I could see the worried look on Sloane’s face, those double wrinkles she got between her eyebrows. But she didn’t say anything, so I ignored them.
Then Caroline started singing. “Goin’ to the chapel and we’re...”
Mom chimed in, “Gonna get ma-a-arried...”
Sloane started on the verse, “Spring is here, the-e-e sky is blue, whoa-oh-oh...”
Then they were all in full song, and for the first time but not the last, I realized it: I was going to be a bride. I was going to walk down the aisle and wear a white dress and get married. It was then I realized I didn’t have anyone to walk me down said aisle. I decided immediately I would get Adam to do it. If he was walking right by then. He had sustained multiple injuries in the helicopter crash that led to his capture and even more during the months he was MIA. But the man was a soldier. He knew all about fighting a hard battle and coming out the other side.
A few minutes later, when the squealing and singing and general noise had stopped, I noticed Jack still sitting on the couch, looking something between amused and terrified. You couldn’t blame the man. I would wonder what I had gotten myself into, too. I also noticed that Kyle was now leaning on the open front door, admiring all of us. Well, maybe not all of us. Maybe just me. Either way, my heart skipped a beat. But I got myself back together. It had been one night. Just one night. It had meant nothing.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
He shrugged. “Stopping in to say hi on my way home from work.”
I kept meaning to ask my mom if Kyle always stopped by on his way home from work or if it was only when I was around.
I felt suddenly tongue-tied, and instead of responding, I said, “You know what would be so great? I’m totally in the mood for some green juice.”
Mom and Sloane groaned, while Caroline said, “Oh, yes, yes, yes!”
Mom sighed. “I love you, Em, and I’m glad you’re being healthy, but the mess in the kitchen after you juice is too much.”
“I can see there’s a lot happening here tonight, so I’ll come back in the morning,” Kyle said, laughing. Then he added, “Congrats, Em. You’re going to be a beautiful bride.” The words seemed to taste bad in his mouth.
“Please,” Jack pleaded. “Please, Kyle. Take me with you.”
Kyle put his hand to his heart, as if it genuinely pained him to say what was coming next. “If only I could, my good friend. But you know as well as I do that when it comes to the indomitable Murphy women, it’s every man for himself.”
Maybe it was only in my mind, but I felt like he looked at me a beat too long when he said it. And it made me wonder if Kyle thought about that night every now and then, too.
FIVE
ansley: a nice gesture
Ihad known Kyle for seven years. I had drunk his coffee every day. And for the entire time I had known him, I had begged him to do just one thing. Last week, he had finally agreed.
My assistant, Leah, had taken over a lot of the ins and outs of my daily design business, but this was something I knew I had to do myself. I made my way to Kyle’s shop, Peachtree Perk, with a bag full of samples I planned to drop off: black and white tile for the floor, wood choices for the booths that would be handmade at Peachtree Furniture, leather for the cell-phone pouches that would hang on the walls to encourage people to disconnect so they could reconnect. I had pictures of industrial barstools and renderings of a sophisticated, modern white quartz bar with metal trim that we would install in the center of the café.
When I walked in, Kyle was rushing around behind the counter as two women old enough to know better—or at least hide it better—admired his chiseled jawline. “So what’s the damage?” he asked, never stopping his movement.
I slid a piece of paper across the counter with the quote. My time would be free, obviously. Kyle was like one of my children.
Glancing at the paper as he walked by, he said, “Solid. Let me know when I need to close for the installation.”
I held up my bag. “Don’t you want to see some samples? Choose some things?”
He finally stopped moving, his hand on the steamer as he prepared a latte, and looked up at me. “Ans, you don’t tell me what to put in your coffee. I don’t tell you what to put on my floors. We’re artists. I trust you.”
I smiled. “You’re going to love it.”
“No doubt.” He started moving again, and as I walked back out onto the sidewalk—wedding planning with the girls called—I got lost in my thoughts.
I wanted to ignore it, tried to ignore it, hoped it would go away. But there were no two ways around the fact that Jack was acting very oddly toward me, skittish, almost. We had made a pact not to eat any sugar the entire week—a real feat for both of us—and when I was making dinner at his house the night before, I had found a Snickers bar in the pantry. I turned to him, arms crossed, and said teasingly, “Jack, do you have something you need to tell me?”
He went completely white and stammered, “Oh, um...”
I pulled the Snickers out from behind my back, laughing, and he visibly relaxed, his shoulders going soft. I wanted to ask what was going on, but I couldn’t quite bring myself to. I got the feeling it was news I wasn’t going to like.
