Chapter 17 Violet
VIOLET
I stare after Sawyer, rooted to the spot.
My heart is thundering so loudly, I can hear my pulse all through my body and feel it beating hard.
In a daze, I reach up and touch my lips, and it’s almost like I can feel his against them.
Even though it was just the warmth of his breath I felt, there’s something like a phantom touch left behind.
His gaze was so hot that it seared right through me, and even thinking about it now makes my heart skip a beat. There was such an intensity to the way he looked at me. Like I was the only person in the world, let alone in the bakery. Like nothing else mattered other than us, right then and there.
It definitely didn’t seem fake.
Nothing about it felt like it was to keep up appearances or trick anyone at all. It felt like Sawyer meant every single word he said to me, and like he wanted to make sure I heard it and believed it.
My stomach flutters at the thought of that.
The timer for the cookies goes off at the same time as the bell above the door jingles. That shakes me out of my daze, and I grab the cookies out of the oven, leaving them on the work top to cool while I dash out to take care of the customers.
The rest of the day is slow, which is kind of a good thing, considering my head is in the clouds for most of it.
Every time I stop moving, I think about Sawyer, and I spend a lot of time shaking myself to try to focus.
Unfortunately, when I close up for the afternoon, I have to go to a fitting for my dress for the wedding.
With everything going on with the guys, I’d almost forgotten about it, but the reminder is there on my phone, telling me I have half an hour to get to where I need to be.
I text the guys to let them know, feeling weird about it as I do. It’s the kind of thing I’d do with a partner, the kind of thing I used to do with Andrew when I wasn’t coming straight home, but it’s not like the guys and I are really together.
Still, I want them to know where I am so they won’t wonder. That just seems like good manners.
Isabelle is already at the little boutique she chose to get our dresses from. She has a fitting today too, for her wedding dress, and that doesn’t make me feel any better about what I’m about to do.
Trying on clothes in front of someone as thin and pretty as my twin sister has never been fun, and this isn’t going to be an exception to that rule. At least Isabelle is more likely to be focused on herself than me, so I won’t have to deal with her making any comments.
A woman with bright blonde hair and an even brighter grin shows us to the fitting area where our dresses are hanging up waiting for us.
“I’ll give you a few minutes to get changed and then be right in to make adjustments,” she says, flitting out and closing the door behind her.
Isabelle starts undressing right in the middle of the room, and I hurry to one of the little changing stalls, glad for the privacy. It must be nice to just feel confident enough to be in your underwear anywhere you want.
“Are you okay?” she asks out of nowhere.
I blink, half out of my jeans, caught off guard by the question. “Yeah?”
“I mean, you were in a lot of pain yesterday, right? It was all very dramatic.”
“Oh, yeah.” I grimace, chuckling ruefully. “My period caught me off guard is all. The first day is always pretty rough for me. After some rest and a lot of painkillers, I’m doing better today.”
It’s nice of her to ask, really. Isabelle is usually in her own world, focused on what’s going on with her, so it’s touching that she’s concerned about me.
“Oh. You left us high and dry over period cramps?” she asks then. “We had to make the final dessert decisions on our own because you just left. I asked you to come because I wanted your opinion, and then you weren’t there.”
And yup. That’s more like it. Classic Isabelle to bitch that she didn’t get what she wanted because I had to go take care of myself.
Of course, it’s not enough that I went there at all, after working all day. Of course it’s not enough that she completely overlooked the fact that I have my own bakery she could have been supporting. All she can focus on is the fact that I left because I didn’t feel well.
But that’s just Isabelle. She’s always been this way, and she will probably always be this way. So I sigh to myself, swallowing down my irritation. It’s a waste of time getting upset about something that won’t ever change.
“Andrew wasn’t much help either. He kept saying I could pick whatever I wanted, but if I knew what I wanted, I wouldn’t have asked you to come. So you see how it was inconvenient for me.”
“Yeah, I can see that,” I tell her. “I would have stayed if I could, sorry.”
“Yes, your boyfriends whisked you out of there pretty quickly, didn’t they?”
There’s a tone on the word ‘boyfriends’, but I let that go too. I don’t want to dig too deep into that right now.
“They were worried,” I say simply, leaving it.
