Chapter Eight
Mark
I’d actually forgotten about the wedding entirely until Trinity texts to confirm our plans.
Which really says everything about how the last week and a half has gone, because initially, I’d been looking forward to this blind date.
Ever since a certain tall, leggy redhead shoved her way into my apartment, turned my entire life upside down, and then decided to act like none of it had happened—my mind has been a shitshow.
I know with certainty it was the best damn sex of my life, and I’d be willing to wager a sizable amount of money that was true for Ava too.
Yet she’s avoided me where she can, and where she can’t, she’s pulled back on sparring, which somehow is worse.
This careful, deliberate nothing is its own kind of answer.
Damn her for having the self-control to do what’s in our best interest. I don’t have a single good argument against it.
That might be what irritates me the most.
I’m especially annoyed that I have no interest in sitting through this wedding and reception with a gorgeous woman.
A casual hookup after an open bar might be just the ticket to forgetting all about my ill-fated one-night stand.
However, I’m not actually na?ve enough to believe that is possible.
Fairly certain I’d need a sci-fi-level memory wipe to forget Ava on top of me.
I’m a man of my word, so I pick Trinity up on time and spend the cab ride doing my level best to be charming and present.
We cover the standard first date territory without much trouble.
Her work, my work, how neither of us knows the couple particularly well and isn’t it funny how these invitations find you anyway.
Greg had prosecuted out of my office for a few months, and we’d been friendly enough in the way proximity encourages.
Then a federal offer came through and he left, and as work friendships often do, it had been quietly fizzling ever since.
But I’d already RSVP’d. Plus, it’s a decent networking opportunity.
Trinity is lovely. That’s an honest assessment, and it makes my mood even worse.
She’s smart, asks good questions, and laughs at the right moments.
Under other circumstances, I’d have been here for it.
Instead, I keep catching myself wishing she’d say something that makes my pulse spike.
Or that her eyes were a different shade, instead of the blue that now looks bland to me. Green, maybe.
Get a fucking grip. The sex wasn’t that good, I chide myself.
Liar. My alpha side grumbles.
There’s a moment of confusion at the door when the usher, a teenage kid who is almost certainly a younger brother of Greg’s, realizes that I know the groom and Trinity knows the bride.
The poor boy looks genuinely stricken, like this particular scenario hadn’t been covered in whatever ten-minute usher briefing he received. I take pity on him.
“It’s fine,” I say, glancing at Trinity. “We’ll sit on the bride’s side. Figure you might know someone over there, and I genuinely don't care where we end up.” She shrugs and smiles. I don’t know what I was hoping for from her, but whatever it was, I didn’t get it.
We find our seats and make another run at conversation.
It soon becomes clear that neither of us is really feeling it, and eventually I stop forcing it and let the silence settle.
Maybe it will be better once we have some snacks and drinks.
I scan the room instead, spotting a few familiar faces from the legal circuit and give a small wave.
At least I’ll have someone to talk to at the reception if Trinity decides to ditch me.
The music starts and the pastor appears, followed by Greg, who looks equally happy and nervous.
Mandatory for every groom I’ve ever seen.
There’s a pause, then the doors open again, and the bridal processional starts.
I’m not really paying close attention. Mostly I’m doing the mental math of how long until we can move to the golf club, whether the open bar will be worth staying for and exactly how many glasses of whiskey it might take to shake me out of my Ava-induced mood and have some fun.
Then I stop counting.
Because three bridesmaids deep, looking straight ahead with the relaxed composure of someone who had absolutely not yet spotted me, is the viper herself.
You have got to be shitting me. Is this some kind of karmic payment for sins I’m unaware of?
She’s resplendent in a pale pink satin dress that really should clash against her hair and skin, but somehow doesn’t.
Her hair is mostly down and curled, with one side pulled back and held in place with a jeweled comb.
She has one arm linked through the arm of a groomsman, a small bouquet of white, long-stemmed flowers clutched in her hands.
There is an unguarded softness on her face that I’ve never seen before.
It makes her look younger. Not that she looks old—lord knows she probably has a skincare routine that would bankrupt a small country—but this is different somehow.
