34. Reid
Reid
“I never thought I’d say this,” I tell Quinn as we dress for the wedding day. “But I might enjoy yurts more than regular hotel rooms…”
“I told you it’s great,” she smiles as she primps her hair. “Like your own little cottage.”
“With a hot tub and everything…” I say, and she smiles.
“You’ve impressed me a lot these last couple of weeks, Mr. August,” she says, and my smile falters.
My eyes flash to her in the mirror. I don’t think she knows my real name.
I’ve never mentioned it and she’s never asked.
At this point, I don’t know why I’ve kept it a secret.
Maybe because that’s what I do in my personal life–I go by Reid.
With a name like mine, a presence like mine, in the field I work in, it’s often considered a death sentence to tell women just who I am.
They don’t care about the legal title. They shorten to one thing.
The Love Killer. The Grim Reaper. Yes, I hear the whispers. And honestly? They haven’t been inaccurate. My views on marriage and forever and all that fluff have been pretty clear to both other people and myself.
Maybe…until now.
As I watch a perfect woman attempt to make herself even more perfect in the mirror, I find myself questioning a lot of my thinking.
“Oh?” I finally respond. “How so?”
“You’ve been less miserable,” she says flatly, and I laugh. “Less difficult. Less pessimistic.”
“Feelings aside, seeing your friends undeniably happy makes it hard to be negative about it all,” I say, and she finally leaves her hair alone to turn around and face me.
“So you might be changing your beliefs about love after all?” she asks. Her tone is so overly sugar-coated I can’t help but wonder if there’s something else underneath it. A sort of Sour Patch Kid of statements if you will.
“I don’t know about the entirety of my belief system,” I tell her with an easy smile as I take one casual step closer to her to close the gap.
“But I will say that certain things have…swayed…my opinions on the concept of love a little bit…” I say as I sweep her hair from her eyes.
Then I plant a soft, slow kiss on her perfectly pink lips.
She tastes like the strawberry gloss she just applied, and I don’t even care.
“Your lips are going to be pink now,” she smiles into the kiss.
“That’s alright. Matches the salmon,” I say, and it makes her laugh, which was entirely my intention.
The wedding is exactly as it should be for Reid.
The live orchestra is back, sitting in the back where guests file in.
The day is beyond perfect for an outdoor wedding in a garden that looks straight out of a scene from, well, Bridgerton.
Everyone is dressed to code. Some of the women are even wearing white gloves.
It’s like Daphne and Simon themselves are getting married.
And while it’s a thousand miles from my idea of a perfect wedding (not that I even have an opinion on the subject…
though it would be more modern, less casual acquaintances and I wouldn’t be wearing a suit with a fish name), it’s perfect for Drew and Cassidy.
And I can’t help but believe he did better this time around.
Cassidy might have expensive taste, but she’s much better suited for him than Jenny ever was.
I say that as an observant best friend and nothing more.
“What are you smiling about?” Quinn’s whisper pulls me back into the present as we walk down the aisle.
While Cass hasn’t known Quinn for very long, she insisted that it only made sense for Quinn to be one of her bridesmaids.
And when her maid of honor ended up going into labor a week early, the part was handed to Quinn, who, as you can imagine, had no complaints.
“Just…” I trail off. Good fucking god, what have I become?
“Just?” she presses with a smile as she leans into me.
“I’m…happy for him,” I say the words as if I had to grab hold of them with both fists and rip them out.
But even with her gushing reaction and all the smiles on us and the orchestra playing a Taylor Swift song and the fucking birds singing, I mean it.
Because at the front of the altar is Drew in his hideous suit with a grin on his face so unfiltered we can take photos of it and make fun of it till his funeral.
And romantic or not, I like seeing my best friend that way.
“You’re getting soft,” she tells me.
“And you’re misbehaving,” I tell her with a warning in my voice that makes her smile and blush.
“I would never…” she giggles, and she blushes even more, pink blossoming across her cheeks the color of roses.
Never have I fucking ever been in danger of getting a hard-on from a girl’s blush.
“See you on the other side,” she whispers with a voice drenched in velvet, and I pray to God the sunset behind us is blinding people enough that they can’t see my most likely bulging crotch.
The ceremony is typical–long, fluffy, tearful. And while none of those tears are mine, I hold a smile for my friend and his bride. I also snigger softly when I see Quinn unwrap what I thought was a ribbon from her bouquet and it’s actually a handkerchief to dab her eyes with.
This woman, I swear to God…
* * *
“This was a good call,” Quinn says as she kicks her heels off the moment we step inside our yurt. “I can’t imagine leaving tonight.”
It’s already past 2am, and it is safe to say we are exhausted as we collapse onto the bed.
“Listen,” I sigh. “When Drew said we were welcome to stay another night, I jumped on it. The last thing I feel like doing is packing up and driving home right now.”
“I don’t have the energy to take my dress off,” she says, and I roll my head to smirk over at her.
“You want help with that?” I ask, and she rolls her eyes and shoves me playfully.
“I thought you were exhausted,” she says.
“I mean, there are always exceptions…” I say, and she rolls over to face me.
“You’re right…there are…” she practically purrs.
“Oh?” I ask, and I can feel my slacks growing tight again.
“Yes,” she says, and then she shoves herself up and hops off the bed. “I want to go in the hot tub.”
“The hot tub?” I let out, completely derailed by the conversational twist.
“Yes,” she says as she steps into the small bathroom to grab her bikini off the hook. “I am tired from dancing, sore from dancing, and nothing in the whole world sounds better than sitting in a hot tub outside by the river with a glass of wine.”
“Nothing?” I ask as she tosses her dress on the floor.
