Chapter 6
Chapter Six
The elevator dings a second time, the doors sliding open on an empty car, and neither of us moves. Finn's still holding my hands. His thumbs are pressed against my knuckles like he's about to start a thumb war, and up close, there's none of that schmoozy act on his face at all.
No smirk. No dimple deployment. Just Finn.
I pull my hands back because my palms are starting to sweat. “The laptop.”
He blinks. “What?”
“The slideshow ran off the AV guy's laptop. If somebody added those photos, there's a file. It would have a timestamp, right?” I'm already moving, swiping at my eyes with the back of my wrist, heels clicking down the hallway. “He’s probably still packing up.”
Finn catches up in three strides. “So we're investigating.”
“I'm investigating. You're tall and know how to manipulate people into doing what you want.”
“That's the nicest thing you've ever said to me.”
The ballroom is deep into cake when we slip back in. The band has recovered, and it seems as though the rest of the wedding party has collectively agreed to pretend nothing happened.
I hunch over, as if that’s going to protect me from view with Finn strutting through the room next to me. We find the AV guy, Devon, if his nametag is to be believed, and I open my mouth to launch in.
Before I can speak, Finn steps ahead of me, the easy grin sliding into place. “Devon. Hey, man. Rough one, huh? Not your fault.”
He drops his hand on Devon's shoulder like they've been friends for a decade. In ninety seconds, Finn has the laptop open, and Devon is leaning over it, eager to prove his innocence.
“There.” Devon points. “That's the presentation file. I loaded it Tuesday from the flash drive Mr. Gallagher provided.
“That’s me.” Finn flashes a smile.
“Oh, well. Nice to meet you.” Did he look flustered? Devon cleared his throat. “Haven't touched it since. Until I pulled it up just now.”
“Show me the slideshow file history,” I say.
He clicks, and there it is. Modified: Today, 4:40 PM. Devon angles the screen, scrolling through thumbnails, and my stomach drops.
Mom's lace. Dad's tux. The cake. The church steps. And in the middle of them, the girl in the green dress laughing up at Theo, all of it sitting there like a splinter under a fingernail.
If I had any doubt that Finn was involved, the timestamp put that to rest. At 4:40 this afternoon, Finn Gallagher was standing in a service corridor with his arms full of welcome-bag boxes, complaining that the ship should provide dollies.
He was with me from four o'clock on. I never lost sight of him for longer than it took to find the tape.
I should feel relieved. What I feel is the floor moving, and not from the waves. Because if it wasn't Finn, then someone else purposefully edited this presentation while I was taping table numbers and slid our family's worst year into my sister's happiest one. Who would do that? And why?
“Who would have access to these photos?” I wonder aloud.
Finn shrugs. “Family. Friends. People from home.” He runs a hand over the back of his neck. “You know who the girl in the green dress is?”
“No. Do you?”
Devon steps away from the laptop to finish packing up the rest of the AV supplies. From the back of the room, we watch the servers passing out the remaining dessert. Thankfully, it doesn’t seem like our presence has made too much of a ripple.
Finn lowers his voice. “Elise. Theo's girlfriend, freshman year into sophomore. I don’t know who would have that photo except her and Theo.”
I raise an eyebrow. “Is she mad he’s getting married?”
“I doubt she’s thrilled, but she’s not the kind of person who would do this. It’s been years.”
I nod. It’s weird to think about Theo and Finn having a whole life that Dahlia and I weren’t a part of. Even stranger to realize it’s going to continue on without me the moment we leave this ship.
I’m taken back to that moment in the grocery store with Finn.
It’s so easy for me to ignore the feelings I still have for him, good and bad, when he’s not standing in front of me.
Is this how it’s always going to be? Theo and Dahlia are getting married, so as long as Finn and Theo remain friends, he’s going to be around.
What if he shows up with a woman in a green dress?
What if I bring home a boyfriend? Will my insides still tie in knots the second he walks in the room?
“Hey, you good?” Finn turns to look at me. I’m staring at a thumbnail of the four of us in my childhood driveway.
I click out of the slideshow and step back. “Yeah. Fine.” I scan the ballroom, not even realizing what or who I’m looking for until my eyes land on my sister. I need Dahlia. She’s smiling, listening to something Theo’s saying, but her shoulders are tense. “Let’s talk about this back in the room.”
“Sure.”
I make a beeline for her, forcing myself not to jog. I was so upset that Finn would do something like that, my first reaction wasn't to worry about Dahlia. Little by little, I’ve been making this wedding more about me than her.
“Hey.” I pull up next to her, and when she turns, her face moves through emotions like a flip book.
She stands and wraps an arm around my waist. “Walk with me.”
