“Garrett’s in the house drinking a beer with Noah,” Josh said, walking up behind Neil. “Not to worry. He’s still here.”
Blair shot him a look, surprised by his confrontational tone.
“Debbie Sue,” Nana barked. “Sit down before you fall into the pool.”
Debra began to giggle, and Dena gave her a strange look before turning her attention to her restless children.
Clearly determined to single-handedly defuse the situation, Megan walked over and grabbed Blair’s wrist. “Present time,” she said, pulling Blair away from Neil and leading her over to the chair she’d set out.
When Neil started to drag a chair over to her, Megan held up her hand.
“Oh, no. You get to sit with all the other women.”
Josh dragged over two chairs and pointed to one of them. “Here you go, buddy.”
“But they’re my presents too. Don’t I get to help open them?” He flashed a charming smile to the gathered women.
“That’s not how showers work,” Josh said, pushing Neil into the chair. “It’s all about the woman. You wouldn’t want to steal Blair’s limelight, would you? You want her to be happy, don’t you?” The questions were barbed enough to surprise Neil into compliance. He sat down; Josh sat next to him.
“Isn’t that sweet?” one of Blair’s former high school classmates asked. She couldn’t even remember the woman’s name. Why had she been invited? Then again, this was Knickers’s party, not hers, so it made sense that Megan’s mother had invited the most perfect, and perfectly coiffed, people she knew—excluding Neil’s family, of course. Ordinarily, Blair would stand at the periphery and laugh at a spectacle like this, but she was stuck firmly in the middle of it, along with her confusion over Garrett and how to handle Neil, and she wasn’t laughing at all. Her brain was currently too stunned to process anything.
She was completely out of her perfectly organized comfort zone.
What was perhaps most startling of all was Megan’s behavior. While Blair had always been the natural leader of the trio, Megan was the take-charge girl in a crisis, and she was clearly in disaster recovery mode at the moment. What had Noah said to make her take control? Had her…indiscretion with Garrett been so obvious that everyone could tell? She was about to die of embarrassment, an emotion she found strangling.
She looked up at Megan with pleading eyes. “I don’t think I can do this, Megs,” she whispered. The quiver in her own voice frightened her.
Megan squatted a few inches. “You can. And you will. If we cancel the party, it’s going to raise red flags. We’ll get through it as quickly as possible, and then we’ll figure everything out. Okay?” The understanding and love in her friend’s eyes was probably the only thing that could have soothed her. She found herself nodding like a puppet whose strings had been pulled. The thought of being weak and malleable provided a spark of anger. She was familiar with anger. Anger was an old friend who’d kept her company more than half her life. Anger she could use. She grabbed hold and held tight before it slipped under the current of her other emotions.
Megan watched her face, then slowly shook her head and whispered, “Don’t you dare lash out at people, Blair. You’ll only make things worse. Libby and I are going to get you through the next hour—then when we’re alone, you can call the two of us every nasty name you have tucked in a file in your brain.” She smiled. “Trust me. Okay?”
Placing her trust in another person felt unnatural to her, and she could honestly say she never had. Not even with Garrett all those years ago. But she was drowning, and Megan was offering her a lifeline. Megan and Libby had been her best friends since kindergarten. They loved her and would do everything in their power to help her.
As if sensing her thoughts—and her need—Libby came out the back door, her face a study in determination. She’d gone into defense mode too. Yes, it was time to rely on her friends. After all, if she couldn’t trust her two best friends, who could she trust?
“Okay.”
Megan’s eyes softened. “Thank you.” Then she grabbed a gift bag off the table and handed it to Blair. “Mom, do you want to keep the list of gifts?”
Megan’s mother glanced around, looking even more flustered when she realized the party-goers were watching Blair in silent curiosity. “But I need to get the board to make her bow bouquet.”
“Bow bouquet?” Blair asked in alarm.
“No bow bouquet,” Megan said, picking up a pad of paper and a pen from the gift table. “Start writing.”
