“I am, indeed,” she agreed. “Because, really, if you want to be happy, you have to say ‘eff the rules.’” Then she blew him another kiss, aimed a second one at Marcus, and flounced off down the hall.
Cary caught Marcus looking her up and down as she retreated. “Hey,” he said, his tone surprisingly peevish. He hadn’t been kidding about being Team Rose, apparently. “Look away from the dress, buddy.”
Marcus did not obey, so Cary shoved him hard enough to get his attention, then took the pair of beers he held and sat down in the sitting area of the room. He popped the top of one of them and passed it over. Then he opened his own and lifted his bottle. “To you, cousin. Though God knows, you should have eloped.”
Marcus clinked his bottle against Cary’s. “I would have in a heartbeat, but Rose didn’t want to.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, the thing about Rose is that she comes off as kind of a rebel—the independent spirit and all that—but in some ways, she’s very traditional.”
Cary could see what he meant. The dress was itself a perfect example of the mixing of tradition and rebellion. “Well, God bless her.” He took another pull of his beer. “And God bless you. You should be sainted for going along with this.”
Marcus shrugged. “Not to get all sage on the mountain on you, but I’ve sort of learned that sometimes, loving someone is about giving in.” He shook his head and smiled. “Not that I didn’t suggest a Caribbean beach wedding about a thousand times. But in the end, it’s more important to her than it is to me.” He chugged the rest of his beer and slammed the bottle down on the coffee table between them. “But also? I didn’t invite my father, so how bad can it really be?”
…
What the fuck was he doing? After Alexander declared himself to the usher as belonging on the bride’s side, he gave some serious thought to following that usher down the aisle and just continuing on past the rows of chairs and out the emergency exit he could see lit up at the other end of the museum atrium where the wedding was being held.
But something made him stay. The same something that had made him come to begin with, he supposed. The week of repeated invitations Rose had sent to his office had worn him down. He found himself curious about the whole Rosemann clan, about this woman who had reportedly been giving the traditional old-money family the vapors. He felt a kind of kinship with her. Even though they could pass in these settings, they were both fishes out of water in this world of hereditary privilege.
But that wasn’t the whole truth. Rose had worn him down, but so had Cary, with his stupid texts. His thoughtful, funny, stupid texts.
Texts that had to stop.
Which was the real reason he was here. To be a man and stand up and look Cary in the eyes and tell him to stop.
Tell him everything, in fact—tell him about the letter Johan had sent, which he was still working on locating. He was confident that it wouldn’t make its way to Liu anytime soon, but he needed to confess. You couldn’t sleep in someone’s arms and stab them in the back at the same time.
Not that there would be any more sleeping in each other’s arms. It was over. They were competitors. Alexander had finally gotten to the point where he could accept that Cary deserved to be in this competition. He was still going to do everything in his power to win it, but this time, when he said, “May the best man win,” he was going to stick out his hand to shake, and he was going to mean it.
And if he held on to that hand a touch too long because it would be the last time he would ever touch Cary Bell, well, it was what it was.
Resolved, he sat and looked around. Rose’s side was definitely outnumbered by Cary’s. Alexander had most of a row of upholstered chairs to himself. He felt the absurd urge to spread out, to somehow try to take up more space, in solidarity with Rose.
A rabbi appeared at the front of the room, and everyone stopped talking. Then Cary came down the aisle. Well, to be more accurate, Marcus, the groom, came down the aisle along with his best man and two other groomsmen. But Alexander couldn’t take his eyes off Cary as he walked. It was kind of funny, actually, because the cousins looked similar. They shared those bluish-gray, intelligent eyes and angular cheekbones. They were both handsome in their impeccably tailored tuxedos. But although Alexander could appreciate that Marcus was a good-looking guy, it was his younger cousin that was making every part of Alexander’s body tighten. His fingers flexed in his lap, buzzing like they needed to rub against that nearly shorn head regardless of what Alexander himself wanted. His dick twitched as he remembered the feeling of being inside Cary. Even his mouth felt heavy, providing a visceral memory of what Cary had felt like inside him. Realizing he had been holding his breath during Cary’s whole trip down the aisle, he released it, watching both men nod at the rabbi and turn, presumably in preparation for the procession.
