“I think they still believe it. Even though I planned the perfect bachelorette weekend. None of it matters. They only see the bad stuff.”
Hunter slips his arm around my waist. “Did you tell them about how your boss wants you to go to law school?”
“As if. They’d probably ask whether I misunderstood, or they’d think I was lying to impress them. It’s not like I can actually do it anyway. I can’t study and work and become a lawyer.” I fold my arms in front of myself and lift my head from Hunter’s shoulder. “I love my sister, but I can’t wait for this wedding to be over.”
“Then the pressure will be off you.”
“Mom and Dad will go back to whatever it was they were doing, and I can go back to New York. Ed will go back to focusing on work, and—”
“And then Katherine will get pregnant, and Ed will be distracted by Katherine’s pregnancy and eventually a baby, and then it will be a second baby and croup and chicken pox and school districts and every possible thing.”
I try to take in what Hunter’s saying. He’s worried about Ed’s ongoing distraction. It’s not just the wedding he’s frustrated about, but the whole idea of what married life will mean for his business.
“Portis is doing well, though, isn’t it?”
Hunter nods. “Yeah. For sure. But the Boston office is really Ed’s domain.”
“Your financials are separate?”
“No, but I don’t know what goes on there on a day-to-day basis.”
“You mean you don’t know the clients in Boston?”
“The big ones I do. Most of them actually. But as we grow, I’m not going to be able to keep track in the same way I do now. I’m not going to be able to cover everything.”
“Does Ed need to be covered?” I ask.
“He does if he’s going to take his eye off the ball.”
“Doesn’t sound like Ed.”
“No. But people change. Isn’t that what you wish your family could see? You’ve changed for the better. But Ed ... He missed a client meeting.”
His voice isn’t resentful—it’s full of worry. But why? Ed is the most dependable man on the planet. Then I realize that his concern is buried deep. It’s decades old. I turn to him. “Ed’s not your father.”
He frowns and takes a step back almost as if I’ve struck him. “I never said he was. But I’m not going to make the mistake of blindly trusting someone again.”
I shiver at his words, and my insides drop. Believing in your father and finding out he was a liar must be the worst kind of betrayal. At least my parents have been consistent in their disappointment in me. “You can trust Ed,” I say. “And me.”
He sighs. “We’ll see.”
For the first time since Martha’s Vineyard, I feel a distance opening up between Hunter and me rather than the horizon closing in.
“We should go back in,” I say.
“Yeah.” He pushes off the wall to stand. “We don’t want you to be the sister that disappears during the rehearsal dinner.”
“That will be the story at Thanksgiving, no doubt,” I say on a sigh.
Hunter scoops up my hand and presses a kiss to my knuckles, the chilliness between us dissipating like early morning fog. “I’m here for you, Lucy.”
“And you can trust me,” I say. Except I’m not sure he hears me, because he’s already heading back into the restaurant and pulling me behind him. Even if he had been listening, I’m not sure whether he’d believe me. I’m not sure Hunter will ever believe he can trust anyone ever again.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Hunter
Best man duties aren’t as onerous as I thought they might be. I had to take care of the rings, give a couple of pep talks when Ed’s nerves were at their highest, and dance with Ed’s mom and granny. Even my speech was warmly received. People laughed in all the right places. I couldn’t help but notice Lucy laughed more loudly than most. From what I can tell, the wedding has been a success. Katherine looked really pretty, and when I told her so, she found no invisible lint to pick from my lapel. No one fluffed their lines at the altar, and I haven’t heard Mrs. Jones quote Jane Austen once.