Blair went out of her way to avoid showers of any kind, but it didn’t take a fool to realize the present opening was proceeding at a much faster clip than it did at most parties. She knew she had her friends to thank for that. As soon as Blair opened the last gift—a twenty-dollar Target gift card from the high school friend she couldn’t remember—Knickers looked up at the group and beamed.
“Time for games!”
Shoot me now.
Chapter Fifteen
Garrett watched in shock as Blair walked out the door and returned to her wedding shower, leaving him standing there.
“We need to chat,” Libby said, grabbing his arm and dragging him to the breakfast table.
He resisted her tug. “No. I need to get out there.”
“Hey, Libs. I’ve got this.” Noah clapped a hand on Garrett’s shoulder. “Why don’t we go outside for a minute?”
“I don’t think so,” he said through gritted teeth and took a step toward the back door. He had to put a stop to this.
Noah blocked his path. “Trust me, dude. If you want the girl, you don’t want to do this right now.”
Garrett blinked in surprise.
Noah smirked. “It’s not that obvious to anyone else…yet. But if you go over there now, everyone in the whole damn party will know. And that’s not how you want this to play out. And I know that’s not how Blair wants it to play out.” He grabbed two beer bottles out of the refrigerator, then motioned to the door to the living room. “Come on.”
Garrett studied both of them, unsure of their motives, but his mind was spinning too fast for him to think clearly.
“Do you still care about her?” Libby demanded, hands on her hips.
“What?” He blinked. So much was happening at once, he wasn’t sure he should answer. He felt like any hope of getting Blair back had just been yanked out from under him.
Josh, who’d been standing at the periphery of the room for most of the last five minutes, stared out one of the back windows, his jaw tight. “I don’t trust that prick, and I don’t want him out there with my wife.” Then he stomped out the door.
Garrett could only presume the prick was Neil, which eased some of the tension from his shoulders.
Without warning, Libby snatched Garrett’s right hand and pulled it closer, her thumb brushing his fingers open.
He considered pulling free until he remembered her earlier demand to read his palm.
Her index finger traced his hand, following lines for several seconds until she looked up into his face. “When you love, you love for keeps. Is she the one?”
Noah chuckled as his brother disappeared out the door. “Libby, just look at him and you’ve got your answer. Let me handle this.”
She studied him for another second before dropping his hand. “Okay.”
With a grin, Noah handed one of the beer bottles to Garrett. “Libs, go out and keep an eye on things—Josh included. This might take a little bit, but come get me if you need me.”
Libby gave them both a once-over, then pointed a finger in Noah’s face. “You better not screw this up.”
He laughed, completely unthreatened, then clapped an arm around Garrett’s shoulders and led him through the living room and out the front door.
“This some elaborate ploy to kick me out?” Garrett asked, half-joking.
“Nah. Josh and I could have easily kicked your ass out the door. We wouldn’t need a ploy.” He settled onto the top step and opened his bottl
e, then took a long drag.
Garrett sat next to him, putting his hands behind his head. He wasn’t sure what Noah’s purpose actually was. He had one, Garrett was sure of that, but he wasn’t about to let down his guard. Now that Blair had kissed him with that same fiery passion he remembered, he wasn’t backing down. Not a chance in hell.
Noah leaned his elbows on his knees and tilted his head to look at him. “So you love her, huh?”
Was it so obvious? “Yeah.”
“Do you think she loves you?”
Garrett didn’t answer, sorting through his thoughts. From the way she’d kissed him back, he thought there was a definite possibility. But she’d walked out on him no more than a couple of minutes later. “I don’t know. This morning I would have said no. I broke her heart five years ago. I definitely don’t deserve her. But now…”
“Hey, who does deserve the love of a good woman?” Noah asked, but it sounded self-deprecating. “But it doesn’t mean you should give up. Otherwise hardly anyone would get married. So what are you going to do about it?”
