Wedding Favor

1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

T he ring was stunning, a princess-cut diamond set on a delicate white gold band. Her dream ring, down to the tiny diamonds flanking the sides. It had been her dream ring since they were thirteen years old and first started talking about their dream weddings. And now, given to her by her dream guy.

“Oh, Haley,” Jane breathed. She held her best friend’s hand, freshly manicured, in her own. She turned it first to the left, and then to the right, watching as it lassoed the light and tossed little bits of it back onto the wall. “It’s so pretty.”

“Right?” Haley squealed. “He did such a good job.”

Jane laughed and released her hand. “I mean, he did have help.”

“Of course he had help,” Haley said. She held up her hand and fanned her fingers wide so she could admire it herself. “I am going to be wearing it every day for the rest of my life!”

“True,” Jane said. “It really is gorgeous, though.”

Haley had been engaged for approximately eleven hours, to her boyfriend—fiancé!—Blake. Haley hadn’t known -known it was coming, but had left work early and gotten a manicure with tasteful pale pink polish instead of her preferred fire engine red just in case when she found out he’d planned dinner followed by dessert at Bric, where they’d gone on their first real date. He proposed two bites into her chocolate raspberry tart and the rest of the night was a flurry of FaceTime calls—Jane, of course, at the top of the list. Tonight they were going out to celebrate, Haley and Blake and Jane and her boyfriend, Tommy.

First, though, they were going to yoga. Jane, as she often did, wondered who thought yoga at 9 a.m. on a Saturday was a good idea and then, as she always did, was forced to remind herself that it was her. That was the worst part, it had totally been her idea. It will make us get out of the house before noon , she told Haley when she talked her into signing up for the class. It will help us be productive, clear the week away, get the weekend off to a good start.

Haley agreed to sign up, but not without laughing at her first.

Jane kicked her flip-flops into the closest cubby hole and Haley followed suit, making sure to hold her mat so her ring was showing on the outside. “I wish Tommy would get on it so we could have a double wedding,” Haley said.

“Haha,” Jane said. “You would never want a double wedding.”

She reconsidered. “Maybe a wedding weekend .” They walked into the studio. “He really hasn’t said anything? Not even a hint?”

Jane shook her head. “Nothing.” In addition to being her boyfriend, Tommy coincidentally—or not, since it had been completely orchestrated with a tissue paper-transparent setup by Haley and Blake at last year’s Fourth of July barbecue—was Blake’s cousin. Jane and Tommy had been dating just under a year. It was going … fine, she thought. Definitely fine. She didn’t know how she would feel about him giving her a princess-cut diamond set on a white gold band, but she didn’t really need to know, not yet, at least. It was going fine enough that the possibility was good enough for her, and the tiny bit of uncertainty it was wrapped in was good enough, too.

That tiny bit of uncertainty was not good enough for Haley, however. “Ugh!” she said, momentarily distracted from her sparkly new ring. “He needs to lock this down!”

“It hasn’t even been a year,” Jane said.

“It’s been almost a year,” Haley said.

“There’s no magic rule about a year.”

“Tell your mother that.”

“ You tell my mother that.”

“I wouldn’t dare,” Haley laughed. “She feels the same way as my mother. I think it nearly gave her a heart attack that we held out for a whole year and a half.”

Their mothers were best friends, too. They’d lived on the same floor their freshman year of college, two doors down from each other. Their weddings were bookends to the same summer—Jane’s mom in June, Haley’s mom in August—and they had their first babies, little girls, eight days apart during a record-setting snowy January twenty-nine years earlier. There was probably some chance that Jane and Haley wouldn’t end up best friends, too. Maybe even a big chance. But it seemed like destiny that they were, like it was always meant to be.

Haley shook out her mat in front of her. “I might hint at it tonight.”

“No, you definitely will not !” Jane exclaimed.

“I think it’s time we knew young Thomas’ intentions.”

Jane knew now she was kidding. “You are the worst,” she said, sitting down and grabbing for her toes. “Literally, the worst.”

