by Megyn Ward
“Is it safe to come in?”
“Yes,” Cari answers him before either our mother or I can get a word out. “You can come in, Ryan.”
“Are you sure…” He eases himself into the room slowly, hand still on the doorknob, gaze averted, like he isn’t sure if he’s supposed to look or not. “I don’t want to interrupt anything.”
“You’re not interrupting,” Cari tells him, rushing forward to pull him the rest of the way through the door before shutting it behind him. “Actually, we could use a male point of view.” Dropping her hand away from his arm, she takes a step back and lifts her layers of long, lace skirts to give him the same kind of twirl she just gave me. “What do you think?”
Five months ago, Ryan would’ve given her one of his flat, uncomfortable smiles and grumbled you look nice. Hell, he might’ve even walked away without even answering her. Now, the grin he gives her genuine, the flash of teeth lighting up his entire face. “I think Cap’n’s gonna shit when he sees you.”
While the rest of us laugh, my mother gives the lot of us the same exasperated sigh she’s been passing around all morning. “I certainly hope you don’t talk like that in front of my granddaughter,” she huffs like she isn’t married to an ex-marine whose every other word is a curse.
“I can’t afford to, ma’am,” Ryan says with a smirk that has Cari snorting into her hand again. “Anyway,” he says, his arm coming up to bring the box I left on the washing room into view. “I just got here and happened to see this in the back seat of Grace’s car and it looked important so…” He flicks a quick look in my direction and a whisper of the old Ryan comes back, the smile on his face dimming just a bit. “I—uhhh…here.” He takes a step in my direction and pushed the box into my hands. “I’ll let you ladies get back to… whatever it was you were doing,” he says, turning toward the door. “You really do look beautiful, Cari.” He gives her one last smile before making his escape.
Before I can think about what I’m doing, I turn to look at my mother, just long enough to shove the box Ryan gave me into her hands before I follow him out the door.
“Ryan,” I call after him quietly, the sound of my voice behind him pulling him to a quick stop.
Turning around to look at me, he looks worried, like maybe he missed a step. Forgot to do or say something important. “That was it, right?” His brow collapses into a frown as he watches me move down the hall. “You said the washer. That’s the only box—”
“No—I mean yes. That was it, I just…” Still not sure what I’m going to say to him, I close the space between us. “I just wanted to thank you.” I wave a nervous hand behind me and roll my eyes. “My mom’s been waiting for me to screw up since she got here and—” I let me arm drop with a sigh because the last thing I need to do is start unpacking my personal family issues in front of him, thirty minutes before my sister’s wedding. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” He takes a cautious step forward, face tipped toward his shoes. “Look, about what I said earlier. On the phone—”
“Ryyyaan!” Molly’s screech bounces off the walls and down the hall, accompanied by the fast slap of her ballet flats against the hardwood floor under her feet as she runs toward us at breakneck speed. “Where have you been?” she admonishes him while she scrambles up his leg like a spider monkey. They just saw each other yesterday but as far as she’s concerned, yesterday was practically years ago. By the way Ryan’s face breaks out in a grin when he hears her coming, I can tell the feeling is mutual. “I’ve been waiting for you all day.”
“It’s 10AM,” he says with a laugh, when she finally settled herself on his hip. “I don’t think that qualifies as all day.”
“Well, it felt like forever,” she says, tugging on the neckline of his shirt with a pouty little frown. “Did you know that there’s an ocean outside?” Her pout slips away and her eyes go wide. “Like a real ocean, with sand and waves and everything.”
“I did know that,” he tells her with a smirk that’s rapidly becoming familiar. “Did you go see it?”
“No.” Her lip pokes out and she sighs. “I want to go look for seashells but Gran says I can’t go down there because I’ll mess up my dress,” she says, pointing an accusing finger at the white dress she’s wearing. “I’m the flower girl, remember?”
“I remember.” He sets her down on her feet and re-claims his cane from the spot where he leaned it against the wall when he heard her coming for him. “And I’m a groomsmen,” he tells her. “Which means I’m supposed to escort Henley down the aisle in about….” He turns his wrist to look at his watch. “20 minutes.”
