1. Caroline #2
“Caught me.” He takes a sip of his whiskey, and I notice the way his jaw tightens around the glass. There are shadows under his eyes, deeper than usual, and his usually immaculate hair looks like he’s been running his hands through it. “These things aren’t really my scene.”
“Could have fooled me. You look very comfortable brooding in the corner.”
His mouth twitches. Not quite a smile, but close enough to count. Something warm flickers in my chest at the sight - I’ve made it a personal challenge over the past two years to crack that brooding exterior, and every near-smile feels like a victory.
“I’ve had practice,” he says.
I shouldn’t be enjoying this. I should be circulating, networking, playing the role of devoted fiancée the way Kristi expects. But there’s something about Sean that makes me feel like I can drop the performance for five minutes without the world ending.
We’ve developed this over the years - this easy banter, this mutual understanding that neither of us particularly wants to be here but we’re both too polite to leave.
At company dinners, we always seem to end up in the same corner, trading observations about the other guests, finding reasons to laugh in rooms full of people taking themselves too seriously.
He doesn’t ask about the wedding planning or offer unsolicited opinions about my choices.
I don’t pry into his work stress or the obvious tension between him and Graham that everyone pretends not to notice.
We just exist in the same space and somehow make it bearable.
“Rough week?” I ask, noting the extra shadows under his eyes.
“You could say that.” He swirls his whiskey, watching the amber liquid catch the light. “Your fiancé missed three meetings this week. Left me holding the bag on a client presentation that he was supposed to lead. I was up until two in the morning finishing slides he should have had ready days ago.”
“He’s been stressed about the wedding.”
“Has he?” Sean’s voice is carefully neutral, but something flickers in his eyes - a darkness that’s there and gone so fast I almost miss it. “Funny. He doesn’t seem stressed when he’s disappearing for two-hour lunches with no explanation.”
I don’t know what to say to that. The observation lands too close to something I’ve been trying not to examine - the growing list of times Graham has been unavailable, unreachable, offering vague excuses that don’t quite add up.
The texts he angles away from me. The calls he takes in another room.
The way he sometimes looks at his phone and smiles at something, then schools his expression when he notices me watching.
“I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation,” I say, hating how hollow the words sound.
“I’m sure there is.” Sean’s tone suggests he doesn’t believe it any more than I do. He takes another sip of his whiskey, and the silence between us grows heavy with unspoken things.
“Where is the groom, anyway?” I ask, scanning the crowd. “I haven’t seen him in an hour.”
“Disappeared about forty-five minutes ago.” Sean’s voice is carefully neutral, but something flickers across his face - annoyance, maybe, or resignation. “Probably networking somewhere.”
“Probably.”
We both hear the probably for what it is.
Graham vanishes at every event, slipping away for meetings or calls or whatever excuse sounds most plausible, and I’ve learned not to ask questions.
Asking questions leads to arguments, and arguments lead to Graham’s wounded silence, and his wounded silence leads to me apologizing for things I shouldn’t have to apologize for.
It’s easier not to ask. It’s easier to smile and nod and pretend I don’t notice the growing distance between us, the way he seems to look through me instead of at me, the way “I love you” has become a habit instead of a feeling.
“You should go find him,” Sean says, but there’s no conviction in it. “Tell him his mother is terrorizing the silent auction.”
“She’s not terrorizing anyone. She’s just...” I search for the right word. “Invested.”
“That’s a diplomatic way to put it.”
“I’m very diplomatic. It’s my best quality.”
“No, it isn’t.” He meets my eyes, and there’s something in his gaze that makes my breath catch. Something too intense for this conversation, this setting, this carefully constructed evening. “Your best quality is how you make everyone around you feel seen. Even when they don’t deserve it.”
I don’t know how to answer.
The moment stretches between us, heavy with something I can’t name.
His eyes are too dark, too knowing, like he’s seeing past the performance to something underneath that I’ve been hiding even from myself.
My heart is doing something strange in my chest - beating too fast, too aware of how close he’s standing, how good he smells, how different this moment feels from every interaction I have with Graham.