“Yes, please.”
We take a lap, adopting our favorite public personas as teenagers. Girls just having innocent fun while we pass along gossip with forked tongues.
“Theo’s going to murder Finn,” Dahlia says.
“Get in line. Except not really because it wasn’t him.”
“Truly?” She laughs like I just told her I forgot to put on underwear.
“Yep. We looked at the file history. Someone added those before dinner. Finn was helping me set up.”
“Well, guess I’m losing that argument. I thought it was finally proof he doesn’t think I’m good enough for Theo.”
I roll my eyes. “Still haven’t gotten to the bottom of that. I asked him.”
“You did not!”
“It came up.”
“And?”
“He deflected.”
Dahlia sighs. “Yeah. He’s good at that.”
I want to dig in to that response, but Theo's grandmother snags Dahlia as we pass and tells her the cake was the best she's had since 1987. Meanwhile, Marisol has migrated to Finn at the back of the room. She’s giving his arm little taps like she's checking a melon for ripeness.
“That’s new,” Dahlia murmurs.
“What?”
“Your skin is turning the oddest shade of green . . .”
I smack her and link our arms. “Stop. I’m not jealous.”
“Totally. It’s envy all the way.”
I slap on a shiny smile again, pretending I’m not starting to sweat through my dress. “Maybe you should’ve asked her to share a cabin with Finn.”
Dahlia raises an eyebrow. “Hm. Not a bad idea, maybe I’ll—”
I yank her the other direction. “Stop. We’re already settled. It’s fine.”
Dahlia laughs, real and throaty this time, but she doesn’t push. Instead, she returns to the matter at hand. “So who are our suspects?”
“Mom. Aunt Bev. Theo. “
Dahlia scoffs. “What about Dad?”
“I doubt he even knows where their wedding photos are.”
“If he still has them.”
We slow when we see Mom rearranging the sugar packets by color at the coffee station.
Dahlia walks up and taps her shoulder. “Uh, Mom—”
“Wasn't the cake wonderful? I told Pam's people, don't skimp on the ganache—“
“Mom.”
Her hands stop on the sugar. For a second, my mother looks every minute of her age and every mile of the last fifteen years, and then the crank turns, and the sun comes back up. “Are you both having a good time?”
“I mean, could’ve been better without the slideshow Rick Roll,” I say.
She waves me off. “Someone made a mistake. Old files get mixed in. Computers.” Mom waves at the universe.
“Mom, stop.” I grab her hand. “I’m sure that sucked for you.”
Her lips pinch and pull to the side. “I’ve had plenty of time to get over your father, thank you very much. But it does make you think.”
I frown. “About what?”
She shrugs, pulling her hand from mine and straightening the white tablecloth. “It’s hard to really ever know people. How can you ever be sure?” She straightens and walks away without giving us a second look. Which is a good thing because we’re both gaping.
“Did she just—?” Dahlia starts, but doesn’t finish her sentence.
Yeah. She just.
Our mother, the woman who has talked about me and Dahlia getting married someday since the time we were toddlers, just bagged on this wedding. “And at her favorite daughter’s welcome dinner.”
“I’m not her favorite daughter,” Dahlia says.
I don’t argue back because I don’t have to. We both know she only said that to be kind. “Was I more fun?”
“What?”
“When we were younger. Was I more fun?”
Dahlia’s brows pinch. “Well, I think we were all a lot more fun when we didn’t have mortgages to pay or vehicles to register.”
She’s making a joke, but I can’t jump to enjoying the humor. “I’m serious. You’re still fun.” I look at her, taking in her blond hair, curling around her ears. The laugh lines barely starting to form around her eyes. The sparkly blue of her irises.
Dahlia drops her eyes, fiddling with her fingernail. “I think . . . someone had to be responsible. You know?” She looks up, an apologetic smile on her face. “I think it’s a miracle that any of us are able to have fun at all.”
I nod. She’s not wrong, but it still stings a little. “How can I get it back?”
Dahlia’s face drops like she just saw someone kick a puppy. “Harp, you don’t have to get anything—”
“You said it. Finn said it.”
“Finn said you aren’t fun?”
I draw a deep breath and shake the question off. “He was mostly joking.”
“So was I. Mostly.” She smiles, making a face. “That’s why I didn’t want you taking all of this on. You don’t have to be—”
“Okay, I get it. I need to . . .” I shake out my hands. How long had they been clenched like that? “I’ll try.”
Dahlia glances back at Devon, standing at the back with his equipment cart. “You don’t need to figure out who put those pictures in. Not for my sake anyway.”
“But what if detective work is fun for me?”
She barks a laugh. “That’s what you said about running the wedding. I’m starting to wonder—”