We get into our dresses, and I help Isabelle zip hers up the back. She looks beautiful because of course she does.
Her dress is princess-like without being over the top. The skirt is full, trailing behind her just enough to make it interesting, but not so much that she’s going to have to be managing it for the whole wedding.
The neckline is cut low to show a bit of cleavage, and the bodice hugs her trim waist tightly, showing off her amazing figure. The sleeves are long, since it’s a winter wedding, and the whole thing looks timeless and elegant in a way that makes me sigh with envy.
I remember going to countless bridal shops with her to find what she deemed ‘the perfect dress.’ There was a stretch of time where every dress she tried on had something wrong with it.
Too long, not long enough, too lacy, not fancy enough, too low cut, too high necked, too many beads, ugly embroidery.
On and on and on. And of course our mother just enabled her, reinforcing that she deserved to feel like the most beautiful woman in the world on her wedding day and saying that we’d just keep looking until she found what she wanted.
Luckily we didn’t end up finding a dress in another state or something, or it would have made the whole process even more trying than it already was.
And at least Isabelle’s not the sort of bride who has relegated her bridesmaids to wearing potato sacks to stand out. She’s going to do that already, so she let us pick from a selection of dresses all in the same color.
The dresses are lovely, in a deep, wine red color that goes along with the winter theme of the wedding.
I even feel like I look good in it, which is rare for formal wear.
The material has some give to it, so I don’t feel suctioned into it, and it’s long and flowy in a way that makes me feel light and pretty.
The seamstress comes back in and has us take turns standing on a raised platform in the center of the room. She walks around slowly, pulling fabric tighter or making notes about where things need to be let out.
The whole time, Isabelle chatters about the wedding.
“I just don’t understand why people are trying to make changes to the menu now,” she says, shaking her head.
“RSVPs were due in weeks ago, and now Andrew’s coworker’s wife is trying to say she wants salmon instead of the steak because she ‘doesn’t want to do beef around the holidays. ’ What does that even mean?”
“I… don’t know,” I tell her. “Maybe it’s a tradition thing?”
“A tradition she just realized she had in the last week?” Isabelle scoffs.
“Probably she’s on a new diet or something and thinks the salmon will be healthier.
Which would be fine if she had realized that weeks ago!
It’s so annoying. This is my special day.
It has to be perfect, and I’m not going to let some accountant’s wife ruin it because she can’t decide between steak and salmon, you know? ”
“It is inconsiderate of her. Did you tell her no?”
“I told Andrew to handle it. They’re on his list, since he just had to invite work people.”
“Right,” I murmur.
“Did I tell you about the issue with the flowers?”
I shake my head.
“So Mom is all about these damned poinsettias. Which, I get it. Winter wedding, winter flower. But they don’t come in the right color from the place we’re getting all the other flowers from.”
She talks about the flowers and the DJ, who she’s had to talk down from several Christmas themed remixes on their set list, and I nod and make the proper comments, trying to be supportive.
Isabelle just really wants to hear herself talk and get things off her chest, so it makes it easy to just nod along with whatever she says.
“How are the sleeves, love?” the seamstress asks, standing up straight to look at the sleeves of my dress.
It’s an empire waisted gown, which skims over my stomach in a way that looks more flattering than I expected. The neckline shows off quite a bit of my chest, and the sleeves aren’t too tight.
“I think they’re perfect,” I tell her.
“Lift your arms like this?”
I mirror her pose, and the sleeves don’t pull too snug. The seamstress nods. “Perfect. We just need to adjust the hem for you, then.”
The fitting wraps up after not too much longer, and I breathe a sigh of relief, ready to stop being poked and prodded at. The seamstress is working on the final alterations with Isabelle when I hear something at the door.
I turn, and I’m surprised to see Lennox, Sawyer, and Rhett standing in the main part of the boutique, looking at me through the doorway.
All three of them have this look in their eyes that makes my heart race. They come forward, stepping into the fitting room as a unit.
“Damn,” Sawyer says, his eyes traveling up and down the dress—and my body. “You look amazing.”
Lennox nods. “That is a beautiful color on you.”
Rhett doesn’t say anything, but he keeps looking at me, and I notice it when he wrenches his eyes away from my cleavage.