Chapter 33
The rehearsal dinner is at a cute Mexican restaurant in town.
We sit in a courtyard filled with lights and flowering orange azaleas as the grooms, Max and Curtis, thank us for joining them for their special weekend.
The margaritas and sangria flow generously, and a few hilarious toasts are made by friends and family.
Daniel and I are seated with coworkers; it’s relaxed and fun despite the tension from the pool. Maybe it’s only tension between me and Ellis, though, because everyone—including Daniel and Avery—are having a grand ol’ time.
I’m waiting outside the restroom for it to be vacated, when I notice a slew of missed text messages from the Park women group chat.
When are we really meeting Daniel?
Yeah, he hasn’t had Emoni approval yet!
We will plan a dinner when you are both back from the wedding. No more excuses.
Halmoni’s bossy last text doesn’t leave room for arguments.
I’ve been putting off this dinner for some reason, even after promising Daniel I would plan it.
It makes me feel guilty, this foot-dragging; I’m not even sure why I’m doing it.
But I know I’ve got to rip the Band-Aid off sooner or later.
I’m about to respond to them when Avery sidles up to me.
She’s in a lime-green two-piece that barely covers her butt, and it looks amazing.
I smile at her and make the gesture of conciliation that all women understand: “I love that outfit.”
“Thank you!” she says genuinely. “I love what you’re wearing. So chic.”
I’m in a sheer black maxi skirt, black boy shorts, and white tank. I’ve pulled my hair back into a low knot, which shows off the sapphire hoops in my ears. “Thanks. Nothing like being in your twenties as the ultimate accessory, though,” I say.
“I can’t wait for my twenties to be over, actually,” she says with a sigh. “I feel like, maybe when I turn thirty, I’ll know what the hell I’m doing with my life.” She pulls out a vape pen from her tiny glittery purse.
“At no age do you know what the hell you’re doing,” I say. “But at least when you’re twenty you can have less steps in your skincare routine.”
She giggles. “You’re hilarious.” She takes a drag from her pen then looks at me. “Ellis talks a lot about you.”
I try and keep my expression neutral. “Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah. He was pretty bummed when you started dating Daniel,” she says frankly. “But he gets it, don’t worry. Ellis doesn’t hold grudges.”
“Well, and now he has you,” I say lightly, praying for the bathroom to open up already.
She looks at me oddly. “We’re just friends.”
“Oh, sorry. Didn’t mean to assume…”
“It’s okay.” She tucks the pen back into her bag and pushes her hair behind her ears. “I’m into him but…” She shrugs and looks sad for a moment. The bathroom door does open then, and a sheepish man ducks out.
I shoot Avery a little smile before going in, feeling discomfited by what she’s just told me.
—
That night, Daniel and I fall asleep with the windows open to let in that central-coast breeze.
While I sleep, I have a vivid dream. There are rolling green hills. Fog settling in. I hear the rush of water, again, like in my last dream. And then I see them—a herd of wild horses. Dappled gray and white. Brown with black manes. There are at least ten of them, and they are beautiful.
I’m drawn to them and as I get closer, the fog lifts. The sun illuminates them. I hold my hands out to touch them, but just as I get close enough their heads lift, their ears prick. A wind sweeps through the valley, and they start running.
I wake up with a start, my entire body scrambling for purchase.
After a second, I realize I’m safe in bed with Daniel, his arm flung across my waist. The nightstand clock glows 3:14.
I gingerly move Daniel’s arm off of me and go to the bathroom.
After I flush the toilet, I look at myself in the mirror. I am so awake.
What the hell was that dream? It’s my second dream with a horse in it. Both left me with a weird sense of disorientation and longing upon waking. I have to remind myself not to put too much stock in dreams.
I pull on some gray sweats then throw my coat on. Before I leave the hotel room, I grab my phone and room key.
It’s completely silent as I walk across the mist-shrouded grounds, no destination in mind.
Then, the bright lights of the tennis court beckon me.
The court is painted, delightfully, hot pink.
I open the gate to enter, my footsteps echoing, then sit down at the baseline.
After a few seconds, I can hear the sound of crickets and the mist thickens.
I think about the big family dinner ahead. How everyone will be there to grill Daniel, to initiate him into the family. After a decade of waiting for things to fall in place, everything feels sped-up—fast-forwarded to the future at supersonic speed.
But maybe that’s just how it is. That’s how it feels when everything is right. I can’t shake this slight panic, though. I remember how eager I was to find my fated by the time I turned forty and it feels like a billion miles away. The relationship suddenly feels like a runaway train.
A metallic clang interrupts my thoughts and I startle when I turn to the gate. It’s Ellis.
My breath comes out in puffs in the cold night air. Of course he’s here.
“Hey,” I call out.
“Cassia?” he asks. “I thought that was you.” He has Pickle on a leash. “This guy had to pee,” he explains. Pickle yanks on his harness, yelping in excitement at seeing me, and Ellis unclips him.
Pickle makes a beeline for me, licking every exposed patch of skin—my face, my wrists, and peek of ankle. I give him pets around his scruff. “Hey, you weirdo.”
“What are you doing here?” Ellis asks, concern etched on his face. He’s wearing a light puffer jacket over pajama pants. Something about those pajama pants comforts me. How sexy could his night be in those pajama pants?
I have no claim to this relief and I bat it away. “I had a dream and couldn’t go back to sleep. And then I found this incredibly strange tennis court.”
Ellis looks around. “Yeah, this entire place is a trip. Perfect wedding spot for Max, though.”
“It’s like Disneyland for adults,” I say as Pickle decides to lie down next to me. I pet his soft fur, moving my hand slowly from his head to his tail. “A nice break from reality,” I say before I can stop myself.
