Chapter 7
CLAIRE
Bet you’ll look cute tonight, doll. Try not to think about me too much when you see me again.
I read Louis’s text once more, feeling sick to my stomach. That arrogant asshole.
Instantly, I go to block his number. My thumb hovers for half a second, then taps Confirm, and his name vanishes from my messages. Gone. I should have done it the morning he walked out, but I kept his number the way you keep a bruise, pressing it occasionally to check if it still hurts.
It does, but less than it did.
My reflection stares back from the bathroom mirror. Hair done, blonde waves pinned back on one side with three tiny diamanté clips. Makeup soft, highlighter on my cheekbones that the YouTube tutorial promised would make me look luminous.
The dress is over on the bed. Bronze satin.
Floor length. A ruched deep V-neck held up by thin tapered straps that trace over my shoulders and dip into a low V at the back.
It has a wide-banded midriff that cinches at my waist, and the skirt falls in a full A-line, satin pooling and swirling with a high slit up the right leg.
The first time I tried it on, the fabric rippled around me, appearing regal.
I bought it thinking I’d wear it next to Louis, but the dress is too gorgeous to waste on regret.
Besides, I’m going with Brody. Since that kiss two days ago, I’ve been replaying the pressure of his mouth every time I close my eyes. Tonight we might share another, and I may get close enough to really drown in that scent that calms me unlike anything else I’ve tried.
My phone pings again, and I glance down at the screen to find it’s my sister, Ivy.
We’re here already! Got the good seats. How far away are you? Oh, and Louis just arrived. He looks good tbh.
My stomach cramps. I type back, Be there soon, and set the phone face down.
Contacts. If I’m doing this, I’m going all in. No glasses. The full perfect picture of me.
I lean over the counter, pop open the small case, and pinch out the first lens.
Right eye. Blink. It stings, sharp and watery.
I hold my eyelid open and wait. Left eye.
Same sting, same flooding. I blink rapidly, gripping the counter edge.
These are the new ones from Dr. Bodle’s office, picked up this morning.
But my bathroom has gone soft at the edges, the details of my face blurring, and when I glance out the window, Brody’s house is an impressionist painting.
I grab the rewetting drops. Two in each eye. Better. Enough to walk without hitting furniture but not enough to read a menu or identify features from any real distance.
Movement outside. Through the haze, a figure in Brody’s backyard. Tall and broad, pushing a lawn mower in steady rows. Shorts. Boots. A tank top stretched across muscular shoulders.
What’s he doing?
He said he had a meeting out of town and that he’d meet me at the venue. But there he is, doing yard work, and the ceremony is in just over an hour.
My chest squeezes, and my hands start to tremble because what if he changed his mind? I press them flat against the counter and breathe, four in, hold, four out, but the rhythm doesn’t stick because the spiral is already spinning.
He must have come home early and completely forgotten about the wedding.
Or he’s going to bail. I’m going to show up alone, and Louis will give me that smile, and my family is going to tell me I didn’t work hard enough to keep him, and I’m going to stand there in this beautiful bronze dress by myself and—
Stop. Breathe. Handle it.
I pull on my robe, shove my feet into flip-flops, and march out the back door.
The fence reaches my shoulders. I peer over. “Hey!” I call out. “Brody!”
The lawn mower drowns me out. He’s at the far end of the yard, pushing away from me, and it’s clear from here that he has his phone propped in one hand, angled toward himself. Mowing and livestreaming while I’m disintegrating fifteen feet away.
“Hello? Can you hear me?” I wave a hand in the air to grab his attention.
Nothing. I pull my robe tighter, swear under my breath, and stomp down the side of my house and around to his yard. My flip-flops are sliding, and my robe keeps fluttering open at my legs while I’m clutching it across my chest where it’s gaping.
I emerge from around the corner, and he kills the motor, then turns toward me. He’s standing about ten feet away. I keep pulling the robe tight where it’s slipped. “What are you doing?”
He’s taller than I expected, but everything is gauzy and vague through these useless lenses.
However, with the dark hair and broad shoulders, it’s definitely Brody.
The general silhouette of a very large and fit man.
His face is mostly a handsome blur with a grin attached, which is unfair because even my broken eyeballs can apparently identify handsomeness.
His head bows down and then back up as if he’s looking me over, slowly, head to toe and back again, and my stomach flips even through the haze.
