Page 83

Then it was the two of us, and three men in the corner, and one item left on the run of show.

I was stacking glasses. Doing anything rather than look at him. Blaine took the glass out of my hand and put it down.

"There's one thing left."

"Blaine."

"Nine-thirty. First dance." His voice wasn't quite steady, and that man's voice is always steady. "The trio can't leave until we do it. It's in their contract."

"You did not read the contract."

"I read the entire terms of service of a wellness app for pleasure. Of course I read the contract."

I laughed. Then I stopped, and neither of us moved.

"They'll play anything you ask them." He almost smiled. "Ask for something that isn't a wedding song."

So I went over and said something to the cellist, and he nodded like a man who had long since made his peace with the evening. And the three of them started playing You Are In Love.

I put a hand on Blaine's waist. Barely. The way you hold something you've been told not to touch.

"You can touch me properly," he said. "I don't bite."

"I'm not certain that's true."

But I did as I was told.

He put his head somewhere near my shoulder, and we turned in a slow circle in a tent covered in the wreckage of his wedding cake.

And I was being handed the exact thing I had sold a boat and hired an actor and crossed an ocean to get. And all I could think about was that on Monday a woman named Bex was going to pick up a telephone.

"Gregory."

"Yes."

"You didn't toast."

"No."

"Why not, really?"

I thought about producing an answer. I want that noted, because it was right there — warm, shapely, entirely reasonable. I could have handed it to him and he would have taken it.

"Because I'd have meant it," I said, and felt something wet slide down the side of my nose.

Blaine lifted his head and looked at me. He had frosting in his hair, his eyes were red, and his face was wide open.

Then he kissed me.

It was nothing like the driveway. On the gravel he had been furious and fast and he shoved me off before either of us could feel it land. This was slower. He took his time about it, and he made a decision partway through, and I felt the decision happen against my mouth.

My hand came up and finally went where it had wanted to go all week, at the back of his neck, into his hair, and he made a small sound. Then his hand closed in the front of my shirt and pulled, and for a moment there was no daylight between us at all.

The trio did not miss a note.

Then he broke it, stepped back, and held my eyes.

"Tomorrow you'll have a plan," he said. "You'll have thought of something by breakfast. That's what you do. You go away and build a thing and come back and show it to me, and it's always beautiful, and I always applaud."