CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER TWO
After the brunch ended I went back to my hotel room to get ready for the cocktail party that evening, or the “Booze and Board Games Extravaganza,” as it was listed on my schedule. Apparently a game manufacturer was sponsoring the event, along with Sadie’s top-shelf liquor sponsor.
The schedule was conveniently located in the welcome bag provided to all the guests. It reminded me a bit of my bridesmaid emergency pack that I took with me everywhere. Their bag had an intertwined D and S embroidered on one side. Along with the schedule, the bag also had a bottle of wine, bags of macadamia nuts, dried pineapple chips, aspirin, a few Band-Aids, a coconut and lime–scented candle, sunscreen, bottled water, lip balm, and breath mints, all of it elegantly matching and sporting the wedding’s two hashtags—#DanAndSadie and #SadieMarriedLady, which was apparently in reference to a song from a musical I’d never heard of before.
I threw out the paper schedule and grabbed my laminated copy from my purse. Sadie had given it to me two weeks ago and I’d laminated it immediately, as every good outline should be.
Then I reached for my cell phone. I texted Sadie to see if she needed anything. She responded quickly, saying she was happily spending time with her future husband. I dropped the phone on my bed. Some jobs I was busy every minute of every day during the festivities and then there were other ones like this, where I was obviously going to have a lot of downtime to do what I wanted.
Letting myself out onto my balcony, which overlooked the ocean, I figured there were worse places to be stuck with my own thoughts.
After appreciating the view for a few minutes, I went back in and decided to take a shower. It might have been paradise, but this island had a humidity level I was unaccustomed to. The cool water helped.
Wrapped up in my fluffy white robe, I went back out to the balcony with my laptop. It had occurred to me while showering that I needed a bit more information on Camden. Knowledge was power, right?
I sent texts to Krista and to our IT manager, Taimani. I asked them to find out what they could about him. Krista sent me several suggestive emojis, but I replied that it was work-related.
Within a few minutes I had links to articles about him. Things I already knew. He was the CEO of the company he and Dan had started. He’d grown up in California, like me. I was an LA girl, and he had lived in a little town north of San Francisco.
But nothing else. He had no social media at all, which seemed strange.
I didn’t, either, but I had a good reason for it.
There were several images of him at charity events with Dan that I may or may not have examined very thoroughly.
For professional reasons.
And as I sat there and thought of him, I wondered if he was thinking about me. The idea that he might be made my skin inexplicably goose-bumpy.
Why had he asked so many questions about how I knew Sadie? Maybe he was just a curious person, as she’d suggested. Or maybe he was trying to look out for Dan and Sadie. Thinking I might be someone from her past wanting to take advantage of her, as so many of her family members seemed intent on doing.
That made some sense, but as far as he knew I was one of her best friends and wanted only good things for her. So why the third degree?
I supposed it didn’t matter. I had no intention of talking to him again, just nodding at him politely across the aisle as Dan and Sadie said their “I dos.”
Glancing at my laptop’s clock, I realized it was time to get ready. I pinned up my dark hair and headed over to the closet to grab my sparkly burgundy cocktail dress. Over the years I’d amassed quite a collection of dresses—everything from informal to ball gowns. I’d packed several cocktail dresses for this trip, along with some sundresses. It was funny, but as a little girl I’d loathed being put in a dress. I had wanted jeans or nothing. But as I’d grown older, I’d come to love the way dresses made me feel, like the femininity of a skirt swirling around my legs.
I put on some matching lipstick, a little bit of mascara, and grabbed my purse. I double-checked to see that the keycard was in my purse pocket before heading to the door. I’d locked myself out of my own room more than once and didn’t want to repeat that particular experience. I went into the hallway and tugged on my door, making sure it was shut.
The door right next to mine swung open, and I jumped slightly when Camden walked out.
And despite the fact that I’d just spent a good amount of time drooling over pictures of him, seeing him in person again sent little jolts of awareness through me.