“Mowing the lawn,” he states in a deeper voice than the other night. Thicker as though he swallowed gravel. He’d better not be getting sick. “What are you doing?”
“Coming to get you because the wedding starts soon and you’re out here gardening.”
He tilts his head. “I… was?”
“Yes. Currently. Unless this is some kind of lawn-based meditation or you changed your mind.”
His grin widens. “Could be.”
“Don’t play around, please. I’m already having the worst contact lens experience of my life, and I can’t add lateness to the list.” I press my fingers to my closed eyes, then try to blink the world into focus. It doesn’t cooperate. “And are you sick? Your voice sounds croaky.”
He coughs into his fist, like he’s trying to decide not to laugh. “Claire?” He says my name carefully for some reason.
I blink at his blurred shape. “Yes? Are you okay? You’re being very strange.”
“I’m fine.” His voice dips around the words, amused and cautious at the same time. “You just… caught me off guard.”
“Well, consider yourself caught. Now please get uncaught, go have a shower, and put on pants that are not grass-adjacent.”
His eyes travel again, over my robe, my legs, my feet in flip-flops, and I suddenly remember I am standing in his yard half dressed, half blind, and fully losing control of this day.
“I’m sorry,” I add, because apparently my manners have decided to arrive late and underdressed. “I’m not normally this bossy.”
“No?”
“Well, occasionally. In kitchens and emergencies. And this is both, emotionally.”
That grin is still there. “So you want me to come with you?”
I keep rubbing at my watering eyes, making my blurriness worse. “That’s what I’m asking, yes. I’m panicking, and you’re standing there, but I need your help.”
He scratches the back of his neck, one hand still holding his phone, the lawn mower humming somewhere behind him as if it’s also waiting for an answer. “A suit I can do.”
“Thanks. It’s a semiformal wedding. Not a lawn wedding, that I’m aware of. Though, at this point, who knows? Maybe I’ll trip into a hedge and marry a shrub.”
His laugh comes out fast, and something in my stomach tightens despite the fact that I’m irritated, visually impaired, and one breeze away from flashing my gorgeous neighbor.
“Okay,” he says. “Count me in.”
Relief floods through me so fast my knees almost buckle. He’s not bailing. “Really appreciate it. Be out front in ten or fifteen minutes. I need to go get dressed and convince my hands to stop shaking.”
I turn, then pause and squint back at the blur of him standing in the cut grass, enormous, grinning, and somehow still making me burn from the full force of his attention. “Do you mind driving? My contacts are genuinely trying to blind me.”
“You got it,” he says.
I rush back inside. Robe off. Dress on. The bronze satin slides over my skin and settles heavy and cool against my body.
I fasten the straps, zip the side, smooth my hands down my stomach.
The woman in the slightly blurry mirror looks better than she deserves, given how this afternoon has gone.
Heels on. Clutch packed: phone, lipstick, tissues, and my glasses case tucked in at the last second because these contacts have a limited shelf life and I know it.
I’m at the front door. He’s there. A vehicle idling in the driveway, passenger door already open, and he’s standing beside it in a suit. The details blur together, but the shape is undeniably captivating. Handsome, broad, dark-haired. I’m suddenly breathless and just wish I could see him properly.
He gestures to the open door with a small, theatrical sweep of his hand, and I climb in. He shuts the door, walks around, gets in.
“This is the address,” I say, handing him the invite, which has the details.
“Got it,” he says and punches it into the GPS.
The cabin smells of vanilla from a hanging air freshener, and when he settles into the driver’s seat, his cologne fills the small space.
Something woody and sweet, and underneath it, a scent I can’t quite isolate.
Somehow different from the other night, but the vanilla and the aftershave are muddling everything, and I can’t find the base note I’m searching for.
He starts the engine, then pulls onto the road, while the radio plays.
“I appreciate this,” I say, clicking my seat belt. “I know it’s not how you planned your Saturday, and I’m nervous but really am grateful.”
“I’m a spontaneous person. When an opportunity presents itself, I take it.”
“With my ex being there, and my family, I need to look like I have my life together for approximately three hours, and then I can go home and fall apart in private.”
He glances at me, then back at the road. “I promise I’ll make it look real.”
“I know. I just don’t know if I can pull off my half.” I rub an eye and wince. “And these contacts are going to give me raccoon eyes by the time we arrive.”