“Are you okay?” His voice is low and full of concern.
I slowly draw in a breath, hoping it’ll work past the lump in my throat and the tears will finally pause. But I’m afraid if I use my actual voice that I’ll break down again, so I simply nod in reply.
“Do you want to talk about it?” I shake my head no. He nods, waits a beat, rests his fingers under my chin. I let him tilt my face up and melt a bit as he inspects my expression again, his brow furrowing as he studies me. “Can I ask you a question?”
“Depends on the question,” I croak out.
He’s already seen me crying. What do I have to lose now?
“Who was on the phone?”
The question catches me so off guard that a tiny laugh escapes me. “Why? Are you jealous?”
“Depends on if it was a secret boyfriend or not.”
I consider telling him yes, in fact, it was a secret boyfriend just to mess with him, but there’s something about the earnestness on his face, the hesitation in his blue eyes that has me reconsidering.
So instead I shake my head. “No. It wasn’t a secret boyfriend. Just Lola.”
“Thank god,” he mutters, the tenseness in his shoulders visibly relaxing as he exhales a breath.
“So you are jealous.”
“Not of Lola.”
“Sure.”
His lips twitch and then he drops his hand from my chin and extends his palm up to me. “Come on then. Let’s get out of here.”
I look to the ornate door I just walked out of. Just the thought of climbing the stairs to get back to the venue has me close to tears again. “I . . .”
“Or would you rather I walk you back upstairs for the gift opening?”
I slide my palm on his and intertwine our fingers. A warmth spreads from my hand all the way up my arm into my chest. My body suddenly feels abuzz from just the contact alone. I glance down at our hands then up at his face only to find him staring at our fingers too and I briefly wonder if he felt it too.
Before I can ask, he takes a step from the wall, guiding me into the bustling bodies and down the sidewalk, away from the celebration I put months of hard work into for my ungrateful sister.
Reid slides a tomato resting on a cutting board across the counter to where I stand beside him. I watch as he opens a drawer, pulls out a knife, and delicately sets the blade beside the tomato.
“Mind dicing that for me?”
I’m standing barefoot in Reid’s immaculate kitchen, still in the blush pink dress Kate made me wear, but covered with a knit wool sweater Reid scrounged from his closet for me when he noticed me shivering. I study him only for a second—getting distracted by the corded forearm muscles exposed from his rolled-up shirt sleeves—before wordlessly dragging the cutting board closer, grabbing the knife and beginning to slice.
“Sorry,” he adds, wiping his hands on a dish towel that I assume was once white. He flings the towel over his shoulder with an easy flick. “You were saying?”
I blow out a breath. What was I even saying? A lot of things with a lot of emotions behind them, that’s for sure. There’s no way he actually wants to hear all my feelings. And there’s no way I’m strong enough to unleash my deepest feelings to him. The desire to be included. Taken seriously.
Loved.
“If you’re worrying about me making fun of you for having feelings, you can stop that train of thought now and just lay it on me.” His words and the soothing tone accompanying them unlocks some sort of padlock on my heart.
“Sometimes I don’t like my family very much,” I admit. I keep my eyes glued on the tomato, the repetitive motion of slicing it then chopping it into tiny pieces. Keeping my gaze down feels less vulnerable.
“Sometimes I don’t like your family very much either,” he says. That draws a small smile out of me. Good, so I’m not the only one who notices how horrible they can be. “Why do you put up with them?”
I shrug. “Because they’re family,” I say, like it’s the only answer. Because to me, it is. You should be willing to do anything for your family. Right? I let out a breath. “Kate is just stressed. Weddings bring out the worst in people, you know?”
“I don’t know. I don’t find myself at many.”
