Monica interrupts by blowing her whistle, a shrill, warbling noise that sounds less like a sporting event and more like a bird in its final death throes. Several people wince. Aunt Carol's dog starts barking from someone's car.
We lurch forward in a tangle of limbs and confusion.
Kruk is immediately perfect at this, because of course he is. He moves with steady, measured steps, and I try desperately to keep up. His arm locks around my waist, practically carrying me, and for a few glorious seconds I think we might actually have a chance.
Then I trip over nothing.
Kruk catches me before I hit the ground, hauling me upright with one arm while maintaining forward momentum. We crossed the finish line in third place, which is honestly a miracle.
"Not bad!" Monica chirps. "Next up: egg toss!"
This goes about as well as expected. Which is to say, disastrously.
The first toss is fine. Kruk catches the egg like he's defusing a bomb, careful and precise. He tosses it back to me in a gentle arc and I catch it through sheer dumb luck.
Second toss, we step back. The egg wobbles in the air. I lunge for it, bobble it between my hands like a very fragile, very breakable ball, and somehow manage to hold on.
Third toss, I throw too hard and Kruk has to dive to catch it. He succeeds, rolling smoothly to his feet with the egg intact, and several people actually applaud.
The fourth toss is our downfall. I step back, trip over a decorative rock, and the egg hits me square in the chest.
Yolk explodes across my light blue dress.
There's a moment of stunned silence.
Then Derek laughs. It's loud, obnoxious, the same braying sound that used to make me shrink during our relationship. "Classic Lettie! Still a disaster!"
The old nickname hits like a slap. He's the only one who ever called me that, usually right before explaining how I'd embarrassed him at some work function or dinner party.
Kruk goes very, very still beside me.
It's not the absence of movement that's terrifying, it's the quality of it. Like a predator who's just spotted prey. Every muscle in his body has gone taut, coiled tight with barely restrained violence. The air around him feels different, charged with the promise of imminent danger.
I touch his arm, and it's like touching warm steel. "It's fine," I say quickly. "Really, it's fine. Let's just?—"
"No." His voice is quiet, almost gentle, which is somehow worse than if he'd shouted. There's absolute certainty in that single syllable. "It is not fine."
"Kruk—" I tried again, my fingers tightening on his forearm, but I might as well be trying to hold back a freight train with a silk ribbon.
But he's already moving.
He crosses the lawn in three long strides, and Derek's laughter cuts off abruptly as six and a half feet of solid Orc muscle plants itself directly in front of him.
"You will apologize," Kruk says. His voice is calm, conversational, which somehow makes it infinitely more terrifying.
Derek's face goes pale, then red. "Dude, it was just a joke?—"
"Apologize to Colletta." Not a request. A command.
The entire lawn has gone silent. Monica's mouth is hanging open. Trevor looks like he's trying to remember if his wedding insurance covers Orc-related incidents.
Derek glances at Madison, then back at Kruk. He's trying to decide if his pride is worth getting dismembered at his best friend's wedding rehearsal.
"Fine," he mutters. "Sorry, Colletta."
"Look at her when you speak," Kruk growls.
Derek's jaw clenches. He turns to me, and for the first time since we dated, I see actual fear in his eyes. "I'm sorry."