This is dangerous. Whatever this is - this pull, this awareness, this feeling of being truly seen for the first time in months - it’s dangerous. I’m getting married in ten days. To his business partner. His best friend.
I need to walk away. I need to find Graham and play the role of adoring fiancée and stop standing here with a man who makes me feel more alive in five minutes than my future husband has made me feel in months.
Before I can figure out how to respond, a familiar voice cuts through the murmur of the crowd.
“Sean! There you are.”
Amelia sweeps toward us in a dress that’s definitely too bright for someone else’s engagement party.
Sunshine yellow silk that catches every light in the room, guaranteed to appear in the background of every photo taken tonight.
She’s beautiful, my little sister, with our mother’s cheekbones and our father’s ability to command attention simply by existing.
At twenty-one, she’s everything I was never allowed to be - carefree, indulged, the center of every room she enters.
Our parents doted on her from birth, partly because she was sickly as a baby and they feared losing her, partly because Amelia has always known exactly how to make herself adorable and vulnerable at the same time.
I love her. I do. She’s my sister, my blood, the person I used to protect from monsters under the bed and mean girls at school.
But somewhere along the way, the dynamic shifted.
I became the responsible one, the one who made sacrifices so Amelia could shine.
I worked two jobs through college while she got a car for her sixteenth birthday.
I deferred my dreams while she collected hobbies and dropped them when they got hard.
I learned to make myself small while she learned to take up all the space in any room.
Sometimes loving Amelia feels like loving a hurricane - exhausting and dangerous and never quite reciprocated.
“I’ve been looking everywhere for you,” she continues, laying a hand on Sean’s arm like they’re old friends instead of passing acquaintances.
Her fingers curl around his bicep, squeezing slightly, and I watch her tilt her head at that angle she practices in mirrors - the one designed to make her look both innocent and alluring.
“Graham said you were hiding, and I told him that’s ridiculous, Sean never hides, he’s just selective about his company. Isn’t that right?”
Sean’s expression shutters instantly. The almost-warmth I’d glimpsed vanishes behind a mask of polite neutrality that’s somehow more brutal than outright coldness. His arm moves subtly, extracting itself from her touch without making a scene.
“Amelia.” He steps back, creating distance. “I was just heading out, actually. Early meeting tomorrow.”
“On a Saturday? That’s tragic.” Amelia pouts, her lower lip pushing out in a way that’s calculated to look adorable.
I’ve watched her practice that expression in mirrors since she was six years old.
“Caroline, you have to tell Graham to stop working his partner so hard. Poor Sean never gets to have any fun.”
“I’ll mention it,” I say.
“You know what would be fun?” Amelia continues, undeterred by Sean’s obvious discomfort.
“If you came to brunch with us tomorrow. Graham’s parents are hosting, and it’s always so stuffy with just family.
We could use someone interesting to liven things up.
” She steps closer to him, her hand reaching for his arm again.
“I promise I’ll make it worth your while. ”
The flirtation is so blatant it makes my teeth hurt. Sean sidesteps smoothly, putting the corner of the bar between them.
“I have plans.”
“Cancel them.” She pouts again, batting her eyelashes in a way that would be comical if it weren’t so obvious. “Come on, Sean. Live a little. All work and no play-”
“Makes me an excellent business partner.” His voice has gone flat, final, with an edge of something that’s almost disgust. “Excuse me. I need to make a call.”
He catches my eye as he passes, and something unspoken moves between us. Be careful, his gaze seems to say. Or maybe it’s something else - pity, or concern, or a warning I don’t know how to interpret. Whatever it is, it makes my chest tight in a way I don’t want to examine.
Then he’s gone, disappearing into the crowd, and I’m left alone with my sister.
“He’s so intense,” Amelia says, watching him go with obvious appreciation.
Her eyes track his movement across the room with an interest that seems excessive for a casual acquaintance.
“But kind of sexy, right? In that tortured, wounded-animal way. Like he needs someone to fix him. To show him how to relax and have fun.”
“He’s Graham’s business partner, Amelia.”