Maybe This Time(25)

I pointed. “There’s a power strip behind Bryce’s drums there.”

“Cool, thanks.” Kyle exuded rocker tonight in a pair of dark jeans and a white collared shirt with a thin black tie. His blond hair was getting longer and looked a bit greasy hanging in his eyes. He plugged in his amp and then did a few test chords on his guitar, tuning it as he did.

I wasn’t sure why I was lingering. Kyle and I had gone nowhere fast lately. We hadn’t moved forward but we hadn’t moved back, and it seemed like neither of us was willing to change that. “Do you have everything you need?” I asked.

He pushed his hair off his forehead. “Yeah, I think so.”

Bryce jumped up on the stage, slapping Kyle on the back. He held up his phone. “Tell me this isn’t the playlist.”

“We talked about this,” Kyle said. “It’s a wedding.”

“Did Janet give you this list? Do you have no dignity?”

“Do you want to sing about leaving the girl and living alone at a wedding?”

“Yes, yes I do,” Bryce said, moving over to his stool and adjusting its height.

“Me too,” Kyle said. “But it’s not happening.”

“Probably a good call,” I said.

Jodi and Lincoln came to join their bandmates on the stage, and I said hi to them. Just then, Micah, carrying a tray of salt shakers, and Lance, carrying a tray of pepper mills, walked past us.

Micah paused next to me while Lance continued walking. “What’s so interesting over here?” She wiggled her eyebrows at me, seeming to answer her own question.

“The cover songs that have to be played tonight,” I said.

“I love covers.”

Bryce curled his lip at her. “Take your blasphemous tongue away from me.”

“I’m going to make a couple requests tonight,” I said. “Maybe some Céline Dion, some Journey.”

Bryce hissed. Kyle smirked my way and I smiled back.

“So adorable,” Micah whispered. She was wrong. The weird standstill Kyle and I shared was not adorable.

“I need my other half!” Lance yelled from a table across the reception area. He held up a pepper mill.

“Where is he on your spreadsheet?” I asked. I knew the answer to that question. Micah and Lance had dated freshman year and had both decided to move on. She probably had a big red X through Lance’s name, even though I felt like they had both changed since then. But Micah was Micah; once she’d made up her mind and moved on, that was that.

“Funny,” Micah said, then left to join Lance.

I needed to go too. I had boutonnieres to pin before the ceremony started. “Good luck, guys,” I told Kyle and the band.

“We’re not taking requests tonight,” Bryce called out after me. I laughed.

I walked around the outside of the Stanton Estate and toward the gravel parking lot where the flower van waited. I collected the box with the boutonnieres and turned to head back when I saw someone standing by a black car. He was facing away from me, talking on his phone, but I could tell who he was by his posture alone. My gaze drifted to Andrew’s tuxedo and right away I knew we had a problem.





I marched up to Andrew and tapped his shoulder.

He turned, saw me, and held up his finger. He gave a few affirmative hums into the phone. There was a tense set to his jaw that I had never seen before. “Okay,” he said. “Talk to you later.” Then he hung up and stared at me expectantly.

Every curious bone in my body wanted to ask him who he’d been talking to, who had turned his normal smug expression serious, but I resisted. “What are you wearing?” I asked.

“Hi to you too.”

I hadn’t seen him since Mother’s Day. On purpose. He and Micah had invited me along to an in-depth tour of our tiny town a couple of weeks ago, and I had politely (probably not politely) declined. Micah had been serious when she told him that he now had a friend, and she was always good at following through on her declarations.

“Andrew, you can’t wear that,” I said.

He held his hands out to the sides. “It’s a tux. Have you seen one before? You wear them to events like weddings and galas and fund-raisers.” His tux was beyond fancy: obviously designer and tailored to fit him perfectly.

“Have you met the groom?” I said. “He’s from a middle-class working family. His dad is a construction worker and his mom is a schoolteacher. Are you trying to upstage him? He probably rented his tux in the next town over at the local mall. It would not surprise me if some guests come in jeans.” I paused for a breath. “And you’re not even a guest!”

Andrew looked down at his shoes, which I hadn’t noticed before but were black and white and, if possible, even nicer than his tux. “Oh.”

“I thought you said you’d spent time in a small town before this,” I hissed. Then I took his arm and dragged him into the house and down the hall to a room that wasn’t being used. I pulled us both inside, set the box of boutonnieres on an end table, and crossed my arms.

“You need to change,” I said.

“What?”

“Your clothes. You need to change.”

He raised his eyebrows and unbuttoned the top button of his jacket. “Like right now?”