The Best Man (Blue Heron #1)(39)

“Faith, I—”

“No! Plus, you’re a terrible dancer! I mean, we had to take six lessons before you figured out the box step, Jeremy! And—and—and you played football! You were really good at it, too. You played football, Jeremy! You were the quarterback!”

He put his hands on her knees, on her beautiful dress, on all that poufy fabric, and his happy, beautiful face was so old and tragic now, oh, God. “I know,” he said, his voice rough. “And I thought, when I met you, that I’d sort of click into place. I really did love you—”

“You do love me! Don’t put that in the past tense!” she cried, her voice shrill. “You said you wanted to be my husband! You said so on the phone last night, Jeremy!”

“Take it easy,” Levi said.

Faith whirled around. “Shut up, Levi!” she barked. “If you have to be here, at least shut up!” He looked back down at the floor and obeyed.

Faith took a breath, then another, and looked into Jeremy’s eyes. “I know you love me,” she went on more steadily. “I know that more than I know anything. How can you be saying all this?” She lowered her voice. “Did Levi make a pass at you or—”

“No! God, no,” Jeremy said. “Levi has nothing to do with this. You’re the only one I’ve ever been with, Faith. Ever.”

“See? Then you’re not g*y. You’re just not. We’ve been sleeping together since sophomore year of college!”

A horrible thought occurred to her. That maybe dating a guy who said he loved you but waited two years to get into your pants...oh, shit.

“Faith, when we’re...together,” Jeremy said, very, very quietly, “I have to...um...”

At that moment, the door opened and Jeremy’s great-aunt Peg came in. “I just have to use the ladies’ room,” she said. “Don’t worry, I won’t listen to a word. Faith, darling, you look so beautiful. And, Levi, is it? Oh, I love a man in uniform! Thank you for your service, sweetheart.”

“Uh...you’re welcome,” Levi said. “Thanks for your support.”

Good God. This was just bizarre enough to be a nightmare. You know what? It might be. She prayed it was. The great-aunt in the loo, Jeremy being g*y...come on! It had to be a dream. Please, God. Let me wake up in my bed and have this be a dream, and Jeremy and I will still get married. I can tell him about this dream, and we’ll laugh and laugh about it. Please.

The details, though. The smell of chalk, the cold chairs. The gleam on Levi’s shoes, his crew cut.

Jeremy’s bowed head.

Finally, Great-Aunt Peg emerged. “See you upstairs!” she said, waving merrily.

“You were saying?” Faith said. Her voice was sharper now, harder. “When we’re together, you have to what, Jeremy?”

He grimaced. “I have to think of...other things. Even though I think you’re beautiful and—”

“What things?” she said. “I think I deserve to know what things you had to picture!”

“Faith, this probably isn’t—” Levi began.

“Shut up, Levi! What things, Jeremy?”

He looked wretched. Utterly miserable. “I have to picture Justin Timberlake.”

Oh.

Okay, that was a showstopper. The case for Jeremy’s heterosexuality took a serious hit with that one. “Justin Timberlake?”

“‘Rock Your Body.’ The video.”

Her mouth was open, she realized. She closed it. The JT song echoed in her head, taunting. Those damn white hoodies everyone wore.

Oh, no.

Thoughts bounced and zinged through her head, not quite registering. Her makeup must be ruined from crying. The dress was itchy. They wouldn’t have their first dance together. They weren’t getting married.

“You’re really g*y?” she whispered.

He looked up and nodded, his eyes were full of tears, too, and it was idiotic, but she wanted to comfort him. “I thought that I...that I wasn’t,” he said. “I wanted a wife—you—I wanted kids, I wanted a life like my parents have, but...I...yes. I am.”

He covered his eyes with one hand and bowed his head.

From the first time she’d laid eyes on him, Faith had known he was special and gentle and wonderful. From that first second on, she’d loved him. He had never, ever let her down, never found her lacking, never spoke to her in anger or looked at her in contempt.

Jeremy Lyon was, above all things, a good, good man.

Without quite intending to, she reached out and stroked his smooth black hair, cut short for this day.

He looked up, his misery so obvious that it wrenched her heart, the heart he was breaking.

“It’s okay,” she whispered. “It’s all right, sweetheart.”

“I’m so sorry,” he said again. “I’m so, so sorry, Faith.”

He leaned in close, so his head was touching hers, and they sat there another moment or two—or an hour, the uneven sound of Jeremy’s breathing as he cried, the soft pat of tears as they fell from Faith’s eyes to her dress. The reality of the future pressed down on Faith, the weight almost bearable at first. Her beautiful wedding wasn’t going to happen. No honeymoon in Napa, lounging around in bed with this beautiful man. Oh, God, the weight was pressing on her chest harder now. No black-haired children running through the fields of Blue Heron...no life with Jeremy, the only one who’d ever seen in her something that was special and rare and precious.