“Because every time I do, you threaten to throw your whole wedding out the window.”
“Because I don’t want to have a wedding if you get hurt in the process!”
I blew out a breath as I paced in front of the mirrors. “Do you even want to get married? You’ve put your wedding on the line so many times now that I’m half convinced you don’t want to get married and you’re hoping I’ll give you a way out.”
A stunned expression crossed her face and my breath caught, thinking I’d gone too far. But then her shoulders slumped andshe dropped her gaze to the floor. She slid down the wall until her backside hit the carpet and she folded her arms over her knees.
That was when I realized I had gone too far—but it was exactly where I needed to be.
After a minute of heavy silence, she said, “Everything is changing so fast.” Her voice wavered and something in my chest cracked. “It’s really overwhelming and you know how I hate that feeling.”
I nodded. Grace didn’t get overwhelmed because she was obsessive about planning and preparing. She didn’t let things catch her off guard.
“I do want to marry Ben. I like him even if everything has been really fucking stressful for the past month. I want to keep him around. But I’m afraid I’m losing everything I love in the process.” She sucked in a breath as tears filled her eyes. She worked hard at blinking them away before she continued. “I left my job. I left the city. The apartment’s gone and now I live so far away that it’s basically Maine and no one wants to visit me.”
“We’ll visit you,” I said. “Just ask Audrey to create a dinner party schedule and I promise we’ll make the trek to Maine at least once a month.”
She leveled a gaze at me. “Will you though? Because it feels like I’ve lost you most of all.”
I swallowed against a lump in my throat. “You didn’t lose me.”
“Then why does it feel like you’re already gone?”
I dropped down to the floor across from her and folded my legs in front of me. “I’m not, but you needed me to be okay and I did what I had to do to make you believe I was.” When she gave an incredulous shake of her head, I added, “I knew this would be hard and I wasn’t going to make it any harder. You deserve to be happy—and I couldn’t let you cancel the wedding. Not forme.”
“You should’ve told me.” She drew in another breath, fighting hard against those tears. “You should’ve told me everything that he did.”
I stared down at my hands as I said, “He’s Ben’s friend. I didn’t want to make you choose sides.”Especially since you kept threatening to call off the wedding.
A watery laugh cracked out of her. “Not anymore.”
I blinked at her, confused. “What?”
“We got kicked out of Beantown Pub last night,” she said with another laugh. “Because Ben lost it on Teddy after you left.” She ran a finger over her brow. “Ben yelled at him for at least five straight minutes until Teddy shoved him and then Ben punched him in the mouth. It all went to hell and they threw us out.” She gave me an uneven smile. “Bottom line, Ben broke his middle finger and Teddy won’t be coming to the wedding.”
“What? No! Not from punching Teddy?”
Her shoulders shook as she laughed. “No, he tripped outside of Beantown. Completely unrelated. Didn’t even split his knuckles from wailing on Teddy, but he breaks a whole finger walking down the sidewalk.” As she sobered, she said, “He feels terrible about everything that happened. He wants you to know he should’ve kicked Teddy’s ass a long time ago.”
“Tell him I appreciate that. And I’m sorry about his finger.”
“Don’t be. He’s having the time of his life showing it off.” She dropped her head back against the wall. “I should’ve drawn the line months ago and thrown Teddy out of the wedding. I shouldn’t have dumped any of that on you. A part of me thought that if you needed me, I’d just put it all on hold. We could go back to our old apartment and the way things used to be, and the wedding would wait. But I’m not sure we can even do that anymore.”
I nodded slowly. “Remember when we finished school and moved down here? And everything was new and magical, eventhough we had no money and no idea what we were doing? This is just like that—without worrying about having to move back in with our parents. Think of all the amazing things happening for us.”
She let out a long breath. “We’re getting married.”
Time to put it all out there. “You are,” I said with a shrug. “I got married last month.”
Her eyes rounded. “You fucking what?”
“We eloped. Seemed like the right time but I didn’t want to take anything away from you.” I shrugged when she flipped me off. “We’re thinking we’ll have a big wedding next year. Whenever Ines learns enough of the harp to play for us.”
She cocked her head to the side as she studied me. “Then this is for real, you and Ryan.”
I nodded. Didn’t even question it this time. “Yeah. It is.”
She scrambled to her knees and caught me in a tight embrace. “I hope he deserves you.”
