Almost as if he heard her—and please God, don’t let him have heard her—his gaze sought her out across the space that separated them. The color of his suit made his eyes glow an even lighter blue, and her legs carried her across the distance before she was consciously aware of what she was doing. She met him just inside the door.
“Hi.” She was so overwhelmed by the shock of seeing him in the world’s most important formal wear that she completely forgot to be mad at him.
His response came even more slowly than usual as he dragged his gaze from her meticulously coiffed hair down to her gold-tipped toes and all the way back up again. “Hey.” He didn’t smile, but the intensity of his eyes told her thatsomethingwas going on behind that calm mask.
“You own a suit, huh?” she said faintly. It was the best banter she could come up with; her higher-order brain functions didn’t seem to be working at the moment.
“Yep.” Even in the face of her judgmental question, his voice was as neutral as ever, and when he nonchalantly flicked open the button holding his jacket together—bam,a few of her wet parts were suddenly dry, and a few of her dry parts were suddenly wet. Mother Mary, have mercy.
“So this is the dress.” His eyes seemed to have gotten stuck on the neckline of her bodice.
“Y-yes,” she said faintly, the heat of his gaze flustering her almost as much as the sight of his arms in that fitted material.
He quirked his lips and took a step closer to her to avoid a large family that had just entered the hall. He smelled so good. Had he always smelled this good? Josie suddenly realized that this was the longest stretch of days that she’d gone without seeing him since their first meeting on the L.
“So I—” she started to say at the same time that he asked, “Can we—?”
They both broke off with a laugh, although it was slightly strained and nothing at all like their usual “I tease, you brood” vibe. Then she remembered her unwise kiss attack, and the smile dropped from her face. With dread pumping through her veins, she surveyed the entryway, looking for his surprise fiancée. Or not-fiancée. Whatever. But she didn’t see any trace of the friendly-faced Iowan whose man she’d accidentally tried to steal. Was he here alone? And why was he hereat all?
Silence fell during her not-at-all subtle perusal, and she forced a laugh. “I should probably get back to Richard. You’ll recognize me during the ceremony. I’ll be the one up front in blue.”
Something moved behind Erik’s eyes when she said the word “blue,” and he did another of those long, slow sweeps of her body that should’ve offended her for the sheer male gazey-ness of it. Instead, it ignited a low, slow burn in her stomach. Unsure of what to say to defuse this strange tension or if she maybe wanted to ratchet it up until they both exploded, she turned on her stiletto heel and sauntered away, her skirt fluttering in her wake.
* * *
The whole ceremonyseemed to last only a few minutes. Richard and Byron exchanged sweet vows that they’d written in separate corners of the hospital room over the past weeks, after which Josie shed happy tears as she watched them walk down the short aisle as a married couple, hand in hand. Byron, who’d always been slender to start with, had returned from his hospital stay gaunt and a little gray around the gills, but today he was lit from within.
“He looks so much better, don’t you think?” she whispered to Byron’s brother, Cecil, as they walked arm in arm after the newlyweds on the way to the reception hall.
“Much better. I wish Mom and Dad had come.”
She squeezed his arm. At twenty, Cecil was eight years younger than Byron and the only member of his immediate family who’d kept in touch after Byron came out in college.
“Well, he’s thrilledyou’rehere.” She smiled up at him as he escorted her to their assigned table, where she set her small bouquet of ferns and wildflowers down next to her plate. Lily had worked wonders on the rustic arrangement, which matched the naturalistic swags of greenery that decorated the round tables in the intimate reception hall under the tulle-and-twinkle-lights-festooned ceilings.
By now the rest of the guests were trickling in to share their good wishes with the couple before finding their assigned tables, and she watched with a giddy smile as Richard and Byron received hug after hug from the people who loved them. They deserved this beautiful day.
Finn and her two escorts joined the throng of well-wishers, and after they exchanged a few happy words with the grooms, they headed toward Josie’s table. Tom, of course, only had eyes for his girlfriend, pulling out her chair and smoothing a hand over her exposed shoulder as he took the seat next to her, while Jake only had eyes for his phone as he took his seat next to Josie. Six years ago, his lack of attention would have been a crushing blow to her ego. Now it was only a mild bummer that she was seated next to a guy who looked good enough to eat, or at least to lick for a few hours, but neither of them was interested.
Then another trio entered the reception room, and this time her jealousy jumped off the charts. Lily floated across the room in a vine-embroidered green dress flanked by a handsome man on each side. The dark-haired man holding her hand was undeniably attractive, but Erik? He was Thor, god of thunder, arriving at Valhalla, if Valhalla had an open bar with a signature cocktail called Love Always Wins and Tonics. And Thor, god of thunder, was walking straight toward her.
“Um, did the guys change the seating chart last night?” she asked Cecil, fighting to calm her nerves.
“Dunno.” He shrugged, apparently unconcerned that the trio of Georgia cousins who were supposed to be at the cool-friends and family table had been replaced by a perfectly nice florist, her (presumably) perfectly nice husband, and a baker who was so much more complex than “nice” could begin to cover.
Still, she was Josie freaking Ryan, and a heaping dose of discomfort mixed with sexual tension wasn’t about to keep her from doing her Josie freaking Ryan thing. “Hey, guys! Lily, I’m swooning over how great that dress is. Everybody, Lily took care of all the flowers tonight, and Erik made the cake. We are in the presence of artisans.”
Finn, Tom, and Cecil all said hello as Lily settled herself gracefully into her chair, as long and lean as the plumosa ferns she’d placed around the wedding hall. “Hi, everyone. This is my husband, Grant. If you need something to talk with him about, just ask him how the Cubs’ free-agent acquisitions are doing in comparison to the Yankees.”
Grant groaned and dropped his head into his hands. “Can we not air our bitter rivalry in public, please?”
The rest of the group slid into baseball chatter while Josie grappled with the fact that unfortunately—or fortunately? She wasn’t sure anymore—Erik had ended up in the seat directly across from her at the round table. Lily had thoughtfully kept the fern-and-feather table arrangements low enough that nobody’s line of sight would be blocked, which meant she’d be spending her evening studying the triangle of exposed skin at the base of Erik’s throat where it was bracketed by the open collar of his crisp white dress shirt.
“So!” she said a touch too brightly as the uniformed waitstaff started making the rounds of the room with the plated dinners. “Nobody’s throwing any bouquets at this wedding. What a relief to be off the hook for a change, right, Finnie?”
She’d expected minor flushing and stammering from her reserved roommate, but instead Finn and Tom shared a sly glance, and Tom linked his fingers with Finn’s, bringing her hand to his mouth to kiss the back of it.
“I don’t know about that,” she said without shifting her focus from her boyfriend.
