“He’s still here. There’s time to fix things.” Claire grabbed her hand and squeezed.
Doubtful. Her life had imploded all around her. “I need a new plan. A better one.”
“Maybe you don’t need one at all. Go where it feels right and stop making the easy things hard. Use your intuition.” Heather took Velma’s other hand.
She had her friends. They hadn’t given up on her.
“Velvet, dear. Keep your eyes open.” Pops smiled wistfully.
She nodded and set out to make things right with Brek.
With her shoes in hand, she took the stairs with as much speed as her dress allowed.
She finally found him on his phone, relaying messages to the staff at the church.
“Brek,” she said when he hung up.
He tossed her a distant look and the muscles in her chest tightened.
“I messed up. I’m sorry.” That summed it up, right? She stepped closer.
He shoved his phone in the pocket of his suit pants and studied the ceiling, the cords of his neck pulsing against his obvious frustration. “I thought you were past all of this.”
“Past what?” Why wasn’t he touching her? He always found ways to touch when they were close.
He dropped his gaze to the floor, hands on his hips. “Your head shoved up your ass.”
Velma shifted on her bare feet. “That’s not fair.”
This time he did meet her eyes. Her breath caught at the devastated emotion mirrored back at her.
He brushed past her down the steps.
Her heart broke more than a little as she watched him go.
An aching distance separated them at the church. Brek threw himself into the coordination as soon as they arrived. Work couldn’t wait, and Velma got that, but the way he blatantly dodged her attempts to communicate began to grate.
“Have you seen Brek?” Jase asked Velma as he sauntered into the Sunday school room they used as a staging area for Claire’s bridal party.
“I don’t know. Last I saw, he was talking to Pops near the rectory.” Velma pushed away a nonexistent strand of hair from her cheek. “Jase, about what happened…”
The light in Jase’s eyes dimmed. “He’s my buddy. It’s best if I don’t get involved in this.”
But she needed everyone to know that filling out the spreadsheet with his information was a mistake. “When I filled out the spreadsheet, I didn’t understand him. I get it now, but he’s blocking me out.”
Jase scrubbed a hand over his military-grade haircut. “You gave him a four.”
Velma tried to roll the tension from her shoulders. Technically, the algorithm gave him a four, but that didn’t seem to be a good point to argue. The spreadsheet was wrong. Absolutely wrong.
“Jase, they need you at the chapel.” Brek’s chirpy assistant, Amy, clapped her hands to get everyone’s attention.
Jase squeezed Velma’s arm and left to take his place next to Dean…and Brek.
“Everyone ready? Anyone need anything? Water? Restroom? Now’s the time,” Amy continued.
Velma fluffed Claire’s veil and forced herself to smile. “Ready?”
Claire nodded. A sprinkle of tears dusted her eyelids through the mass of tulle. Gram’s repurposed now-sleeveless dress hugged her chest and waist tight, and the A-line silk skirt with the vintage lace overlay was perfection.
