Do You Take This Man (52)
Finally, I stepped across the room and dropped to one knee in front of the bride in her white dress, the miles of fabric surrounding her like a darkly ironic marshmallow. “Do you want me to get your bridesmaids?”
“I’m so embarrassed. I don’t want to see anyone.” She shook her head, and then the silence hung around us, only her small sobs punctuating it. She looked up from her own clasped hands, eyes red, black eye makeup smeared. “What am I going to do?” Her voice was small. “He was going to be my whole life. What am I going to do?”
I shifted my weight, remembering asking myself that question. Remembering crying when no one was around because I had to let it out, and then getting angry that I had to show weakness, even to myself. “I don’t know. I think today probably feels like the worst day of your life, though.”
She nodded.
I wiped my palms down the legs of my pants. “It maybe feels hopeless and black, like you’re drowning?”
“Like I can’t swim,” she said, voice hitching as another sob ripped through her.
I nodded, swallowing. I set my hand next to hers, where she held a handful of material from her full skirt. I tried to remember what Penny and Caitlin and eventually Uncle Harold told me. I remembered ignoring it and brushing off their platitudes, but I channeled them anyway. “You can swim, though. You will.”
“How do you know?”
“I’ve been there. Had everything pulled away from me by someone I loved. Not exactly like this, but I was left alone.” My chest tightened, and I bit the inside of my cheek hard.
“What did you do?” The woman looked up miserably, eyes already swollen from the crying.
“I took time to be sad and mad, and then . . .” I searched for the word, wishing I’d followed her parents out to the reception. The back of my neck heated, knowing RJ was listening to this. I didn’t want to tell the bride that I was over it, that it just stopped sucking, that I didn’t stay up at night getting angry, because I did. I rested my hand on top of hers. “I started thinking about swimming to the surface, and then eventually I started swimming.”
She pressed her lips together, eyes plaintive. “Did you get there? To the surface?”
I sensed RJ shifting from foot to foot behind me, but I didn’t turn. The bride’s dad’s voice carried down the hall as they returned, and I stood. “I’m working on it.” I squeezed her hand and stepped back to make room for her parents.
I swallowed again, not sure why I was needing to do that so often, as her dad pulled me aside to go over a few details. I blocked out the conversation with his daughter while we talked about logistics, but I kept letting my gaze wander to where RJ had been standing. She’d slipped out, and I didn’t know if she’d heard what I said to Jayda, or what she thought. I realized as I left the suite to take care of about two hundred details that I didn’t know if I wanted RJ to have heard me or not. On one hand, I wanted her to know me. Increasingly, I had this urge to tell her things I didn’t tell other people, to make sure she saw all of me. On the other hand, she’d made it clear she wasn’t interested in drama, and I had a sinking fear she’d see me, all of my drama, and leave. I didn’t like the idea of one more thing being in the air unsaid between us, but I had to focus on the job in front of me.
* * *
? ? ?
THREE HOURS LATER, I closed the door to my room and leaned against the cool surface. Since everyone had traveled to the destination wedding, no one had much to do besides hang out. A surprising number of people had stuck around for the party, and though the mood was somber, the bar was stocked. I’d been on the phone, putting out fires and trying to help undo a honeymoon Penny had helped to plan on top of the wedding. I was exhausted from all that, not to mention that I couldn’t get my conversation with the bride out of my head. I’d been bogged down in memories since stepping out of that room and feeling alone. I hadn’t seen RJ for the rest of the night and hadn’t had time to text her. I assumed she’d left, since there was no reason for her to stay. I wanted to be the reason she stuck around, though. The portable battery pack had made a valiant effort, but my device sat at nine percent.
Lear: You make it home?
If there hadn’t been things I needed to do the next morning, I would have driven home, too. I pushed off the door, pulling my shirt from my pants and unbuttoning it. My phone dipped to five percent, and I was digging for the charger still plugged in next to the bed when I heard a knock at the door.
“It’s me,” a voice said from the other side, a smoky, sexy voice I’d wanted to hear all evening.
When I opened the door, RJ stood there in yoga pants and a T-shirt that hung off her shoulder.
“I thought you left.”
She looked up at me through thick but unadorned lashes, her features soft. “I didn’t.”
“Why?”
RJ stepped into my room and wrapped her arms around my neck, pressing her lush body to mine, and I pushed the door closed behind her, hugging her back. “I thought . . . It seemed like you might need someone.” She squeezed me tighter, pressing her face into the crook of my neck, clutching me, pulling me in.
I held her, inhaling the scent of her hair product and pushing back against the tide of emotion. “RJ,” I said, flattening my hand against her shoulder, unsure of what to say and wanting to say a hundred things at the same time.