Garrett sighed and ran a hand over his head. “My sister told me to show her I’m not an ass anymore, but I’m under a tight deadline here. That plan might work if I had a month or two. So I tried to apologize to her in the kitchen…” He wasn’t sure he should confess that she kissed him first. He knew her, and he suspected she was in agony over the thought that she’d just cheated on Neil. “I know she still feels something for me.”
“You need to step up your game, dude.”
Garrett took a long sip of his beer and lowered the bottle. “I think I may have just pushed her away.”
They sat in silence for a minute before Noah said, “I don’t know Blair very well, but I know she likes to act like a hard ass. From what Libby says, she resists letting anyone get close to her.”
Garrett shook his head. “You’re not telling me anything I don’t know.”
“Okay then, Mr. Know It All. How do you get to her?”
He groaned. “Persistence. Patience. Things I don’t have time for.” He motioned to the house behind him. “She’s out there opening wedding gifts with my asshole cousin.” Should he give up? Let her go? But he knew she wasn’t happy with Neil, and said asshole was cheating on her. He just had to make her realize he really loved her, and he’d do his damnedest never to hurt her again.
Noah’s brow lowered in concentration as he stared out into the street. “So what you need is an accelerated plan. Sometimes a chemical reaction speeds up when heat is applied.”
Garrett’s eyes widened.
Noah chuckled. “I’m an engineer, and contrary to what my younger brother thinks, I did pay attention in a few of my college courses.”
“Heat, huh?” He might be right, but he still needed a plan.
“Are you going to their party tomorrow night?”
“Yeah. Nana’s insisted that I attend all of the wedding functions, but I would have been there anyway. I’m going to take every opportunity I can to see her. In fact, we have a deposition together tomorrow.”
“We’ll come up with something by the party. Just keep trying to charm her in the meantime.”
Noah was being a little too friendly—why was this total stranger so gung-ho to lend his assistance? “Why are you helping me? We’re plotting to break up a wedding.”
He grinned. “Instigating trouble is something I’m good at, and Libby’s a perfect partner in crime. The two of us made sure Josh and Megan were officially married, and if we managed to do that, we can definitely break up Blair and Neil’s wedding.”
Garrett’s hand tightened around his beer bottle. “So this is all some game to you?” His voice rose with his anger.
Noah shook his head. “Hell, no. I’m doing it because there’s no way she’s happy with that dickhead.”
Garrett’s gaze jerked up to his. “How do you know?”
“I spent time with them a couple of months ago at Josh’s wedding. The guy’s a total douchebag. Blair might come across as a bitch—no offense, dude—”
He shrugged. He knew how she came across. “None taken.”
“—but she doesn’t seem like the type to tolerate a guy like him for very long.”
Garrett took a long drink. “And yet she has…she is.” Could their arrangement be as practical as Neil had suggested?
“Look, I don’t know you, man, but I saw my brother with Megan in June. When he thought he was going to lose her, he was totally messed up. I can’t imagine what would have happened if he hadn’t taken a chance.” He paused, twisting the bottle in his hand. “If you love her, win her over. You still have a couple of days, and the two of you have history. Josh had less than that with Megan. Hell, the two of them met on the plane on her way to her wedding.” He flashed a grin. “But I bet beating the crap out of Blair’s fiancé in front of her friends isn’t going to win you any favors. Not with a pistol like her.” He laughed at the surprise on Garrett’s face. “Yeah, it was pretty easy to see your intention.”
Garrett grinned. “Yeah, you’re right.”
Noah’s smile widened, and he held out his hands. “Why can’t more people see that?”
His grin morphed into a laugh. “Won’t your girlfriend be looking for you soon?”
Noah took sip of his beer, then lowered his bottle. “Libby’s not my girlfriend. She’s just a friend.”
Garrett studied him for a moment. Given the way those two acted around each other, he was pretty sure Noah might need a straight talk of his own.