My heart skips a little in my chest, and I have the strangest urge to growl and rip her away from the man daring to touch her skin.
It’s so unexpected and unsettling that I can feel my skin pale, even as I focus with a laser intensity on where they meet.
I force myself to lift my gaze back to her face, and it’s then that our eyes meet.
Hers widen in surprise, giving her an almost comically adorable, doll-like expression.
She nearly misses a step, but manages to catch herself, and the look is gone as quickly as it came.
The cool and detached face I’m more familiar with reappears, and it makes my chest ache.
I manage to get through the rest of the ceremony on autopilot. Vows, rings, the kiss, applause. I clap at the appropriate moments and smile when Trinity looks over at me, and I absolutely do not spend the entire time acutely aware of exactly where Ava is standing on that altar.
That would be pathetic.
The receiving line takes forever, as they always do.
It’s a practice I loathe. If I ever get married, I hope to hell my wife will let me nix the tradition.
By the time we make it through and Trinity has air-kissed and hugged the bride while I shake Greg’s hand, it’s been nearly forty minutes since I first spotted Ava.
More than enough time to reinforce the mental pep talk I’ve been giving myself to stay the hell away from her at the reception.
The golf club is exactly what I’d expected.
Floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the course, large, tasteful floral pieces, satin draping, and a combined monogram of the couple’s initials illuminated on the dance floor.
Pretty, but exactly like every other wedding I’ve been to over the last couple of years.
I hope they’ve managed to showcase something about their actual personalities and relationship in this reception.
I head to the bar, get Trinity a gin and tonic and myself a glass of Bulleit, and return to her at the table with our names on it.
She thanks me, and we make a few more passes at small talk, but it’s just not taking.
As expected, she excuses herself to go mingle with people she knows.
I don’t blame her. When it isn’t there, it isn’t there.
I do the same, and the cocktail hour keeps me busy enough that I almost forget who is busy taking pictures outside.
The lights dim and the DJ’s voice fills the room, telling us to find out seats and put our hands together for the new Mr. and Mrs. Hawthorne. A high-energy pop song kicks in with a bass line that vibrates down into my sternum, and the doors swing open.
The wedding party comes through first, and the crowd reacts immediately.
The bridesmaids have changed into short, sequined versions of their ceremony gowns in the same pale pink.
Only now, it’s cut high on the thigh and falls outward from the bust line, something between a 1960s Bond Girl and a babydoll lingerie set you’d find in an old Frederick’s of Hollywood. It somehow works.
The men have all ditched their jackets and ties, sleeves rolled to the elbows, and they look considerably more comfortable and relaxed than they had a couple of hours ago.
I spy Ava amongst them, and my mouth goes a little dry.
The cut of the dress and the way it flounces around her only accentuates her legs that go on for miles.
The sequins catch the light every time she moves, which she’s doing a lot of, as the entire bridal party is dancing and encouraging the crowd to do the same as the newlyweds enter.
“You two face off against each other in court, don’t you?” Trinity asks, from somewhere to my left.
I turn to look at her. She’s watching me with the same pleasant, unreadable expression she’s had all night, and I wonder how obvious it was that I was staring. “Who? Ms. Kendrick?”
She snorts out a laugh through her nose. “Uh, yeah,” she says, as if I’m being deliberately obtuse. I guess I am.
I feel my cheeks heat. Has she noticed how closely I’ve been watching Ava?
“Yeah, we do.” I clear my throat. “I’m actually kind of wondering how she fits in here.
I’d have thought Greg would have mentioned knowing her when he worked in my office,” I respond, keeping my voice mostly neutral if a little bored.
“Her and Samantha went to college together. They were in the same sorority. Maybe he never mentioned it because everyone knows you two hate each other. You were Greg’s boss, right?”
I nod. “Yeah, I guess that would be kind of weird.”
The reception settles into the expected routine. Waiters bring around our plated dinners. I see Trinity glance toward someone she’d been speaking to earlier that has an empty spot beside her. “You won’t hurt my feelings if you want to go sit with her,” I finally say gently.