He grinned at me and the sight of his smile nearly bowled me off my feet. His hair was slightly damp, as if he’d just gotten out of the shower. He smelled amazing, all clean and yummy.
“Looks like we’re neighbors,” he said.
“Yep.” Well, that was just perfect and what I absolutely needed. To go to sleep at night knowing that a man who I’d marked as off limits was right next door.
I tried holding my breath so that I wouldn’t draw any more of his scent into my rebellious nose.
It didn’t work.
He took a step toward me and my treacherous body leaned toward him in response. “Are you headed to the party?” he asked.
“Yep,” I said again. He was going to think I was so brilliant and witty with my inability to form complete sentences and the way I kept repeating the same one-syllable sound.
None of this seemed to be a deterrent to him and he flashed that should-be-illegal grin at me again. “Should we go down together?”
“Oh. No. I can’t. I have to go, um ...” Where was I heading and what was I going to do when I got there? His eyes were like grass fields in spring in Ireland. How was I supposed to think? “Upstairs. I’ve got to go check on ... someone first.” I’d nearly told him I was going to see how Brandy was doing. Sadie’s mother’s drunkenness was something Sadie wanted to keep quiet and I’d nearly hinted to him that something was amiss.
I expected him to pounce all over it and ask me a bunch of follow-up questions. Instead he leaned against the wall in this ... lounge-y way and for some inexplicable reason I found it extremely attractive.
His voice had gone soft and low. “Then I guess I’ll have to catch up with you later.”
Without waiting for an answer, he reached out to take a piece of lint from my sleeve. Even though he didn’t make any skin-to-skin contact, my skeleton nearly jumped out of my body.
Where had this flirtatious creature come from?
Then he winked at me. I’d never been winked at before.
When I didn’t respond, too caught up in my openmouthed shock, he added, “Save me a dance?”
He walked off toward the elevators and now I was the one leaning hard against the wall, my hand over my fluttering stomach.
What the what? Where had that come from? I’d been ready for him to grill me and instead he winked at me?
My ovaries just did not know how to take that.
I waited for a minute or two until I was certain he was gone. When I reached the elevator bank, I let out a sigh of relief that he wasn’t waiting for me. I was supposed to be shutting this guy down and it was like he’d completely changed his entire approach toward me and I didn’t understand any of it. He was giving me a serious case of whiplash.
As I got onto the elevator, I wondered if this was Sadie’s doing. She’d been not so subtly encouraging me to go out with him ... maybe she’d done the same thing to him?
Even if she did interfere, isn’t it a good thing when a handsome man flirts with you?my inner-Mom Voice asked me and I did my best to ignore it.
Besides, it didn’t really make sense. Most men, when they discovered they were being set up, tended to run in the opposite direction. Was I supposed to believe that Camden was the one guy in the universe who said, “Yes, my best friend’s fiancée, I would like you to arrange for me to date that woman I’ve never met and maybe fall in love with her and have a wedding just like yours.”
Ridiculous.
If Camden Lewis enjoyed solving puzzles as Sadie had said, maybe he enjoyed being one, too. I just didn’t have the time to try to figure him out.
Brandy’s room was two floors above mine. I knocked on her door and heard a heavy thud and a muttering voice. A few seconds later her door was thrown open in a dramatic fashion.
“Can I help you?” Sadie’s mom asked, slurring her words. She had her robe loosely tied and her face felt familiar. She had the same delicate features as Sadie, the same honey-blonde hair that I’d assumed was from a bottle.
The similarities ended there. Currently the stench of booze oozing out of Brandy’s pores was overpowering. I could see dozens of tiny, empty alcohol bottles on the floor. I wondered if, when the hotel had agreed to comp these rooms as part of their sponsorship, they’d factored in the thousands of dollars Brandy was going to run up from her mini-bar in her apparent quest to drown her liver.
“We met earlier. I’m Rachel. Sadie’s maid of honor? I told her I’d walk down with you to the party.”
“I’m tired. I’m going to bed.”