Marcus turned and looked up the aisle with a nervous smile on his face.
Cary turned and looked directly at Alexander.
Alexander wondered for a moment if Cary had somehow been able to sense his attraction, if the power of his want had literally drawn the other man’s attention. But that was ridiculous. He had come here to shut all that down. So he met Cary’s look of surprise, which was followed by the slow blossoming of a smile, with merely a nod, and settled in for the torture of watching Cary’s back for the next thirty minutes.
…
Cary tried to concentrate, to do his best-man duties without betraying the fact that he was Freaking. The Fuck. Out. His first thought on seeing Alex was, embarrassingly, joy. Stupid, unhinged, undignified joy. It had only been a week and a half since they’d been together, but seeing Alex in the flesh was a rush, a full-body experience as happy adrenaline flooded through him. But then, taking in the sight of Alex sprawled over two chairs like he didn’t have a care in the world, he started to fret. If Alex was still waging war, this would be a supremely effective way of unsettling the enemy.
He told himself to forget Alex as he watched Rose’s friends Cassie and Amy walk down the aisle. He actually succeeded for a moment when the maid of honor, Hailey, started her slow march, but only because he was trying not to laugh. Hailey’s purple, asymmetrical, half-shaved haircut had not been toned down for the wedding, so maybe Rose wasn’t going to be the Rosemann family’s only target tonight. But as soon as Hailey had taken her place, his agitated mind—and his gaze—returned to Alex and the mystery of what he was doing here.
When the music changed to herald Rose’s arrival, he forced himself to abandon his paranoia and pay attention. Rose and her mother processed down the aisle, and the ceremony began, thankfully requiring him to turn his back to the audience. From that point, it wasn’t as hard to concentrate on the wedding as he would have thought. As Marcus and Rose spoke their vows, he found himself oddly moved. Probably it was because even though he pretty much thought weddings were bullshit, it was impossible to resist the Rose and Marcus show. They were happy, truly happy, and that shit had the power to infect onlookers.
Still, by the time it was over, Cary breathed a sigh of relief. The wedding party had been dismissed, and Rose and Marcus stood at the back of the room, a receiving line of two—“get it over with,” Rose had decreed. Cary hung around a bit, trying to catch a glimpse of Alex over the heads of the crowd, but he’d been instructed to bring a check to the caterer, and to check in with the DJ, so he set off to do his duty, not sure if he was going reluctantly or gratefully. Was he looking forward to seeing Alex or dreading it? He didn’t know. Everything was all mixed up in his mind.
It didn’t matter because when he arrived in the cavernous gallery space that was home to the reception, he was plunged into damage control mode. The maid of honor, she of the purple hair, accosted him immediately. “The vegetarian dinners aren’t what she ordered!” He wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do about it, but he nevertheless found himself thrust into the kitchen and into an absurd argument with the chef, who insisted that the asparagus he’d substituted fo
r the medley of sautéed greens Rose had ordered to accompany the vegetarian pasta was actually preferable because it was fresher than the greens. He didn’t know which side he was supposed to be on, and when Rose herself appeared in the kitchen and deemed everything fine, he breathed a sigh of relief and set out to find Alex.
“Come with me to the table,” said Rose, grabbing his arm and halting his progress. “We’re starting the first course, and I need you to shield me from your family.” Sighing, he obeyed, and once he had seated Rose at the head table and Marcus had joined them, he was exhorted to make a toast that would signify the start of dinner. What the hell? Weren’t weddings supposed to be interminably long, drawn-out affairs? Why was this one moving along at such a good clip? But he did as he was told, scanning the crowd for Alex but unable to see much because the DJ’s spotlight was shining on him.
“Alexander Evangelista came,” Rose whispered, leaning over as they started the salad course.
“I know,” he said. “Surprised the hell out of me.”
