“Inspecting it anyway.”
Harold has positionedhimself at the bow of the yacht with a champagne flute, looking like he personally commissioned the sunset. Which, knowing Harold, he probably tried.
He’s wearing a suit I’ve never seen before. Pocket square. Cufflinks. His hair is combed. Grandma Hensley is beside him in lavender lace, andthey are holding hands, and I have questions that I’m not going to ask because some things a son doesn’t need confirmed.
“Paul.” Harold raises his drink. “Beautiful day.”
“Half the town is on my dock, Dad. Plus whatever Hollywood people Levi couldn’t uninvite.”
“Structures have margins.”
“Structures have lawsuits.”
“You worry too much. Always have. Your mother used to say you worried in utero.”
She pats my arm. “Your father told me to tell you to relax, but since he never relaxes about anything either, I’m going to skip that part and just say: you look handsome, dear. Emma is a fool if she doesn’t snap you up.”
“With all due respect —”
“I have a notebook, Paul. I’ve been tracking your situation since March. You’re behind schedule. My records suggest you should have declared your intentions by Memorial Day.”
“Your records.”
“I’m very thorough.”
She squeezes my arm and turns back to Harold, who winks at me over her head. I retreat to the ramp, which is fine, because Justin reinforced it, because Justin is good at his job, and I need to stop checkingthings that don’t need checking and start dealing with the fact that Emma is on this yacht in that dress and I have approximately three hours before this wedding ends and I lose my excuse to be in the same room with her.
The ceremony is at sunset.
Guests arranged in white chairs on the yacht’s main deck. The string quartet plays something soft and classical that I can’t name but that sounds like the ocean feels. The altar—the arch of magnolia branches—is framed against the sky, which is doing its best impression of a painting.
The bridesmaids come down the aisle. Jo first, then Michelle, then Mads—magnificent and enormous and daring anyone to comment—then Jessica, then Emma.
Emma without the camera. Aubrey’s plan worked: Lottie is stationed at the back with the Nikon, capturing shots from the guest perspective. Emma’s second shooter, hired specifically for today, is positioned at the side. Emma will rejoin the photography after the ceremony, but for the processional and the vows, she’s just abridesmaid.
Just.
She walks down the aisle in the blue-green dress, bouquet in her hands—Delilah’s wildflower creation, loose and natural, like something picked from a meadow—and when she passes my row, she looks at me.
Not a glance. A look. The full, steady, unguarded version. Five days of space and silence and counting seconds, and she gives me all of it in one look as she passes.
I forget how to breathe. Which is inconvenient for a man sitting in the third row trying to look composed.
The groomsmen take their places. Grayson. Scott. Brett. Asher, who is somehow both Jo’s son and Dean’s stepson and the most confident twenty-something on this yacht. They line up beside Levi, who is standing at the altar looking like he’s been waiting twenty years for this exact moment. Which he has.
Then Delilah.
She comes down the aisle on Eleanor’s arm—her mother, because her father David is gone and Eleanor wouldn’t have it any other way. Delilah is wearing white. Simple. No train, no veil, no excess. Just the dress and theflowers in her hair and the look on her face when she sees Levi standing under the magnolia arch.
I’ve seen a lot of things on this dock. Storms, sunsets, heartbreak, healing. I watched Holly take her last breath in a hospital room with fluorescent lights and machines that beeped too loudly. I’ve stood in this marina a thousand mornings wondering if I’d ever feel anything that big again.
Watching Delilah walk toward Levi—watching two people who found their way back to each other after twenty years of wrong turns and silence—something shifts in my chest that I haven’t felt in eleven years.
The minister speaks. Vows are exchanged. Levi’s voice shakes on “I promise,” and Delilah laughs through her tears, and Grandma Hensley blows her nose so loudly that three rows of guests turn around.
Rings. Kiss. The entire yacht erupting in applause while the sun drops below the horizon and the sky catches fire.
I look at Emma from my seat. She’s crying. Camera forgotten. Bouquet trembling in her hands.