She shut the door on me and I heard it lock. Then there was another loud thump, some cursing, and another thump. I knocked again.
“Are you sure you don’t need anything?” I asked loudly.
But Brandy didn’t come back to the door. For a moment I wasn’t sure what to do, but figured it was better to let her sleep this off than drag her to a party where she most definitely would not be on her best behavior.
I headed to the cocktail party, which was on the south lawn. Music was playing and several tables had been set up, covered in white linen tablecloths. Tiki torches outlined the area and a DJ was playing easy-listening music in the corner. An employee offered me a lei and I ducked my head to let her put it on and thanked her.
Right away I noticed Dan and Sadie talking to Camden. First I wondered why she was here already without making an entrance. But considering how annoyed the filming director looked, I assumed she’d blown that off. Camden ran his fingers through his hair and then laughed and that heavy fluttering was back in my stomach.
Wrenching my gaze away, I spotted Krista, who was deep in conversation with an older couple. Her face was animated and lively as she told a story. It made my heart happy; when I’d first known her she’d tried so hard to make herself small, to not be noticed. Now that she felt safe and secure, she was a freaking delight.
I couldn’t put her and her employment / my business in jeopardy for someone like Camden.
Troy breezed past me and called out, “Find your name, the games are about to begin!”
At every table a different board game was set up for four people, and there were name cards at each chair. I started looking for my name, figuring I would be seated close to the front with the bridal party.
Sure enough, I was at Table 2. I was about to sit down when I noticed that Camden’s name card was set up right next to mine.
So was this a “you’re the maid of honor and he’s the best man” kind of situation, or was Sadie taking this matchmaking thing too far?
Either way, it wasn’t conducive to my plans. I grabbed his name card, planning on finding Krista’s and switching them so that I’d at least get to spend the evening with her by my side.
“What are you doing with my name card?”
Obviously, I was going to get caught. Because this was how things worked for me. I placed the name card back down, sighed, and closed my eyes, asking the universe for strength, before turning around to face Camden.
He looked amused. “In case you didn’t hear me, what were you doing with my name card?”
Moving you to another table.“Looking for you to make sure you knew where you were sitting.”
“That was thoughtful of you.” His words sounded nice, but his tone let me know that he did not believe me. As well he shouldn’t. He gestured toward the set-up board game on the table, one I’d loved as a kid and had sometimes even played by myself because I was an only child. He tacked on, “I thought maybe you were afraid of a little competition.”
“Ha.” I actually said ha. “If I run into any, I’ll let you know.”
He gave me a wolfish grin and sat in his chair. “In that case, let’s play. And please know that I’m going to destroy you.”
“Not in this lifetime. I’m a gaming master.”
“I can’t wait to see how well that works for you in a game based on chance.”
“Be prepared to be blown away,” I told him.
“So long as you get ready to be blown away by how badly I’m going to beat you,” was his sardonic response.
My blood pumped hard at the idea of him challenging me. I had been overly competitive my entire life. Like, it had cost me friendships and relationships. I was better as an adult, but I could not resist a gauntlet being thrown down.
Not good. I needed a distraction. Maybe we’d have engaging game partners in the two other chairs and my hormones could stop jumping up and down at the idea of sitting next to Camden. Especially once he scooted his chair closer to mine so that our knees brushed. I couldn’t help it, I reflexively jerked my knee straight up at the electric sensation, ramming into the table and nearly knocking all of the board game pieces over.
“Are you okay?” he asked and I just pretended like I didn’t hear him.
My hopes that I’d have a good distraction and some conversation were dashed a moment later when we were joined by Dan’s aunt and uncle. After introducing themselves, they started murmuring things to each other under their breath, like they were having an argument that had been going on for twenty years. They were far more interested in the custom drinks that had been named after Dan and Sadie.
I was distracted from their silent disdain when Troy grabbed the DJ’s microphone and announced, “Now that everyone’s in their seats, let’s play!”
The unspoken fight between the couple across from us apparently escalated as the wife stood up suddenly, knocking over her chair in the process. She stomped off, her husband trailing behind her and calling her name.