Rose performed a coy shrug. “I sent him an invitation. Or several. I may have been a tad…persuasive.”
He tried to be mad, but how could he? They’d broken the mold when they made Rose.
“Anyway,” she went on, “It’s not like he’s here for me. He doesn’t even know me.”
“Rose. Do I need to remind you how much you hated it when your mom was trying to match-make you?”
“I know! I know! I just really want you to hurry up and get settled so we can expand the normal wing of this family.” He couldn’t help but laugh at that. “Besides…” She lowered her voice and leaned in closer. “Your godchild is going to need you to be more upstanding than you currently are. So please get working on that.”
It took him a moment to catch her meaning. But when he did, his jaw dropped. Tears rushed into his eyes.
She set down her champagne flute with a thud and said, “Yes, indeed. You think I have apple juice in this thing for shits and giggles?”
“Congratulations, Mrs. Rosemann.”
“I told you I’m not changing my name.”
“You don’t think Rose Rosemann has a certain ring to it?”
“No, I do not. In fact, I think Marcus should have changed his name to Verma. Then the normal wing of the family could all have been Vermas.” She winked at him. “Well, Vermas and Bells.”
He laughed and planted a big, wet, sloppy kiss on her cheek. Then he leaned over and looked at Marcus, who was seated on Rose’s other side. Marcus must have felt his attention because he turned his head from where he’d been talking to the maid of honor, who was seated on his other side. And then he must have sensed that Rose had told Cary their news, because his face broke out into the biggest grin Cary had ever seen on his cousin as he slid his arm over Rose’s shoulders. “Don’t tell anyone yet,” he whispered.
Cary nodded. He had to look away, out into the crowd, to keep those damned tears at bay.
His eyes found Alex again. Just like at the ceremony, they seemed to just know where he was, to home in on him without Cary exerting any conscious effort.
And then it hit him.
“Oh my God,” he said, clasping a hand over his mouth.
“What?” Rose leaned over. “What’s wrong?”
He cleared his throat. “Nothing. Sorry, nothing. My mind was just on something else for a second.”
“Well, I hope it was something good,” Rose said.
It was not something good. It was something very, very bad. It was something disastrous.
He was in love with Alex Evangelista.
He looked around the room, panic rising in his chest. Holy shit. He wanted all this. This wedding bullshit. Expanding the normal wing of the family, as Rose had put it. Kids. He wanted kids, for fuck’s sake. He picked up his champagne and downed it.
It had come from nowhere, this wanting, taking his breath away with both its suddenness and its force. Love, marriage, kids—he wanted it all.
And he wanted it with Alex Evangelista.
Chapter Nineteen
Alexander had to admit that the wedding wasn’t bad, as these things went. They kept the proceedings moving along at a decent pace. He had been planning to try to intercept Cary between the service and the reception, to tell him what he had to say, and then leave. But Cary seemed to have disappeared after the ceremony, so Alexander was forced to take a seat and make small talk with his table mates, who were Rose’s co-workers. Then the dinner started, and he had to watch Cary perform a graceful toast, full of just the right mix of gentle humor and poignant good wishes. Alexander watched him liaise with servers, nod to the DJ at various points that must have been cues. He was a master at pitching things exactly right, running the show with a mastery that looked unpracticed.
After the last course, the DJ announced the first dance. “In lieu of a traditional dance, Rose and Marcus would like to invite any couples who would like to join them to share in their first dance as husband and wife.”
“Dance with me.”
Alexander turned. Somehow, even though he’d been watching Cary pretty closely all night, he’d lost track of him, allowing him to approach undetected from behind.
“Is that a question or a command?” he asked.
“It’s a command,” Cary said, holding out his hand, but his smile said it wasn’t, not really.
Well, shit. They could have this conversation dancing as easily as anywhere else. But… “If your family is really as tight-assed as Rose suggests, isn’t the sight of two men dancing going to scandalize them?”
“Yes,” Cary said.
