And then Laine sighed. “I don’t know what to tell you, except... you’ll probably survive.”
Britt was silent. “Wow. That is one stirring speech, Patton.”
“Listen to me.” Laine was a little pissed off. “Britt, you’re really freaking smart, but you’re so proud and you shut people out when you’re hurt and scared and sometimes youneeda little outside perspective. Not everything is in your control and life is not a test that comes with a Scantron and a number-two pencil. It’s okay to feel a whole bunch of feelings. All that means is youhave feelings. Feelings are good. Remember in cheerleading practice? You kind of just learn how to fall. And falling gets easier every time. You survived Jeff. You’ll survive this. Maybe you have to fall over and over again in order to master it. Maybe that’s all life is. Maybe that’s all thisis.”
Britt was astonished.
“That’s a much better speech,” she allowed after a moment.
And Laine actually sounded a little like J. T., but Britt wasn’t going to tell her that.
Laine laughed.
“I don’t want you to be hurt or scared, Bippy. It kills me. But I also don’t want you to think this is the end of the world. And if you really do love him, maybe you should try to get him back. I’ve never known you to run away from a challenge, and I can’t imagine you can’t take Rebecca Corday with one hand tied behind your back, blindfolded.”
“I totally could.”
“But if you’re still too scared, then maybe that’s something you just have to wait out. Maybe you’re not ready. And if it’s really over, you’ll probably survive to get back up on another horse one day. That’s all I’m sayin’.” She swiveled her head and bellowed, “MUFFIN!”
Britt gave a start.
“Crap! Gotta go, Britt! The cat is tearing around the house. I think he has a dingleberry. I have to grab him before he gets up on our comforter. Love you! Alley-oop!”
The screen went black.
Britt couldn’t bring herself to say Alley-oop back. She didn’t feel like she had the right anymore.
CHAPTER20
Abrilliant scarlet-and-purple sunset hung like bunting over a scene out of a fairy tale—or out of a Hollywood movie. Same difference this time, J.T. thought. And this particular movie had a cast of hundreds. Fairy lights twinkled in the trees surrounding them; laughing, lounging, cuddling guests clustered at tables covered in white umbrellas that bloomed like little toadstools all over the sprawling green Napa grounds. The ones who weren’t at the tables were dancing or doing deals or mingling or drinking way, way too much or possibly sleeping with someone they shouldn’t in one of the myriad guest cottages.
Speaking of drinking too much, Rebecca was out on the dance floor and she was drunker than he’d ever seen her. She was wearing an astonishing purple dress, very short at the hem, high in the front, scooped so low in the back the teensiest hint of butt cleavage showed. He wouldn’t be surprised if half the men in the place were walking around with involuntary boners thanks to that dress.
He’d asked her to take the wheel of his truck and drive the whole way from Hellcat Canyon to San Francisco, where he’d left her to find her own way to Napa. And on that drive his wedding toast finally poured out of him. He was suddenly fucking Shakespeare. And he’d tapped it all into a draft e-mail to himself in his phone.
Rebecca wasn’t happy about that at all.
And now J. T., after a lot of aggressive and mostly agreeable socializing, had finally found a spot alone at a table on the outskirts of the party. He wanted to be alone.
Guests kept finding him anyway, to pay homage.
Clyde Gordimer, an actor, said, “J. T., my man, that wedding toast...” He mimed a knife to the heart. “You’re setting the bar too high for the rest of us.”
“Ah, c’mon, Gordimer. You never met a bar you didn’t love.”
Gordimer laughed and fist-bumped him and strolled on.
A few minutes later, the esteemed multi-Oscared actress Dame Naomi Nivens knelt next to him and said on a hush, “J. T., I want you to know... that toast...” She clasped her hands. “The stuff of legends. If only all men thought the way you do.”
“Maybe they do,” J. T. told her, “and they just can’t sayit.”
She nodded as if he was a sage and drifted off again.
The thing was, most people who knew both him and Rebecca knew that toast couldn’t possibly have had anything to do with her.
Which, he suspected, was why Rebecca was drinking like a fish.
J. T. stood again and wove swiftly through the crowd to seek out a waiter and another glass of champagne. On the way he ran smack into Franco.