“You mean the best.” Haley twisted her ring to re-center it on her finger and gave it one more admiring glance before reaching for her own toes, a mirror of Jane. “You know, I actually think a double wedding weekend would be nice. Just saying,”

***

Jane was in her bathroom, combing some volumizing cream through her wet hair, when Tommy texted. I’ll come get you a little before seven ?

It was 5:30. Plenty of time. OK , she typed back.

Don’t wait to get in the shower, he texted.

Her mouth dropped open in indignation. Rude. Already showered ! she typed, then said out loud, “So there.”

He responded with a tongue-stuck-out emoji, and she blew him a kiss back. A few seconds later, he sent her the kiss-blowing emoji in response. She put her phone down on the bathroom counter and pumped some moisturizer on her fingertips, then dabbed it on her face.

Haley and Blake, engaged! It was so exciting. Definitely crazy. But mostly exciting. Jane had been there when they’d met. It was actually on New Year’s Day, at a concert. They were trying on a “New (Year) Attitude” (also Jane’s idea, and also a better idea at the time than in reality) so they decided that instead of staying in for masks and movies like they usually did on New Year’s Day they would go out and say yes to life. Or at least the two tickets Haley’s coworker had offered her last minute when his flight got canceled.

Their seats were next to Blake. He was sitting with another guy and two girls. Haley was next to him, and Jane was on the aisle, and Haley noticed right away that Blake was not, in fact, enjoying the opening act, but enjoying a football game on his phone. She nudged Jane. “This guy is watching football on his phone,” she whispered. “He’s completely obsessed. It’s kind of annoying.”

“Really?” Jane glanced over at Blake. His head was down, focused on his phone, right hand clenched, ready to celebrate.

“You’re at a concert. Be in the moment. Watch the concert.” Haley made a face. “It, like, offends my sensibilities.”

Jane loved it when Haley got high and mighty about something, which she did on a semi-regular basis. “You have sensibilities?”

“Not only do I have them, they’re offended,” Haley said, her mini-rant temporarily put on pause. Then she hit play again. “Anyway, it’s distracting.”

“Don’t look at him.”

“He’s right next to me.”

“Do you want me to switch with you?”

“No,” she said, “it wouldn’t work. It’s already in my head.”

Something must have happened on his phone. “Yeah!” he yelled out, full-on pumping his fist in the air.

Haley threw her own hands up in response. “Who comes to a concert and watches football on their phone?”

He looked at her, his ebullience rimmed with bewilderment. “Who comes to a concert and spies on what a complete stranger is doing on his phone?”

We do , Jane thought, stifling a laugh.

“I’m just saying,” Haley said, pointing to the girl next to him, “maybe your girlfriend would appreciate it if you paid a little attention to her instead.”

“She’s not my girlfriend,” he said.

“He’s not my boyfriend,” the girl said.

Jane saw something in Haley’s face then, even though Haley swore up and down and all around for months afterward that Jane had to be making it up. Jane saw it. It was like a light clicking on. She’d heard that analogy before, read it in books, but she’d never seen it in person—didn’t even think it was a real thing, honestly. She looked at Haley and saw something in her eyes change, and even if Haley didn’t know something had changed, Jane did. She saw it.

Haley had also been there when Jane and Tommy had met. Obviously, because she was behind the whole thing. Jane sort of knew she was plotting something but didn’t mind enough to stop her. Part of her even hoped it would work out, but she had to pretend she didn’t care either way. Not for Haley’s sake—Haley knew Jane like the back of her hand—but her own. If her best friend went rogue and set her up with someone great, it would be a cute story, but if she was in on it the whole time, it would make her feel desperate.

She thought about stuff like that sometimes, how she would tell the story of (fill in the blank). It was probably because of her job—she was an editor—but she’d been like that her whole life. The story of how she got her first job. The story of the crazy roommate she had the summer after college graduation. And the one that would be the big one, the story of how she met the love of her life. It was important to have a good story, she thought. Or at least a story that didn’t involve begging her best friend to set her up with her boyfriend’s cousin who had just moved back into town for a new job (along with the requisite social media investigating of said cousin).

