Chapter 20
CHAPTER
TWENTY
MYLES
I barely slept last night. Some of it was due to having to contort my body to fit the way-too-small sofa bed, but most of it was because of her.
The woman who’s currently lying in my bed, her warm limbs tangled in my sheets.
The woman I’ve been lying to myself about.
The one I want more than I want air to breathe.
It’s early and as I swim away from the cabin, the only sound I hear are the echoing coos of the mourning doves as they call to each other from across the lake.
My brothers’ cabins are all dark, and even the main house looks quiet. In an hour there will be mayhem as everybody wakes up to get ready for the ceremony, but for now I appreciate the peace.
Not that my mind is peaceful. It’s too full of her. I feel like I’ve been walking around with a constant hard-on. It was bad enough when she was walking around the cabin half-naked. Now she’s not only half-naked but has told me exactly what she wants.
Me. Inside of her.
And now I can’t think of anything else. I want to kiss her. I want to consume her. I want her to forget everything except my name. And I want to hear her scream it out loud as I fuck her to oblivion.
Jesus, this cold swim isn’t doing me any good. Nor is the contrived distance between us. I tread water and reach down to adjust myself, wincing because it’s almost painful. If I were anywhere else, with anybody else I’d just fuck myself stupid and be done with it.
In the distance, I see my father walking down to the water’s edge. He spots me and lifts his hand up.
I wave back and thankfully the excitement abates. Nothing like seeing your seventy-three year-old father looking more calm than you are, even though he’s about to renew his vows to his thirty-something wife.
“Myles!” he calls out. There’s a fluttering of wings where he’s scared the doves.
I swim over to him and climb out of the lake, water pouring off my body. “What’s up?” I ask.
“Actually, I need your help,” he tells me, and I try not to sigh.
Because somebody always needs my help.
“What is it?”
“Can you come talk to the celebrant with me?” he says. “We need to sort out who’s doing the readings.”
And now I know exactly who’ll be doing the readings. And making sure the ceremony goes smoothly. And it won’t be my dad.
AVA
The string quartet begins to play, their achingly sweet music filling the air, and the woman sitting next to me pops a mint into her mouth and starts sucking it noisily.
I’m in the back row of the seats that have been laid out for the vow renewal ceremony.
Myles is at the front, sitting between his mom and Liam.
His family tried to get me to sit with them, but I refused.
I need a little space away from Myles. Last night was…
intense. But this morning when I got up he was working and then had to come up to the house to help his dad get things ready.
I offered to come with but he insisted I stayed and got ready at my leisure.
We haven’t talked about our conversation but the promise of more is still there.
I can’t sit still because just thinking about it makes me squirm.
I also had to do a pee test. I’m still not ovulating. That’s probably a good thing because I don’t want all these witnesses around for when I’m dragging Myles back to his cabin to keep his promise.
There are about eighty people here in all.
Some of them I recognize from last night, and they gave me a nod as I walked up to the house and sat down on the chairs laid out on the lawn.
Others have driven in just for today, like the mint monster next to me.
She’s already on her third. She bites down on it and it makes a cracking sound in my ear.
Isn’t she worried she might break a tooth?
Somebody sighs and then everybody turns around to look at the entrance of the aisle.
I do the same, and I can see why they’re sighing because Julia Salinger is beautiful.
Her platinum blonde hair is swept up into a low chignon that makes her look timeless.
Her dress is an ivory lace, high at the neck, tight at the bodice and hips, then out like a fishtail to a trailing train.
She could be getting married at any time in the last century, and she’d still look chic. And when Myles’ dad catches her eye she blushes like a schoolgirl instead of the thirty-something she is.
“Beautiful,” he mouths to her as she makes her way down the aisle alone, naturally catching the rhythm of the string quartet. There are no groomsmen or bridesmaids. Apparently, Julia just wants everybody to have a good time and not fuss over her.
She’s so nice and I can see exactly why Myles’ dad loves her.
Thinking of Myles, I glance over to see if he’s watching her, too.
But he isn’t. He’s sitting ramrod straight, looking dead ahead of him.
He’s wearing a tux like all the other brothers, and it makes his shoulders look wider than ever.
