“Any of you, all of you. The more the merrier,” Margie said before she turned to Brynn and Grant. She looked back at Sydney when she said, “We’ve been trying to get these two on the court for ages.”
Stan placed his hand on Grant’s shoulder. “You work your son pretty hard in Boston. Hard man to pin down for a weekend trip. Such a shame.”
“Isn’t it?” Tripp answered, a look similar to the one Reese had seen at dinner last night passing between father and son. “We’ll have to make sure we remedy that. I don’t want Grant to miss spending time with his fiancée’s family. Work can wait.”
Reese bit back a scoff, which was luckily drowned out as Stan made an affirmative grunt at the same time he picked up a glass of champagne from a passing waiter’s tray.
She wasn’t sure how much more of her father’s theatrics she could take today, but there was no polite way for her and Sydney to excuse themselves.
To make matters worse, as the next words left Tripp Devereux’s mouth, she wished she’d spent her formative years building a time machine.
“You know, I have a thought…”
Reese had been distracted. Thinking about her mom. Shooting subtle looks at Grant to gauge his temperament. Relishing the casual touches that Sydney seemed insistent on making to sell their story.
It had caused her to underestimate her father, a man who, in her experience, generally got what he wanted.
She was already gritting her teeth when he said, “We hadn’t expected Reese to be able to join us for so long this summer, but it would be fantastic if she was more involved in the wedding.”
Sydney’s hand stilled on Reese’s back as she straightened to her full height. She could feel that her eyes were wide.
It was a reaction she couldn’t hide, though she did manage to quell the scream that was happening on the inside.
Grant wouldn’t want this either. Surely he’d find some smarmy way to backpedal their father’s words. Right on time, her brother said, “I don’t know if that’s?—”
But Margie Fitzpatrick was not of the same mind. “What a lovely idea. Stan, wouldn’t that be great?”
Stan looked like a bobblehead, given how quickly he nodded. “I couldn’t imagine a better way to celebrate the unification of our two families, making sure that Reese is involved as well.”
Reese was growing desperate, her stomach churning uneasily as she ran down the list of people who could stop this out-of-control train. Sweat broke out on the small of her back.
Putting the screws to Grant was one thing, but becoming a participant instead of an observer in the Devereux-Fitzpatrick wedding? That was definitely not on her list of things to do this summer.
Between getting up to speed at the inn and the already numerous occasions that she’d have to play loving couple with Sydney, she was trying to think through any way she could gently nudge this in the direction of having someone else think it was a bad idea.
Sydney shot her a quick glance, shrugging like she was at a loss, too.
Flicking her gaze around the circle, Reese settled on her future sister-in-law.
Brynn couldn’t want this. The situation was already strange enough, what with Reese dating her fiancé’s ex-girlfriend. She probably wanted as little contact with them as possible.
“I’m sure that Brynn already has her bridesmaids,” she ventured. “I don’t want to impose. I’m just happy that I’m able to be in town to attend all of the events.”
“It’s up to you, honey,” Sharon said to Brynn with a soft smile, picking the world’s worst time to join the conversation, “but there is an uneven number of bridesmaids and groomsmen. It could round things out nicely.”
Her own mother, Judas.
From her interactions with Brynn that afternoon, Reese had started putting together that she was an introvert in a sea of gregarious social butterflies.
It was clear that she deferred to her parents, and though the circumstances couldn’t be worse for Reese to be using this as a science experiment, she was curious if Brynn would fall in line with her parents or go to bat for herself and her future husband.
An important rite of passage for any child, standing up to their family.
Grant’s meek rejection of the idea had been surprising given how quickly he’d dropped it, their father seemingly controlling him by some invisible string.
“I think…” Brynn began. She looked at Reese for a few seconds before a gentle, genuine smile broke out across her face. “I think that it would be a nice way for us to spend more time together. I’d like to come to think of Reese as a sister, and this is a great place to start.”
Well, fuck.