So Jane pretended she didn’t know, and Haley pretended she didn’t know Jane knew, and the first time Jane laid eyes on Tommy it almost felt like an honest-to-goodness surprise. The whole thing—how cute he was, how funny, how drawn to him she was, how much she liked him. It all felt like a surprise. The best kind of surprise, the kind of surprise that never happened anymore when you were an adult on the cusp of thirty with a responsible job and a dependable schedule.

She saw him from the side first. He was taking a turn at the grill, holding a can of sparkling water in one hand and waving a pair of tongs around in the other. He was wearing a baseball cap and a Houston Astros t-shirt. She didn’t know why he was wearing an Astros t-shirt, he wasn’t from Texas and he wasn’t an Astros fan. She still didn’t know, come to think of it. Someone probably let him borrow it, or left it in his car or something. Tommy was just that type of guy, the type that kind of picked things up along the way.

“Tommy,” Blake said, getting his attention. “Have you met Haley’s friend Jane?”

He put down his can and tongs and turned to face her, his hands relaxed on his hips. “I have not met Haley’s friend Jane,” he said with a smile.

Jane flushed, from the smile and the embarrassment and the delirious burst of possibility and, if she was being totally honest, the smile again. “I’m Haley’s friend Jane,” she said.

His smile got bigger. “Is that your full name?”

Haley reached over and popped his baseball cap off his head. “No, her full name is Haley’s best friend Jane, thank you very much.”

“Haley’s best friend Jane, do you want a piece of chicken?” he said. “I grilled it myself.”

She laughed. “I would love a piece of chicken.”

He reached for his tongs, picked a piece of chicken off the grill and put it on a plate for her. “This is the best piece.”

“Wow,” she said. “The best one?”

“The best ,” he said. “And to make it official, I’m Tommy.”

She grinned back at him. “Just Tommy?”

He gave a little shrug. “I suppose technically I’m Blake’s favorite cousin Tommy, but you can call me Tommy for short.”

“Okay then,” she said. “Tommy for short.”

Tommy reached for another plate. “You mind if I get myself the second-best piece of chicken and come eat with you guys?”

Jane pretended to consider for a split second, all while her heart did the macarena in her chest. “Well, all right.”

Tommy gave up his grill duties and the four of them found a spot in the shade. Tommy and Jane talked about the best way to marinate chicken, and they talked about their favorite TV shows, and they talked about trips they’d like to go on some day. By the time the Fourth of July fireworks started, Tommy had his arm around her shoulders like that was just where it went, and she was settled against his chest like it was where she belonged.

“Who needs fireworks,” Haley whispered to Jane with a grin, “when you’ve got your own?”

Jane shook her head and rolled her eyes, but there was part of her that agreed. Maybe it wasn’t fireworks, maybe not yet. But it was definitely a sparkler, crackling and dancing, sending fizzy light into the night sky.

He asked her for her number at the end of that night … and then he didn’t text her for a day and a half. Jane was confused, Haley was irate and Blake didn’t want to get involved. And then Tommy popped up, with a few good-natured quips and an invitation to dinner, and the 36-hour mini-drama was forgotten. Now it was just part of the story she told, if she was telling the long version, of how they’d met. A day and a half ! she’d say, her eyes wide, and the person she told would mirror her faux outrage with an expression of their own.

Now, there would be a new part to the story—what happened next. Plenty of Jane’s friends had gotten married, but something about it being Haley now made it feel different. They’d gone through life together, experienced everything important together. Whatever happened to Haley felt like it happened to Jane, in a way. It didn’t mean she would be getting married, too, not right this second, but something would happen. She felt it when Haley’s face popped up on the screen of her phone, waving her diamond in front of her face. Things were changing, just like the day she went to a Fourth of July barbecue and met her best friend’s boyfriend’s cousin and took the first step toward falling in love.