Chapter 42
42
Kieran
The best man placed a hand on Warren’s shoulder, and both men were tearing up. “Alfred, Lord Tennyson said love is the only gold. And, Warren, with Grace by your side, you, my friend, are truly rich.” He wiped a tear from the corner of his eye and lifted his champagne flute. “To love.”
We raised our glasses after the best man’s toast, which was the opposite of a cliché and embarrassing speech. I barely knew Warren, and I felt like I’d been to war and band camp with him and would go back to both if he asked.
“How am I supposed to compete with that?” Sybil whispered near my ear, taking a sip of her champagne.
“Have any Tennyson quotes up your sleeve?”
“I could drop in some Taylor Swift.” She took another sip, glancing at the handwritten notes in front of her, the loopy cursive so familiar to me now.
“You’ll do great,” I said, leaning in closer, my lips almost brushing her ear in that way that had become so familiar. I thought about pulling back but reminded myself it no longer had to just appear real. “The odds are good Warren’s dental school buddies are Swifties, right?”
She giggled. “I don’t think so, but I wouldn’t guess you were, either, so…”
“It’s just that one song,” I said defensively.
“Sure.” She fiddled with the strap of her dress, which was made from the same material as her sister’s but with touches of teal like the other bridesmaids’. I slid a fingertip along the fabric that crossed low on her back, noticing how goose bumps rose on her skin.
“Fine. Maybe a few songs on that album,” I mumbled.
“I knew it,” she said.
She looked at me like I was her person, and, despite my anxiety about what the review board would decide, I knew I didn’t want to be apart from her. She searched my face the way she had so many times before, and I stroked the line across her back again, the slow slide against her skin feeling far more intimate than something we should have been doing in public.
She leaned closer, her elbow grazing my stomach. “You’re a certified fan now, huh?” She smelled sweet, and I began a path along the edge of the dress, from her shoulder toward her lower back, soaking in the way she reacted to my touch.
“I’m a fan of you,” I said, repeating the motion in reverse. Her lips were slightly parted, the familiar deep red color inviting. “And that one song,” I added. The reception buzzed around us, and across the table, her mom and stepdad chatted amiably with some friends, but Sybil captured the entirety of my attention.
“And now we’ll hear from Grace’s sister, maid of honor Sybil.” The DJ’s voice cut through my daze, and Sybil was on her feet and away from my touch before I knew it.
“Here goes. Taylor Swift is better than Tennyson, right?” she said, downing what was left of her champagne before grabbing my untouched glass with a wink. “Do I seem nervous?”
I did my best to pretend the last few moments hadn’t happened and shook my head. “Shake it off.”
Sybil accepted the mic and scanned the crowd. “For those who don’t know, I’ve had a bit of luck the last several months, and I get asked often what it feels like to be so lucky.” She looked across the room to me and I smiled, recognizing the speech she’d brainstormed lying in bed with me.
“I tell them I have no idea, but I should pay someone to figure it out for me,” she said with a smile, and the crowd responded with laughter. “But what I actually tell them is that I’ve been lucky my whole life.” She looked at Grace, who leaned against Warren. “I was lucky to have Grace as my older sister—she was so well-behaved. Our mom wasn’t prepared for me, so having the element of surprise on my side was a real win. I was lucky she was in my corner, no matter what. Come to think of it, I’m lucky Warren has been, too.”
Warren kissed the side of Grace’s head as she dabbed at her eyes.
“But most of all, I learned about luck when my sister talked about Warren.” She paused and looked at the couple again. “You know my first question when she said she’d met someone was ‘Is he hot?’?” The room filled with laughter again, and I saw Sybil visibly relax and set her notes aside. “Warren, she said yes. But after that, she got this dreamy look in her eyes that never quite went away, and she told me about your smile and your sense of humor, and she told me how you made her feel seen and valued and loved.”
Sybil paused again, waiting for the collective aww . “But the thing was, she continued to say those things. She told me how you were special and how she’d trust you with anything. I’d never seen my sister like that before, and one day she told me how lucky she was to be in love with you, how lucky you were to have found each other.”
That was the end of her planned speech. She was about to raise her glass and call for the toast to the couple, but she looked across the room at me, eyes meeting mine, and she kept going. “That’s where I learned about feeling lucky, but that’s also where I learned luck wasn’t enough. I’ve seen these two build a home together, and I was crashing in their guest room a lot, so I have all the dirt on their fights,” she joked, earning a laugh and a playful shushing motion from Grace. “But I’ve also seen them share with each other, share it all—their fears, their hopes, their dreams, the things we don’t tell other people because we’re afraid they won’t understand. I watched them go the extra mile to help each other. I saw these two realize how lucky they are to have each other and put in the time and care to build something between them. I saw the kind of partner I wanted to be someday.”
She met my gaze for another moment as her words sank in, and my heart started beating faster, but she broke eye contact and looked at her sister and brother-in-law, raising her glass. “So join me in toasting Grace and Warren. To being lucky and realizing what you have.”
Everyone raised their glasses—my own glass empty after one sip, since the beautiful woman onstage had stolen mine, along with every ounce of good sense and self-preservation. I wanted nothing more than to pull her into my arms and have her admit what she’d said was about us, too. A chorus of voices repeated her toast, and the applause circled the room as Sybil hugged her sister, the two sharing quiet words before Warren joined the hug. A passing server offered me a fresh glass and I accepted, eyes not leaving Sybil. “Thank you,” I said, probably too late for them to hear me.
The DJ played a love song, announcing everyone was invited to join the couple on the dance floor. As Sybil stepped off the stage, I took another drink of champagne and walked toward her. “Still in my duties as a wedding date to dance with you, right?”
She gave me a small smile. “I wouldn’t want to hold you in breach of contract,” she said, handing her glass to a server passing by the edge of the dance floor.
“Decided to dispense with the lyrics?” I said, taking her hand to join in the slow dance in progress.
“Was it okay?” She rested her palm over my chest, and I covered her hand with mine.
“It was perfect,” I said, guiding her hips as we moved to the beat of the song. “You changed the end.”
A couple near us laughed, and I leaned closer to hear Sybil’s response. “Yeah, it came to me on the fly,” she said, resting her head on my shoulder, her fingertips grazing the nape of my neck for a split second. “Talking about just luck was too…”
“Insufficient?” I offered.
She nodded against me, pulling away to meet my eyes again. “Yeah. Like, if it’s just luck…that’s not enough, right?”
I shook my head, trying to read into her words enough to figure out what was next for us. “Definitely not enough.”
I took her hand from behind my neck and spun her out and back, breaking the tension over the hold I was letting her have on my heart.
Coming out of the spin, she grinned widely. “Everyone is going to be jealous of how good we look out here,” she said, sliding against me.
“That’s the goal, right?” I spun her again as the song reached the last crescendo. I couldn’t see her face as I said it, her body a blur of cream and blue lace and red, kissable lips.
Her palm slid to my neck as she spun back into me, her body pressed to mine. We held each other, moving to the closing beats of the song, and she searched my face again, lips parting as if to say something, and like a sucker I waited again, breath caught in my chest. She blinked and her expression turned playful. “Exactly the goal,” she said. “Big finish?”
“Yes,” I said, stepping forward to lower her into a dip. I felt like a little kid, I was so giddy about her, about this being for real. I dropped a slow, soft kiss to her lips. “Big finish.” But this was just the beginning for us.