“I should have taken your lecturing on the chin.”
“Forgive me?” he asked.
“Yes. Forgive me?”
“Yes.”
The pressure surrounding them did not lessen. On the contrary. It intensified.
Zander had more to say. Zander had worse to say.
Fear ran ghostly fingertips down Britt’s spine.
The music from the reception was much softer here, but still audible thanks to the French doors that had been left open. A new song began and Britt recognized its opening bars. “Alone,” by Heart.
Zander held out a hand. “May I have this dance?”
“You may.” She placed her hand in his and kicked off her shoes. The cool grass felt like heaven against the soles of feet that weren’t used to wearing a new pair of heels for five hours straight. They swayed together. Her, in a romantic dress that gleamed from beneath her unbuttoned coat. Him, in his suit.
Whenever she’d been between boyfriends at a time when a formal high school dance had rolled around, the two of them had gone together. In fact, they’d been each other’s dates to prom their senior year of high school. She’d worn a jade green gown that, in retrospect, had been seriously ill-advised. He’d been such a good sport that he’d worn a jade green cummerbund and bow tie to match.
They’d danced just the way they were now too many times to count. Normally, they talked or laughed or sang along. Tonight, the lack of conversation or laughter or singing created a tense void.
The band reached the song’s chorus: “Till now, I always got by on my own.”
Zander’s hair was slightly shiny and perfectly in place, which meant he’d used gel for the occasion. He’d shaved his hard cheeks smooth. His eyes reminded her of midnight lagoons.
“I’m worried about what I need to tell you.” Lines grooved Zander’s forehead. “I haven’t said anything yet. And already, I’m worried.”
“Just go ahead and say whatever you need to.” Honestly! She couldn’t take much more of this.
He ducked his head in a nod, broke contact with her, and took a few steps back. His jacket separated as his hands pushed defensively into the pockets of his pants. They studied each other, two old friends whose relationship had grown complicated.
“I love you,” he said. His vision did not waver from hers.
Astonishment and elation and concern slammed into her simultaneously, rendering her mute.
“I have always loved you,” he said. “I don’t think that fact comes as a surprise to you. Does it?”
She blinked at him, trying to acclimate.
“I have always loved you,”he’d said.
“I...” She didn’t know how to frame her response because his declarations were both shocking and—after her conversations with her sisters and Maddie—not shocking. They wereboth.
“It’s not that I feel deserving of your love,” he continued. “I don’t. I accept that you don’t love me back, and I even regret my feelings for you because if they didn’t exist, then we could go on being friends for a long time. But they do exist, so I’m struggling to continue doing...” He motioned between them. “This.”
“What do you mean by ‘this’?” she asked with false calm. Fiasco! She knew the answer to her question.
“Our friendship. Before I went away I was better able to deal with my emotions. We were friends, and friends was better than nothing because I had you in my life and because our friendship was great. But since I returned, my emotions have been making me miserable.”
He’d said that he loved her. Then followed that up by informing her that she was making him miserable. “What are you suggesting?”
“I don’t know what I’m suggesting.”
“That we end our friendship?” The two of them didnotgive up on each other. They didnotlet go of each other. Indignation muscled its way to the front of her thoughts. She stepped forward and used the flat of her palms to push him in the chest.
Startled, he fell back a step.
