Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
The reception is in the aft lounge, the room flipped by Pam's people in six hours into something out of a dream.
The two-story windows full of open ocean and a rising moon, the same hurricane lanterns from the beach down the center of long tables, the parquet cleared for dancing.
The ship pulled out of Grand Cayman at seven, and the whole island is a string of lights sliding backward off the edge of the world.
My sister is married.
And Finn is still missing.
I started to panic about an hour ago when he wasn’t in our room. Then when Garrett and Rhys both asked if I’d seen him, I went straight to Theo and Dahlia. They said he had to take care of something, but they weren’t sure what.
Which sounds like absolute BS.
“He'll be here,” Dahlia says, materializing beside me in her reception dress. A party dress from the nineties with spaghetti straps. Her hair is pulled up, and she looks like Sparkle and Shine Barbie with a Boho wash.
Dahlia hands me a flute of champagne. “He's the best man. He still has to give the toast.”
“No, I know.” I take a sip. “Just wanted to make sure he was okay. It was hot on the beach.”
“Mm.” Dahlia grins. “Worried about heat stroke.”
“Exactly. He was in a full suit.”
The party heats up around us with passed appetizers and plenty of room to socialize. Theo and Dahlia's first dance grows into a group affair when the band swings the tempo, and Theo reprises his captain role when Garrett throws him his hat. Just for Dahlia.
When Dahlia comes over to take a break, Renata clinks her glass and mentions that she and her fiancé are thinking of a beach wedding too, and Dahlia lifts her glass to me and mouths “Fourteen.”
We both drink.
Mom dances with Denny while Rose chats with Theo, and I spot Dad sitting at a far table, nursing a glass of wine. He’s talking to someone whom I can’t ID by the back of their head, but his eyes flick to the dance floor, watching Mom spin.
Then, at 8:40, two things happen in the same minute.
The first is that Aunt Bev attempts to climb onto the band's riser, and my contingency snaps into reality.
I dispatch Rhys to be charming and ask her to dance while Garrett simultaneously offers to hold her drink, swapping it for an identical-looking spirit-free version.
A chair with good sight lines and a plate of cake appears at stage left, and Bev lands in it mid-pivot, delighted.
I’m grinning to myself when the second one drops.
The doors open, and in walks Finn. His suit pants are a little wrinkled, his jacket slung over his arm. His good white shirt is open at the collar with a smear of something dark on one of his cuffs.
My heart plummets. Something he needed to take care of?
My brain starts cataloging as he walks over to Theo and Dahlia. Is that a red scratch across the back of his right hand?
He says something to Theo, then goes straight to the mic. He waits for the band to land on the final chord of the song, then leans in.
“Hey, everyone. Sorry I'm late,” Finn says.
Everyone turns to him, delighted before he even says anything. My old annoyance returns a fraction. “I was— “ He draws a breath, and his eyes sweep the room, landing on me for half a second, then brushing away. “Ah . . .running an errand. Best man business. Very official.”
The crowd chuckles.
Then he starts his speech.
“Growing up, we didn't get to pick our neighbors.
Nobody consulted us. Four kids got dropped onto the same block on Larkspur Street, and we were just supposed to make it work.
Theo was the kid who'd offer you half his snack and then, thirty minutes later, inform you the offer had been reviewed and rescinded.
You all know the phrase. It's on the slideshow.
No takebacks wasn't a cute saying on our street. It was official legislation.”
Finn delivers each line with dramatic perfection. He has everyone eating out of the palm of his hand.
“It existed because of this man. We had to invent a law to force Theo not to change his mind, and, as you can see, it worked spectacularly.
But here's the part I've never told anyone, and Theo, I'm sorry, I know you had the toast pre-approved, this part's off the notecard.” Finn gives a dramatic pause.
“Everybody on our block knew I grew up in the house with the trampoline.
Technically true. What you couldn't see from over the fence was that it was also the house where nobody was home. My folks worked like their lives depended on it. Because they did, and I love them for it. They’re the reason I know how to work hard.
