience, honesty, terrible road-trip snacks, and to love him even when he uses every pan in the kitchen to make one meal.
Guests laugh.
Caleb wipes his eyes.
When it’s his turn, he tells Lily he loves her kindness, her stubbornness, and the way she makes every room feel more like home just by being there.
I press the napkin carefully under one eye and hope my mascara stays in place.
Finn leans closer, voice low enough for only me. “Still composed?”
“Extremely.”
The officiant pronounces them married, and the room erupts.
Lily and Caleb kiss, sweet and happy and slightly clumsy from nerves. Finn stands beside me as the music swells.
Our hands brush, just once, and neither of us moves away.
When the room starts to empty, Finn looks down at me. “You okay?”
“Yes. A little watery, but good.”
He studies me for half a second, then nods. “Good ceremony.”
“It was.”
“Good vows.”
I look at him. “You listened?”
His brows lift. “I do that sometimes.”
We move with the crowd toward the cocktail-hour space, but my mind lingers in the ballroom. On Lily walking toward Caleb. On Finn handing me a napkin without making a joke out of my tears.
For years, I thought the opposite of chaos was control.
Maybe it isn’t.
Maybe it’s someone who can stand beside you in the middle of all of it and not make you carry the whole room alone.
Cocktail hour is supposed to be the easy part.