"He still looks at you like that."
"Only when I'm dressed up. Which is why I intend to be dressed up for the rest of my life." She adjusts her veil in the mirror. "So. Is it serious? You and the mountain man?"
The question catches me off guard. "It's been four days, Yas."
"That's not an answer."
"I don't know what it is yet. We're figuring it out."
Yasmine turns to face me fully. "Do you want it to be serious?"
Yes. The word rises up so fast it almost escapes. I swallow it down.
"I want to see where it goes. He's... different. From anyone I've dated before."
"Different how?"
"He doesn't fold." I meet her eyes in the mirror. "When I push, he pushes back. When I test him, he holds his ground. It's like he sees all the parts of me that scare other people away and he just... isn't scared."
Yasmine's expression softens. "That sounds like exactly what you need."
"Maybe. Or maybe it's just the novelty of it. Four days isn't long enough to know anything real."
"Four days was long enough for me to know Tyler was the one." She squeezes my arm. "Sometimes you just know, Nadia. And fighting it doesn't make you smart. It just makes you lonely."
Before I can respond, the wedding coordinator appears to announce that it's time for final preparations. Yasmine gets swept away in a flurry of last-minute adjustments, and I'm left staring at my reflection and wondering when my little sister got so wise.
The ceremony is beautiful.
Yasmine floats down the aisle like something out of a fairy tale, and Tyler cries when he sees her, which makes everyone else cry, which means I'm dabbing at my eyes with the emergency tissues I stashed in my bouquet.
I find Callum in the crowd, seated near the back in a charcoal suit that makes him look like a CEO or a mob boss or something equally devastating. He's watching me instead of the bride, just like he promised, and the intensity of his gaze makes me forget to pay attention to my sister's vows.
The reception is at the same venue, a seamless transition from ceremony to cocktail hour to dinner. Callum appears at my side the moment the bridal party duties are done, his hand finding the small of my back like it belongs there.
"You look incredible."
"You clean up pretty well yourself." I straighten his already-straight tie just for an excuse to touch him. "How was the ceremony from your end?"
"Boring. I couldn't see you most of the time."
"You were supposed to be watching the bride."
"I was supposed to be a lot of things." His thumb traces circles on my lower back. "I've never been good with instructions."
"Liar. You're excellent at giving instructions. Following them is a different skill set."
"One I'm happy to let you practice later."
Heat pools low in my belly. "Promises, promises."
Dinner is a blur of toasts and courses and conversations with relatives I barely remember. Callum handles it all with the same steady competence he handles everything, charming my aunts and deflecting my father's awkward attempts at interrogation and making my mother laugh with a dry observation about the wine selection.
I keep waiting for something to go wrong. For the other shoe to drop. For the universe to remind me that good things don't last and happiness is just the setup for inevitable disappointment.
But the shoe doesn't drop. The evening unfolds perfectly, full of love and celebration and Callum's warm presence beside me.
Until I go to the bathroom and everything falls apart.