Alexander couldn’t help but smile. You had to admire Cary’s balls. “All right,” he said, placing his hand in Cary’s and letting himself be led to the dance floor to the opening strains of “What a Wonderful World.”
“Besides,” Cary said, pulling Alexander close. “The maid of honor and I have a secret pact to try to deflect attention from Rose and Marcus.”
“Why?” Alexander asked. “They’re the ones getting married.”
“Right. But there’s so much family drama, and there’s been so much animosity about them being together, that Rose thought if other people did things to claim the spotlight, she would seem demure, relatively speaking.” He shrugged. “Rose doesn’t always make sense, but it’s best just to do her bidding.”
Alexander’s waist tingled where Cary laid his right hand against it. “Ah, that must explain the purple hair.”
Cary didn’t answer him, just pulled him closer, probably closer than was wise, given the conservativeness of the onlookers but also the reality of why Alexander had come. Alexander sighed as tension drained out of his shoulders. Why did that always happen when Cary was touching him? The mint in the mint-and-coffee smell of Cary was dominant this evening. Despite his better judgment, Alexander leaned closer and inhaled.
“I’m glad you came,” Cary whispered in his ear, his warm breath making the hairs on Alexander’s neck stand on end.
“Rose sent an invitation to my office,” Alexander said, pulling back enough so he could look at Cary. “And a balloon bouquet.” Cary laughed and rolled his eyes. “And a singing telegram.”
“Oh my God.” The laughter in Cary’s eyes died and was replaced by something more like embarrassment. “I’m sorry. I had no idea.”
Alexander’s chest felt uncomfortably heavy at the notion of having embarrassed Cary, which was stupid because the whole point of coming here was to tell Cary to back off, to push him away. “Quite all right. I can see that this Rose person is a force of nature.”
“She is that.” Ever-persistent, Cary pulled him a little closer again, so that their chests were flush. It put them nose to nose, eye to eye. Smile to frown.
“I want to ask you something,” Cary said at the same time that Alexander said, “I need to talk to you.”
Alexander said, “Go ahead,” just as Cary said, laughingly, “You first.”
Well, shit. He pulled back
again, remaining in Cary’s embrace but just barely. “You need to stop texting me.”
Cary blinked. That hadn’t been what he’d expected.
Alex pressed on. “This….thing we have going. It has to stop.”
“I thought you said it was just sex.”
“It is. It was.” God, this was harder than he’d imagined. How to explain that when it came to relationships, he was broken and he needed to stay that way? That he couldn’t let Cary un-break him? That he needed his heart to say the way it was: brittle.
He didn’t have to find the words, though, because Cary dropped his arms, held his hands up like he was surrendering to a mugger. “You know what? You’re right. I can’t just keep having sex with you.”
It was Alexander’s turn to blink in surprise. “What a Wonderful World” stopped, and the DJ started in on some jumpy pop thing. Guests flooded the dance floor, but Cary and Alexander stayed rooted in place, staring at each other with a foot of space between them.
“So we’re back to war, then?” Cary asked, his face so blank, it made Alexander wonder if he had imagined the smile he’d flashed when he first caught sight of Alexander earlier.
“No,” Alexander said quickly. “Not war. Just…competition.” Above board competition. He opened his mouth to ’fess up about the mailed court documents, but Cary interrupted him.
“May the best man win and all that.” Cary’s lips were pressed together into a thin, grim line.
Alexander nodded and swallowed hard, his throat having gone tight. This was going exactly as he’d hoped it would. This was why he’d come here. He was getting what he’d wanted. So what the hell was his problem? “About that. There’s something I need to—”
“I gotta go,” Cary said. “A best man never rests.”
And then he was gone, and Alexander was standing in the middle of a dance floor, Kool and the Gang hurting his ears, and something else, something he couldn’t name, hurting his heart.
Ten minutes later, safe inside his car, Alexander picked up his phone and checked his email, hoping the mundaneness of scrolling through a series of demands on his time would knock him out of his weird funk.
His Heart's Revenge (49th Floor Novels) Page 14