“Nothing,” she smiles out the doorway with a smile. A moment later she walks by me, wine bottle in hand, her body looking unreal in her black bikini. “Wanna join me?”
Do I want to subject myself to more torture as I look but don’t touch?
Yeah, why not.
I change into my shorts, and I have to admit, it feels good to shed the suit. Then I make my way outside with two glasses and slip into the tub with her.
“Alright,” I admit with a gritty exhale. “This feels pretty damn heavenly,”
“Told you,” she smiles, pouring some wine into both glasses. Then she sets the bottle aside and takes a glass from me. “Cheers to the last wedding,” she says.
“Yes. Cheers to that,” I say. “Thank God.”
“Was it that bad?” she asks after taking a sip.
“Which part?” I ask.
“Any of it…”
“Yes,” I say, and she laughs and splashes me. I chuckle too.
“No. Most of them were bearable. This one was probably the best though,” I say.
“Yeah? Why’s that?” she asks.
“I look damn good in salmon,” I kid, and she rolls her eyes.
“No, really…why was this one your favorite?” she asks again.
I stare off into the night sky for a moment as I think about it. “I mean, seeing Drew happy, finally, was obviously big. His first marriage was a bit of a train wreck.”
“Really?” she asks, taking another sip.
“Yeah,” I rake my hand through my hair, wetting it with the movement. “She cheated. Not only that, but she had a kid Drew didn’t know about.”
“Jesus…”
“Yeah. One who lived with her bio dad and she had no interest in seeing. She kept it all from Drew. Until they ran into her at a grocery store. It was a big messy scene,” I say.
“That poor girl. And Drew too,” Quinn shakes her head as she tries to imagine. “No wonder you have such tainted views of love.”
“Yeah, well, my own failed marriage didn’t help,” I admit and her eyes flicker up to me.
“You were married?” she asks.
“No. Not exactly. I was…about to pop the question. Our relationship was…she was everything I wanted. Or so I thought. But I guess it wasn’t what she wanted,” I say, taking another sip.
“You had a ring?”
“A ring. A proposal plan. It was big, too. Rooftop big. I hired a band and set up a party for after she said yes. Catered. Rented out. Practically broadcasted. And then, right before I went into my speech, she broke up with me. Casually. Like she was telling me she didn’t like the iced coffee in her hand and wanted to get something else. ”
“Oh my gah…” Quinn says, sitting up straight.
“And that was that,” I tell her, finishing off my wine and reaching for the bottle.
“That’s awful,” she shakes her head. “No wonder you…you’re…” she trails off.
“Yeah, well,” shrug. “It wasn’t just that, though.
It was my failed relationship. It was Drew’s.
It was seeing divorce cases time and time again, showing just how blindsided people are.
How love, or chemistry, or whatever it gets labeled, can totally fog people’s perception of what’s real.
And then, when they least expect it, there’s a left hook.
I’ve watched it so many times…enough times to kind of just… strip me of hope.”
“I’m so sorry, Reid,” she says. “And here I was accusing you of just being pessimistic. You had reason. You still do.”
“I do,” I agree, leaning forward and placing a hand on her leg under the water. “But I also have reason to believe it can be good. Real. Worth something…”
She bites her lip. And while I would love for this conversation to take a different turn, one that leads to my hand traveling further up her thigh and beyond, I also want to keep talking. To know what’s going on in her head and heart.
“What about you?” I nod, keeping my hand firmly on her knee.
“What about me?”
“Why are you such a romantic?” I ask.
“My mom died.” She answers and I flinch.
“Jesus. Wait…what?”
“When I was ten.”
I open my mouth to ask the questions that come naturally at this point (when, how, are you okay?) then realize all of them sound extremely insensitive. So instead I reply with a simple, “Damn.”
“Yeah,” she smiles wistfully. “It was rough. But my dad was a good dad. He did an incredible job raising me, actually. My mom’s sisters helped out a bit with the girl parts, but mostly it was him.
He worked hard, but made time for me. And he’s always had a very strict no work talk rule.
He never let anything about his job or his clients or his cases, or his day pour into our personal life. ”
“He didn’t vent at all,” the question comes out more like a statement. An impressive statement. I’m not entirely sure which sector of the law field he works in, but I know that regardless, it’s no small task to switch hats like that.
“We went bowling,” she says, and one of my eyebrows arches up so quickly and so high I’m worried I just shoved the hairline up an inch.
“Bowling?” I echo.
“Bowling,” she laughs. “He loves bowling.”
“I hate it,” I say with a cringe. “It’s always in a janky building with dim lighting and fried food and cheap beer and everything feels dirty.
Not to mention the faint scent of cigarette smoke from the 90s that they were never able to scrub out of the walls.
It’s almost like…it was the thing to do in the 90s and they never updated anything but the prices. ”
But Quinn just laughs again. “That’s what he loves about it. It’s nostalgic and simple. It’s like stepping into a time machine.”
“And your dad is a big-shot lawyer, right?” I ask, and I know how that sounds. Like I’m hinting that a man in my field would never. But Quinn is unbothered.
“He is. The grossness of it all never bothered him. We always brought hand sanitizer so we could eat between turns. Or we just went with the hand for this rule,” she says.
“Hand for this?” I ask.
“Yes. Your right hand is for bowling and your left hand is for eating.”
I shudder. “Okay, I’ve heard enough.”
“He also loves that he’ll never run into anyone he knows at Freeway Bowl,” she adds.
“Freeway Bowl,” I echo, shaking my head and taking another sip.
Then I smile at her. Quinn’s cheeks are pink from the heat of the water and the wine. And as much as I find her father a strange man, I find her utterly fascinating and enticing and…irresistible.