Deon gave me a searching look – a look that promised he was going to find out what all this was about later on – and started off down the hall. I was true to my word about being slow. I let him get far enough ahead of us that he cleared the elevator well before we reached it, leaving us waiting for it to come back to our floor.
“So,” Xavi said. His voice was strange and tight. “Who is Deon? Your real boyfriend?”
I glanced at him. He wasn’t looking at me – just watching for the lift to arrive – but his hands were clenched in fists at his sides.
“No,” I said. I kept my eyes on him, watching him curiously. “He’s just an old friend. A good enough friend to know that I was telling you the truth when I told you that I’m single.”
Xavi visibly relaxed.
“Oh,” he said, his voice small. The elevator pinged and the doors slid open, revealing an empty space for us to step inside.
We were alone for a moment. I looked down at Xavi again. Something was happening on his face – some kind of troubled expression passing over it and then passing again, like he kept coming to some new, even more difficult conclusion.
He reached into the inside of his jacket, opening his mouth as if to speak –
“Hold the door!”
I looked up and saw Keaton rushing down the corridor towards us, holding his hand in the air. I reached out reflexively and touched the button to stop the elevator doors from closing, giving him time to get to us.
I looked down at Xavi.
His face was smooth and untroubled, his hands empty and away from his jacket, as if nothing had happened at all.
Whatever he had been about to say and do, I was going to have to wait until we were alone again to find out.
Xavi
We took our seats at the table and all I could do was grimace.
Of all the luck in the world.
We were seated on the central of three long tables, obviously reserved for the closest friends and family – the seating plan was almost the same as it had been last night at dinner. Behind us and on the other side were guests that weren’t as close to the grooms – colleagues and looser acquaintances.
And right behind us was a group of people from Aiden’s workplace. Meaning that by some cruel twist of fate, Deon was seated directly behind Rowe.
If there was a god, he hated me, and he probably had a good reason.
“The grooms are on their way,” Caleb announced, entering the room by one of the doorways. He was taking this best man thing pretty seriously. Maybe too seriously. Did he have to keep bossing everyone around? “Let’s give them a warm welcome!” He lifted his hands into the air and started to clap, demonstrating what he wanted everyone else to do.
All eyes were on Aiden and Cade framed in the doorway, and the air was full of noise.
This might be the only chance that I got for a while.
I reached into my inner jacket pocket, pulled out the second envelope of cash, and slid it under the edge of Rowe’s plate. I leaned my head close to his quickly, needing him to spot it before the entrance was over.
“Here’s the rest of your money,” I said, right into his ear. “You can leave if you want. It’s okay. We’ll make an excuse.”
Rowe stopped clapping for long enough to scoop the envelope off the table and transfer it to his own inner pocket, glancing around frantically to check no one else had noticed. He would make a terrible spy. “It’s fine,” he said.
“What do you mean, it’s fine?” I asked, hissing at him, knowing we only had a brief window to finish this conversation. They were already walking to their seats at the head of the room.
“I’ll stay,” Rowe said. He turned towards me and met my eyes. “I’ll finish what I promised I would. Today, tonight, and tomorrow.”
Why did that sound like the kind of promise I so desperately wished to hear from him in a different way?
Today, tonight, and tomorrow… I had no one. But if I could have Rowe only for that time, it would be a deal I would take. No matter how you looked at it, though, this weekend was fake – only a paper imitation of the real thing that I truly wanted.
The clapping died out and we sat along with everyone else. The conversation was over, our moment of cover gone. The people sitting opposite us – Ace and Brody – were facing us, now, and there was no way we could carry on talking with their attention on us. Especially not Ace. I could feel it. He was still waiting for me to trip up, so he could laugh in my face and tell me how he’d known all along no one could ever really love me.