There’s a gap between the top of his shirt collar and the sharp line of his hair and my fingers tingle when I remember how I played with that gap last night.
“Mint?” the woman next to me asks, holding out the now half-empty bag.
“No thank you,” I reply.
She shrugs and puts another one in her mouth.
Julia arrives at the front and her husband takes her hand, looking lovingly into her eyes. He strokes her cheek and she tips her head to stare up at him, as though they’re in a world of their own.
The celebrant clears his throat noisily. “Friends and family of Julia and Rupert, we’re here today to bless their decade long marriage, and to renew the words of love and commitment they first said to each other all those years ago.”
“She must have been a child bride,” Mint monster mutters. I bite down a smile.
“Marriage isn’t just the commitment of one person to another,” the celebrant continues.
“It’s a message to the world that love still exists, even during times of strife and pain.
And though it’s old fashioned to say, it’s the bedrock of society.
Of family. Even of humankind. If we can’t commit to the ones we love, how can we commit to our fellow humans? ”
“Yeah, well he’s got a vested interest,” the woman next to me mutters. “If people don’t get married he’s out of a job.”
She has a point. I smile at her and whisper. “I’m Ava.”
“Marie.” She holds out her bag of mints again. “Sure you don’t want one?”
“I’d love one,” I whisper, and put one in my mouth. They’re surprisingly good.
The celebrant is still talking. I must have missed a bit because he seems to be segueing into the next section.
“But before we hear their vows, Rupert has asked his son, Myles to read a poem to us all.”
Myles is doing a reading? He never mentioned it.
He stands with a smooth, easy movement, and strides to the podium, placing a piece of paper down on top, and nodding at the celebrant.
The expression on his face is unreadable, but I’m pretty used to that.
His eyes scan the guests until they find mine.
They stay for a moment, and I stare back at him, not breathing.
Then he looks down at his piece of paper and blinks.
“Sonnet One Hundred and Sixteen by William Shakespeare,” he says, in that full, deep voice. The guests are all silent, there’s not even the crunch of a mint.
Then Marie pipes up, “Who invited Henry Cavill?”
I squirm in my seat again, but thankfully Myles starts to read.
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
My heart does a little leap at the sound of his voice, true and clear. His face is impassive, but the way he says the words tells me he understands them. That love once found is unmoving. Never changing.
He carries on speaking and I’m captivated. I can’t stop looking at him, and when his gaze falls on mine I feel it to the tip of my toes.
I think he feels it, too, because the very corner of his lip quirks as he comes to the end of the sonnet.
He glances down at the words and then back at me again. My heart starts to batter against my ribcage. His lashes sweep down, and for a moment I feel frozen in time. I ache for him.
I can imagine lying in his arms in a meadow, the sun shining through dappled leaves, as he holds up a book and reads poetry to me, his other hand stroking my hair.
Love is an ever-fixed mark. Isn’t that what he just read? Does he believe that? My heart starts to beat faster, because I think even I believe it. I think I could easily fall in love with Myles Salinger.
The problem would be falling out of love with him. I’m not sure that would be possible.
Once Myles is seated again, I somehow regain my composure. Julia and Rupert read their vows, and Julia starts to cry as Rupert promises to be by her side forever.
“Bet he said that to the other two as well,” Marie says.
Luckily, the string quartet starts up right then, playing a version of When a Man Loves a Woman by Percy Sledge.
Julia and Rupert sit to the side and talk softly to each other, while the guests start to murmur about how lovely everything is.
I look at Myles again. He’s in exactly the same position as he was before. Ramrod straight. Unmoving.
And now I’m fantasizing about how I make him lose control. I saw a glimpse of it last night and it was intoxicating.
“He’s handsome, isn’t he?” Marie says, elbowing me in the side. “Troubled, though. Apparently they weren’t sure he’d even come.”
“Oh,” I say politely. “I’m glad he did.”
The string quartet fades away and the celebrant walks back to the podium and reads out his final remarks. Then he asks us all to stand up, as Julia and Rupert walk hand in hand down the aisle, stopping every few seconds to kiss and hug their guests.
It feels like forever before they reach the back where we’re sitting. Julia gives me a big smile and grasps my hand. “Thank you for coming,” she says softly. “And for making Myles come.”