Leaving us alone.
“What color would you like to be?” Camden asked me.
“Red.” I was always red.
“I’ll be blue. You can go first. Also, in case I didn’t tell you earlier, you look very pretty.”
I was in the middle of reaching for a card when he said that and I paused. It had been so long since a man had said anything like that to me that I didn’t know how to respond.
I went with, “Um, thank you?” My mom had always taught me to accept a compliment, but at the same time, I didn’t want to encourage whatever he was doing. Mostly because I didn’t have a handle on myself when it came to him. I was far too intrigued.
One of the hotel employees stopped at our table, offering Camden a shell-and-bead lei. After she’d put it around his neck he turned to me with a huge smile on his face.
“If you make a joke about getting lei’d, this conversation is over,” I warned him.
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” he said but his grin told me he’d at least considered it. He wore the gleeful expression of a naughty boy who had plotted a scheme but called it off at the last minute. And I found that endearing when I shouldn’t have.
Turning over my card, I moved my red token five spots on the board. “I already have a dad for those kinds of jokes.”
“You’re lucky.” His tone made me want to question what he meant, but I reminded myself that I wasn’t interested in him or his life and was just trying to make it through this week. Before I could say anything in response he went on. “I tried looking up that camp of yours. Where is it again?”
Were we really back to this? “Upstate New York.”
Camden took his turn and moved three spots. He asked, “Where specifically?”
We were playing more than one kind of game here. Was this what he was up to? Trying to lure me into a false sense of security and then springing questions on me? To his credit, it felt a little like it might work. But I was stronger than that. “I don’t give out that kind of background detail. It might be one of my security questions for a website where I’ve forgotten the login.”
“Is it a security question?” he asked as I skipped my token ahead six spaces. “Do you think I’m going to hack into your bank accounts?”
“I don’t because I’m not going to give out personal information like that.”
This seemed to amuse him as I again tried to figure out what he was up to. His arm brushed against mine as he moved his token, and it sent tiny shock waves of electricity dancing along my nerves.
I pulled my arm away, feeling ridiculous. That know-it-all grin was on his face, like he knew exactly what had just happened. Now I was irritated. Maybe it was time for me to go on the offensive instead of passively waiting for his next question or a further attempt to make my knees go weak.
“What is it that you do?” I asked. I knew, but he didn’t know that I did.
A strange expression crossed his face. “Why do you want to know what I do?”
“Um, it’s a common question that people ask one another. It’s also your chance to brag if you’ve got a great job and you’re that kind of guy.”
“I work at a tech company.”
Well, that was underselling what he did. It made me like him more—that he hadn’t tried to impress me when he could have.
“What about you?” he asked. “What do you do?”
“Event coordinator.” It was my standard response.
“Are you working at this event?” His question was pointed, calculated sounding. Did he suspect what I really did?
“No, I’m just here for Sadie and to celebrate her special day. I think Troy’s doing an amazing job. It’s nice to not have to be the one in charge.” That was a package we offered brides—we would plan their entire event and be by their side for every decision they had to make and then ensure the day went smoothly. I had, from time to time, been an event coordinator. So, not a lie. Technically.
Camden’s expression made me feel like a big old fibber, though. His phone buzzed and he pulled it out of his pocket, glancing at it. “Excuse me a second.”
He had an actual flip phone. Why would a tech CEO have a relic older than my mom?
As he stood up I said, “Okay, but I hope you tell whoever’s on your call from the ancient past that I’m definitely winning.”
He grinned at me, seeming to enjoy both my joke about his phone and how I was going to beat him. “We’ll see about that.”
I watched as he walked into the darkness, past the lighted torches, and wondered who was on the other line.
I also wondered why I was spending so much time interacting with and thinking about a man that I was never going to see again after this week ended.
Instead of watching him pace back and forth while he talked, I decided to check my own phone.
Where there were thirteen missed text messages from my mother.
I let out a groan. This was not going to be pleasant.