We sway, gently at first, close enough that Brayden’s chin tucks right above my head. If I bury myself in his chest, I won’t think about the room around me.Classic Savannah, always relying on someone else to rescue me. Brayden smells like cologne and hair pomade. And whiskey. I try to ignore that last one.
His arm tightens at my waist, at that place he always seems to touch me. I’m used to my shapewear, but right now, it really is hard to breathe. Brayden doesn’t step on my toes. I shouldn’t be surprised. He’s an athlete. He moves through the outfield with grace, which only makes the fact that he stumbles through the upstairs hallway—ourupstairs hallway—that much worse.
Now he guides us fluidly through the room. The rest of the party fades as we move, voices reduced to a murmur. Distantly, as if from a hundred miles away, I hear someone say,aww.
I look up to find Brayden watching me, gray eyes clouded. He’s smiling—not that tiny real smile from after he kissed me—but something for the flash of phone cameras. His breath smells like whatever he’s been drinking. Reality sets in.
That’s enough to return the pencil smudge to my vision, an aura that says my headache will be here soon. That I really don’t have any time at all.
Finally, the song ends. People clap. Each noise is a spike to my skull. Nausea rises in a familiar wave. My job is to make Brayden look good—or at least stable. Throwing up at our own wedding party tends to have the opposite effect.
“Would you excuse me for a second?” I don’t wait for a response.
Fleeing probably isn’t screamingstability, but that’s what I do. My whole world boils down to the long hallway back to the bridal room. I lose a shoe along the way and stop only long enough to step out of the other, carrying it with me.
Fortunately, the space has its own single-stall bathroom tucked back in the corner of the room. I go in, flip on the fan, then kneel on the cold tiles.
I’m not sure how long I spend like that. Migraines always feel like sighting a storm from the shoreline, waiting for it to blow in. If I shut my eyes, the aura is replaced with a series of white flashes. If I keep them open, the world goes fuzzed.
Finally, my nausea passes. I pull myself up, flush the toilet on principle, and wash my hands. I find my bottle of migraine meds and down one along with two Excedrin tablets and half a bottle of water I extract from the minifridge.
There’s no way I can go back out to the party. At any other time, I’d just declare the whole thing a wash—retreat to my sweatpants in a dark quiet room, but I have to go back out there. The whole point of being Brayden’s wife is I have to be hiswife.
So far, no one has come looking for me. I don’t even know where my other shoe is. I came in thong sandals. I contemplate putting those on with my evening dress and going back out there to explain, well, everything. I will. In just a second.
I’m about to put on my sandals when there’s a knock at the door. “Hey.” A male voice from the other side.
Did Brayden come to check up on me? I pad over to the door barefoot and open it.
Only it’s not Brayden on the other side.
It’s Asher, standing in the doorway, dangling my shoe by one of its skinny gold straps. “Lose something, princess?”
Like the rest of the team, he’s wearing a suit. Unlike the rest of the team, who mostly look like overgrown frat boys or like they own an economy car dealership, his is a matte black-on-black pattern. His shirt is open at the collar revealing the dark edge of a tattoo. Somehow, I forgot howprettyhe is: teasing eyes, sarcastic mouth.
“Thanks.” I reach for my shoe.
He doesn’t release it. Instead, he takes that as an invitation: he comes inside, settles on one of the couches.
“Sure, make yourself at home,” I say.
“You gonna evict me?”
I should. I should kick him out, summon Brayden, imply strongly that Asher isbotheringme. I don’t do any of that. Instead, I collapse onto the couch opposite Asher’s and spend a minute watching him do something on his phone that produces tiny bell noises that make my head ache.
“Could you”—I gesture to his phone—“turn that down.”
Instantly, he presses the side of the phone until the noise disappears. “It was meditation app o’clock when I saw you run by.” He holds the screen up to illustrate.
Not exactly what I was expecting. “You spend a lot of your time at parties meditating?” I ask.
“You spend a lot of time at parties hiding from them?” he shoots back.
Though it’s not like he also isn’t avoiding people. “I was getting a migraine.” Above me, the lights pulse. This is the worst of it—after symptom onset but before my pills can kick in.
“You look green,” he says. “Metaphorically.”
My laugh gets lost in a slight wave of nausea. “I feel green. Metaphorically.”
