Sixteen
Teagan
I don’t want to be here.
With only six weeks until the wedding, the homestretch of events has begun. The reception started less than an hour ago and I’m already ready for it to be over. I shouldn’t complain, but I will, because I can. I reserve the right to bitch about something I sacrificed my rare free time to plan.
Out of the options I found last minute, Mary and Ryan picked this banquet hall. It’s a moderately sized room in SoHo that spills out onto a larger outdoor space, very similar to their wedding venue on the island. The interior space is maybe a bit too small for the two hundred attendees, but we will only be here for as long as the cocktail hour lasts. Hour is a loose term.
I stand at my hostess post near the entrance. Peonies, roses, streamers, and balloons, all in shades of pale pink and white. It looks like Barbie’s wet dream, but the bride gets what the bride wants. The outdoor space has more classic wedding vibes—a white tent to block the glare from the sunset, white-clothed tables sitting beneath hanging flower chandeliers of white wisteria and the same pink peonies as inside, everything coordinating perfectly with the gold Chiavari chairs and place settings, and the pink rose petals scattered beneath mini bouquet centerpieces.
I outdid myself, as always, but it wasn’t easy. Or cheap.
Fifty-eight thousand dollars, and I kept it under budget. This party is as big a celebration as any weddingless reception can be, but it is frustrating to know it costs just as much as most couples’ entire wedding. We all come from money, but I am the only one who seems to care about how it’s spent. It’s not lingering trauma from the orphanage or any other reason my parents have come up with. I choose not to detach myself from the reality of life outside our overprivileged bubble, unlike the rest.
A couple walks in and looks lost in the sea of pink. I snap into hostess mode. “Hi, welcome! You can leave the gift here or I can take it for you.” They smile and hand the box to me. Based on its shape and weight I can tell it’s another piece of the china place settings. A dinner plate, specifically. “Hors d’oeuvres are on the tables across the room and the bar is in the corner next to it. Please help yourself and enjoy.”
They thank me and head toward the food that cost $110 per head. I let my forced smile drop when I walk over to deliver the box.
Lingering by the gifts table, I gaze into the crowd as they mingle. The room is full of people I don’t know. Mary’s family consists of a thousand unidentifiable aunts, uncles, cousins, and who knows who else. Ryan’s parents brought all of the business associates they pretend are friends. The “limited” guest list they gave me quickly expanded to almost three hundred names before I made them cut it down to meet the venue’s maximum occupancy, but that’s what they get for having their wedding in Ibiza.
Destination weddings limit the number of people who can go. It’s an expensive flight from New York, and it’s impossible to find affordable accommodations during peak season. Those who can’t swing the cost get their feelings hurt and beg for another way to celebrate with them. Thus, this root canal of a party was born.
Glancing at the clock on the wall, I see only forty minutes have passed. Cocktail hour will likely go on for another hour, then dinner, dancing, and speeches will happen outside in the tent. Four hours and twenty minutes left. Shoot me.
“Having fun?” a voice asks beside me.
I know it’s him without looking. “I did a lot of work for this thing, Heath. Let me have my pissy mood,” I grumble. “Are you having fun?”
“Oh yeah, a blast.” His matching sarcasm feels nice. He aggravates me, but compared to everything else in this room, he’s not at the top of my shit list for once. “A cash bar? Seriously? They’re fucking trust fund babies and can’t pay for drinks?”
“The venue wouldn’t allow it,” I answer his rhetorical question. “I’d rather be drunk, too, believe me.”
“If you hate these things so much, why did you agree to plan all of them?”
“Because that’s what friends are for, or whatever.” I finally turn my head to look at him. His black blazer, white shirt, and thin tie look delicious on him. Not that I would ever say that aloud. The perfect fit of his jacket definitely helps, but something about the monochrome makes his skin look bronzer and his mother’s Polynesian features more noticeable in his face. “Ryan would have picked one of you to do it instead, if any of you had a smidge of taste or competence.”
“I don’t know about that.”
“Why?”