“Libby’s worried about her and would do anything to protect her. That’s why she and Megan were so quick to jump in when Neil showed up.”
That got Garrett’s attention. “Blair’s not the type to tolerate people hovering and taking care of her. She’s too independent for that. I can’t believe she let Megan drag her off like that.”
“Blair hasn’t been acting like herself lately, and like I said, they’re worried about her. They think she’s making a mistake but is too scared to admit it. If they push too hard, she’ll do it anyway just to prove them wrong.”
Garrett suspected they were right.
“I’m sure the way Neil was acting in the kitchen hasn’t done much to set them at ease.” Noah drained his bottle, then stood. “Let’s go out there and keep an eye on the douchebag. Libby doesn’t trust him, and neither do I.”
Though the last thing he wanted to do was watch Neil parade around with Blair, he forced himself to rise from the stoop. If he truly wanted a chance with her, what choice did he have? Maybe it was time to tell her that Neil was cheating on her. Perhaps it would ease the guilt she was sure to be feeling. But he worried it would harden her heart against love even more, or worse, she’d accuse him of lying about her worst fear in a desperate attempt to win her back.
He’d sit on the information and hope he could win her over his way. He only hoped his way didn’t take too long.
Chapter Sixteen
Blair didn’t have a lot of experience with showers, but this had to be the strangest one she’d ever attended. After the gifts, Knickers divided the attendees into three teams and set them to work draping one team member with toilet paper in an attempt to create a wedding dress.
Knickers insisted that if Josh and Neil were going to sit in on the shower, they had to join a team. So Josh was sent to Megan and Libby’s group with a couple of other partygoers, and Neil joined forces with his mother and sister and a few others. Of course, Neil’s mother decided it would be cute if Neil was the bride, and soon he was draped in long ribbons of paper. He shot a grin at Blair, who was waiting by the food table. Her job was to judge at the end. She was sure his amusement was supposed to give her warm fuzzies or fill her with reassurance after the kitchen debacle, but all she felt was disgust, directed at both Neil and herself.
Libby was the model for their group, and Megan and the others wasted no time before slapping toilet paper on her in a haphazard manner.
Dena’s kids were
out in the yard, each with a roll of toilet paper, throwing streamers up into the trees. Knickers watched in dismay, gnawing on a knuckle. “Oh, dear.”
The back door burst open, and Megan’s grandmother let out a shout. “Ho, boy! You’re playing dress-up. I wanna play.” She was dressed in a hot pink bowling shirt, paired with silver sparkly leggings and orthopedic shoes. Her gray hair was accented with pink streaks, and her arms were wrapped around a present wrapped in purple paper. She set the gift on the presents table and hurried over. “Is the theme Vegas-style weddings? I want to be the bride.” She started to lift up her shirt.
Knickers cringed. “Mother, stop! There are children present.”
Her mother looked taken aback. “What’s that got to do with anything?”
Several people laughed, much to Knickers’s chagrin.
“You can be on our team, Gram,” Libby said, grabbing her wrist and pulling her closer. “Where have you been? It’s not a party without you.”
“It’s bowling night. I couldn’t let my team down, but I decided to come home early.” She pinched Libby and Megan’s cheeks. “I couldn’t miss my girls.”
Megan gave her grandmother a hug. “I’ve missed you, Gram.”
“Then you and Josh need to get your hienies back in K.C. I’m not getting any younger.”
Blair was surprised by the sorrow that crept into her as she watched the exchange. The only real family she had left was her mother, and she hadn’t expected to miss her so much, especially at her stupid wedding shower. In fact, her mother had been more upset than Blair that she was missing it. Blair had truthfully assured her it was no big deal, so she was shocked at the sudden realization that she now felt very alone.
Gram looked over at Blair and reached for her, pulling her into a bear hug. “You think you’re getting out of some lovin’?”
Blair found herself hugging the woman back. Gram held tight and whispered in her ear, “You got a lot of people who love you, girl, me included. Don’t you ever forget it.”
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