Ellis joins me on the court, sitting down on the other side of Pickle. He looks straight ahead at the net when he asks, “Everything okay?” It comes out casually, but I can feel the effort behind it.
I look at him in profile. His mop of dark hair, his strong nose, his clean jawline. The bob of his Adam’s apple. “Yeah, everything’s fine. Great. I just—it’s our busiest season at work, especially with Gemma’s posts. It’s been a lot. But other than that, nothing to complain about.”
“Gotcha.” He’s quiet for a second, and still not looking at me. Then he puts a hand on Pickle, letting his hand rise and fall with Pickle’s little panty breaths. “You and Daniel seem good.”
The crickets are deafening and I let them fill in the space before I say, “Yeah. Things are good.”
“I’m glad.” And he sounds like he means it. “I’m sorry if I was kind of a jerk the last time we saw each other. I was just…processing in real time. But Daniel seems really happy. I like seeing him this way.”
A lump forms in my throat. “That’s…that’s really kind of you.” I think about their fondness for each other, that night at Joshua Tree when everyone at the firm teased them for their bromance.
This suddenly all feels really horrible. Because being with Daniel will always mean proximity to Ellis, too. And the part that is most confusing is whether or not I want Ellis to just…not be a part of my life.
Because here he is—finding me when I’m feeling lost. I remember what Daniel said about him—he’s a little psychic—and I wonder if there’s a warring between magics here. If his is pushing back against mine.
“I like all your coworkers,” I say, changing the subject slightly. “Rare to invite your entire company to your wedding.”
He laughs and the sound rings through the cold night air. “We are a big, dysfunctional family that can’t stop hanging out with each other.”
“As someone in the family business, I understand,” I say. “But it’s really nice to see. Everyone is great.”
“They are. And we’re all so happy for Max and Curtis. It’s been a torturous, dramatic courtship.” He proceeds to tell me about it—the family feuds, the long-distance years, the moment of infidelity.
My eyebrows shoot up at that. “Really?”
“Yeah,” Ellis says with a grimace. “But you know, it was so…humane. The way they dealt with it. They forgave each other after really letting the other suffer for a bit. I don’t know, it feels so radical in a way.
They understand that all of this”—he waves his hands kind of vaguely—“is imperfect. That the bad is part of it.”
“That’s an interesting way to look at it,” I say. “I would have run from the drama, I think.”
“Really?” He looks at me.
“Yeah. I would have taken all of it as…I don’t know. Signs.”
“Hm.”
“What?” I prod. “You don’t agree?”
“I guess I don’t. People are going to fuck up. You can’t predict the future, so you just have to learn to roll with it, you know?”
It’s hard not say, I can predict the future!
I know who will make you happy. But I think about Ellis and his early marriage.
How he accepted that as a phase in his life.
He has no regrets and it’s one of the most attractive things about him.
How he feels so secure in himself without knowing what the future holds.
I wonder what that feels like. I can’t imagine it.
I find my eyes skimming his face, on the brink of reading it. He catches my eye and I flush.
“Heyyy,” he says. “Are you trying to read my face?”
I am about to deny it but start laughing. “Sorry. Force of habit.”
“I gave you permission already.” His eyes are lit up with amusement. Warm in the cold night. And I feel a pang, an ache deep inside. There is something there, there is always something there. He feels it, too. An understanding passes between us in a thick fog of intimacy.
I need to get back.
Then Ellis pulls a tennis ball out of his jacket pocket and throws it across the court and Pickle goes bounding after it. “Wanna play dog tennis?” he asks as he gets up.
“Um, depends?”
“On what?”
“What is dog tennis?”
He runs to the other side of the net to grab the ball from Pickle.
“You know as much as I do.” And then he bounces the ball hard on his side of the court so that it sails over the net to me.
Pickle runs frantically for the ball and so do I.
I get to it before him and he starts whining and wriggling his body low to the ground, excited for me to throw it.
“This game seems…not tennisy,” I say with a laugh as I bounce it back to Ellis. It falls short so Ellis has to sprint forward but Pickle gets it before he does, and when Ellis falls to the ground, Pickle drops the ball and starts hopping all over him, licking his face.
I can’t tell if Pickle’s on my team or Ellis’s, or his own, but it doesn’t really matter.
We keep the ball soaring through the air.
At one point, Ellis “serves” it with very good form only to throw it directly into Pickle’s open mouth.
We laugh so hard we end up curled into fetal positions on the court.
As I catch my breath, I roll onto my back, a sense of peace blanketing me as I lie in the cool night air, crickets chirping, beside Ellis.
I stare up at the sky and notice the gauzy clouds have turned the color of sherbet. How long have we been out here?
“I think it’s morning,” I say, voice hushed.
Ellis rolls onto his back to look up at the sky as well. “Looks like it.”
“I think…I should try and sleep for a couple hours,” I finally say, sad for this bubble to burst.
Ellis gets up and brushes his hands off before reaching down for mine.
I look up at him and am hit with the bittersweet realization that Ellis always finds me when I need him.
I take his hand, and he pulls me up. We end up standing close, my hand clasped in his strong one. “Thank you,” I say quietly.
He doesn’t say anything for second, just staying close, his breath warm and mingling with mine. Nervously, I add, “That was a great distraction. Just what I needed.”
Something seems to snap back to reality in him and he lets go of my hand, steps back, and gives me that familiar, easy smile. “I’m glad.”
We walk out of the tennis court, the birds chirping high in the trees, our footsteps echoing in the quiet early morning just as the lights of the tennis court shut off.