He shrugs. “We pretend it’s all equal in the squad, but you know how it really is,” he says. We continue to stare ahead at the crowd as if we’re not having a conversation. “We have less and less in common every summer. Ryan is your law bestie, but you both are busy as hell. Jeremy is basically just your roomie since we almost never see his ass.” Neither do I . “Brett and Ryan are basically family, but I barely hang with Brett outside of the gym now that he’s flown off to ‘I’m married’ land, and it’s about to be the same with Ritchie.”
“The same how?”
His gray gaze is full of exasperation. “He’s gonna propose to his girlfriend. Bought the ring and everything.”
“What?” The idea of another wedding in our group is horrifying enough, but him ? This is just a dick slap in the face. “Is it . . . what’s her name? Julia?”
“Giuliana. Gigi.”
Not bothering to learn her name is a great example of how serious I thought they were. “I thought they broke up.”
“Oh, they did. Two weeks ago.”
I rub my temple with confusion. “What the actual fuck?”
“I know .”
“They break up every five seconds and that makes him think he should marry her?”
“I know.”
I want to throw up. With the way my parents guilt me about my choice to break up with Lenny, it makes me wonder if they’d rather I act like Ritchie and just marry Lenny next week. Who cares how toxic it is if it’s on their schedule?
“And here I was thinking I couldn’t hate being here more.”
Heath chuckles beside me.
My eyes dance through the crowd. Jeremy and Chet hover by the food, talking alone. Ritchie and his future bride bicker in the back of the room. Brett and his wife stand just a few steps away from Ryan and Mary, talking to their common acquaintances.
Maybe Heath is right. Everyone is in their own world, completely unaware of us or anything else around them. I’m lucky I have Heath to keep me sane while I run in circles doing everything for a group as aloof as our friends.
Still beside me, he licks the remnants of a mini quiche from his fingertips and catches my eyes. I look away to save myself. It’s easy to pretend we aren’t sneaking around when everyone is too wrapped up in their own shit to notice, but it won’t be if someone catches me drooling.
“Hey.” Heath grabs my attention again. He crumples his little plate and places it on the table beside me. I pick it up and throw it into the bin right next to us while shooting him a glare. “I know we’re not scheduled until later, but . . . ”
“But what?”
“Why not give this party the middle finger and go find a closet?”
“What? No.”
“Why not?”
“Well, one, I left the closet a long time ago, and two, I don’t want to get caught.”
He laughs. “Caught by who? Someone’s grandma?”
“Yes, because it would be Ryan’s or Mary’s grandmother. We have a twelve-hour notice clause for a reason.”
He hums in question. “We didn’t cancel for tonight, and if I recall correctly, clause 1a of the contract says our times are between seven and eleven.” He stretches his arm out to expose his watch. “It’s 7:18. Think of it as me being early.”
Quoting the contract and tempting me with punctuality? He’s really trying it. “Shut up.”
“This thing won’t be over until ten, guaranteed, and I’m assuming you’ll have to stay after too. Would you rather stand here waiting to talk to a ton of strangers or go somewhere and let me give you an orgasm?”
Let him? That’s technically correct, but lord . My body wakes up at the mere memory of the last time I let him.
It is infuriating how annoying Heath is. Moreso, how annoyingly difficult it is to turn him down. Does he know I was counting down the minutes until this would be over and I could convince him to fuck me in his car so I wouldn’t have to wait until we got to his apartment?
Of course I’d rather have sex. I’d rather have sex than do 99 percent of this wedding shit.
My thoughts battle until the warmth in my panties is too difficult to ignore. “Fine.”
“Fine?” He perks up as if he thought I’d turn him down.
“One condition. I’m running this shit on my own tonight. Jeremy and I got in a fight so he’s avoiding me, Brett and Ritchie are worthless, and I need the happy couple to stay happy. If you can keep the guys from fucking shit up until after the toasts”—I turn my head to look him in the eyes—“you can have me. Wherever you want.”
His stare tells me everything I need to know.
“Deal?” I ask to snap him out of it.
“Yeah,” he says, sounding absolutely parched. “Deal.”
“ Good luck ,” I sing.
He has no idea I am going to fuck him regardless, but now I get sex and less stress. I smirk over my win.