But a kid doesn't understand payroll. A kid understands that the lights are off again, so I got very good, very young, at being the kind of kid other families like having around.
I've been told I'm charming.” He grins, pushing up the sleeves of his shirt, and one of the bridesmaids hoots.
“Well, that's where it comes from. Charm is a skill you learn when you can't afford for people to stop inviting you to dinner.”
My heart cracks in half. How did we not know this was happening? I look to Dahlia and Theo. Neither of them looks surprised, and I must feel the same way Dahlia did when she was sitting in my cabin. Did everyone know Finn’s family was struggling except me?
Finn continues, “The reason I'm telling you this at a wedding is because one specific night, my twelfth birthday, both my parents got stuck on shifts. It happens. Wasn’t their fault.
I told the Quinn girls that we'd 'celebrated the night before,' which was a lie, and I was sitting on my back steps eating cereal at seven o'clock when—” Finn’s nose scrunches.
He sniffs and clears his throat. “When Theo, Dahlia, and Harper came through the gate.
Dahlia had a Pop-Tart with a birthday candle stuck in it, already lit, walking slowly across the yard so it wouldn't go out. Harper was singing the whole song by herself until she shamed the other two into joining.”
He pauses for laughter, and I can’t tell if he’s looking at me. My eyes are too full of tears to see anything but blurred shapes.
“Harper asked me what my favorite dinner was. Then she vanished and returned with a box of taquitos. Close enough.” More laughter.
“And Theo handed me one of his walkie-talkies.
The good ones. Half of the pair his grandfather gave him.
Every night for the next year, that thing crackled at nine o'clock.
Storms. School nights. Every night around nine o'clock, 'You there? '”
He pauses to wipe his nose. “I’ve never once told any of you what that meant to me.
And that was the night I knew we were more than friends.
That’s how I learned what a family is. So, Theo and Dahlia, you’ve been my siblings since I was nine, but today, you’re the first to sign official paperwork.
And Theo. Twenty-five years ago you gave me one walkie-talkie and made this thing between us permanent.
Today you did it again, in front of witnesses, with a far better ring. ”
Finn’s glass is up, and the rest of the room follows suit. “To Theo and Dahlia.”
The room thunders, everyone drinking, cheering, the band swelling, and then Theo’s up out of his chair to bear-hug Finn. But by the time I've wiped my eyes, set my glass down, and looked back at the head table, the mic is on the stand, and the jacket is gone off the chair.
I curse under my breath, searching for Finn. Nowhere. The man swoops in, gives his speech, and then rushes off again?
We have guests, a live band, the bride and groom, and I'm standing at the edge of my own masterpiece of a party with a champagne flute going warm.
How could he avoid me after that? How could he—?
“Hon.” Pam from guest services materializes at my elbow in her off-shift cardigan and electric-blue eyeliner. And she looks troubled. “I need you to come look at something.”
I snap to attention. “What's wrong? Is it the cake? The band's on until eleven, if the noise complaint came from Deck Eight again—“
Pam waves me off. “It's a situation. Up top. It really needs the coordinator.”
“Okay. Yes, let me grab my tablet—“
“No tablet.” Her hand closes on my wrist, and she's already steering me toward the doors.
She takes me up the aft stairs, past Deck Ten, past the pool deck's blue glow, up the last narrow flight to the top of the ship. The sun deck.
She stops in front of a velvet rope strung across the landing with a sign that says PRIVATE EVENT. Pam unhooks it and ushers me through.
I turn back. “Pam—“
“Six days ago you told me this wedding needed to be perfect.” She's already retreating down the stairs with a click-clack. “Go take care of the last item on the list.”
I stand there, frowning. Last item? I don’t have a last item.
I turn back and continue forward. The deck is dark, and the ship's wake unspools like silver behind us. String lights are up, which is a nice touch, and . . . I pause. How did any of the lanterns get up here?
I follow them around the shuffleboard court and past the stacked loungers to the open stretch of deck at the very stern.
And that’s where I freeze. Ahead of me, on the deck of the Dreamboat Aurora, stands a fence. Exactly like the one in my childhood backyard.