So she stayed where she was.
“I think you need to take some of that weight off yourself, as best you can. Yes, there’s a week of events planned, and people are coming…”
Emily’s fingers twitched in hers—sparks weakly trying to make their way back into the fight.
“That’s happening,” Layla said calmly. “There’s nothing you can do about that. But you can focus ontoday, okay? Today, there’s the boat, and the dinner, but that’s it, right? That’s all you need to think about. There’s no rest of the week right now. No other Paris plans, no rehearsal, no ceremony, no paperwork back home. There’s not even Germany! There’sjust today.”
“Just today,” Emily repeated.
“Right, and today, you will see Michael, and you need to remember, that’s what this is about—you and Michael. You can keep your focus on you and Michael, and what’s right for the two of you.”
Emily’s face softened at the mention of her fiancé.
“I do love him. So much. He is—everything. The very best man. I don’t want you to think I don’t love him.”
At that, Griffin nudged his way back into Layla’s consciousness. She thought of the fierceness in his eyes, his voice, when he spoke of his friend.
She thought of his tight fist, his white knuckles.
Michael is very important to me.
This has to happen for him.
She wondered again what Michael—this man Emily loved—could’ve done to earn the unchecked loyalty of someone like Griffin Testa, who seemed like the sort of person who would only have loyalty to himself.
“I don’t think that,” she said, squeezing Emily’s clammy hands,bringing herself back into this moment. Away from the ones she’d had with Griffin.
Just Emily and Layla, she thought, her own version of theJust todayrefrain. Honestly, it was better than any affirmation she’d come up with on the flight over here. She should put it in the translation app.
Emily squeezed back, and then she said, in a near-whisper of vulnerability that might as well have been reading Layla’s mind: “I really missed you, Lay. I really missed having you in my life.”
At that, Layla’s throat thickened with emotion, the weight of her absence from Emily’s life, the weight of her broken promises since the divorce so heavy now.
Again, she was struck by the urge to apologize—to say that she hadn’t meant to become someone to be missed—but she didn’t know if she could get it out.
So instead, she kept it simple. “I missed you, too.”
They gave each other shaky smiles.
“I’m still not sure,” Emily said finally, pulling her hands from Layla’s, fanning her face for a few seconds before gesturing widely at the room—the suitcases full of wedding-week clothes, the still-covered windows. “About all of this. But today, I can do. I want to do. Or, I don’t know—I want to try doing? For Michael and me.”
Layla thought, again—against her will—of Griffin, and of the promise she’d made to him.
I’ll fix it. Tonight will happen.
And the fact that she’d kept it.
She tried to imagine his reaction when he found out. Would he give her that are-you-the-ex face, the-floor-is-probably-disgusting face?
Or would there be that split-second look of vulnerability thatpassed over his features in the courtyard, before he stood to leave her? Would he look at her like that again, would he soften his voice long enough to say thank you, would he—
“I mean, I’ll need your help, of course.”
Emily’s now-more-normal voice cut through Layla’s extremely fantastical train of thought.
“My…help?”
“I feel like”—Emily began, rising to pace again—“you’re kind of…theperson, you know? The only person who really understands where I’m at with this. With how I’m feeling, and with the whole ‘just today’ thing. If that’s what I’m going to do—if I’m really going to give me and Michael a chance to work through this over the course of the week, I can’t have everyone knowing about it. Adding their opinion in. I need this to be between you and me and Michael.”