“Can we go look for seashells after?” To sweeten the deal, she draws an X with her finger on her chest, just above her heart. “If Gran catches us, I’ll tell her it was my idea and that your brain is still messed up and that I nippalated you.”
“Manipulated me,” he corrects her with a laugh before giving me questioning look. “Okay with you?”
Trying not to be jealous of my four-year-old daughter, I give him a nod and he gives me a quick smile before aiming it in Molly’s direction. “Alright, Miss Molly, you’ve got yourself a date.”
Twenty-eight
Ryan
Patrick and Cari’s wedding is officially a hit.
The ceremony was short and sweet, Con acting as both best man and officiant, made sure of that. There’s a Michelin-starred chef manning the grill and enough cold beer on tap to float a fleet of boats.
And Grace is here, floating around in a cloud of sexy, aqua blue silk and loose, golden blonde hair, smiling and laughing her way around the backyard reception like she’s having the time of her life.
She’s dancing with Patrick right now while Cari dances with his father, who is as close to identical to his brother as Patrick is to Conner. Before that, she organized the cake cutting and made sure 21 pilots, Cari’s favorite band, stayed at the top of the extensive playlist Con put together for the occasion.
Even though it’s edging toward sundown, the party’s still in full swing, Patrick and Cari are showing signs of planning their escape—I imagine they’ll be gone in the next hour or so, leaving the rest of us to trickle out behind them while they head back to Boston for a night in the honeymoon suite at the Hawthorne before catching a direct flight to London in the morning. They’ll be gone a month and I know Patrick is praying that things at the center don’t go to shit while he’s gone.
To be honest, it’s a distinct possibility.
I catch a flash of white flit past the corner of my eye and I turn my head to watch Molly dart across the backyard, swinging her flower girl basket, now full of seashells from our trip down to the beach, behind her with Noah the ring bearer, stripped out of his tie and jacket, not far behind. When I look back, I feel the back of my neck go hot and tight while I watch the guy who runs security at Gilroy’s cut in on Patrick and Grace’s dance with a shit-eating grin. Seconds later, Patrick’s taking a step back and security guy has his arms around her, maneuvering her around the dancefloor while she throws her head back and laughs at something he says to her.
“Not sure if anyone told you this, but there’s only room for one broody asshole in this family and it’s me. I’m the broody asshole.”
I tear my gaze away from Grace, tilting my head back a bit to let it settle on Declan. He’s standing a few feet away from where I’m sitting, pint in hand while he surveys the party, same as I am.
I want to tell him to mind his own fucking business. Instead I make a low, one-note sound in the back of my throat while I watch Security Guy twirl Grace around the dance floor. “What’s his name?”
“Went.” There’s no mistaking the note of disdain in Declan’s tone when he says it and I look up to see if he’s wearing an expression to match. He is.
That’s when I remember. “That’s right—Tess used to date him.”
“Yup.” He lifts his glass to take a drink. “Wentworth Fiorella—richer than god. Famous chef father. Cele
butante mother. Annoyingly successful in his own right—if the women that swarm Gilroy’s every night are any judge, he’s hot as hell. What he is, is a walking, talking monkey wrench.” Declan’s top lip curls up slightly. “And I gotta tell you, Ry,” he says, throwing me an over the shoulder smirk. “I’m really glad he’s not my problem anymore.”
His insinuation is pretty clear and watching while Fiorella glides across the dance floor with Grace pressed against him, I can’t help but agree with him. Because obviously, Fiorella has become my problem.
When I don’t answer him or ask him what the fuck he’s getting at, Dec keeps talking. “Can I ask you something?”
“Why not?” I grumble into my glass while I tip it to my mouth. It’s just water. Can’t afford to drink. My reaction time has slowed enough as it is since the explosion, I don’t need booze onboard making worse. Not when I have an hour-long drive home ahead of me.
“What the fuck you waiting for?” The question snags my attention away from Grace long enough to watch while Declan eases his enormous frame into the Adirondack-style chair on the lawn next to me. “I mean, you’re obviously into her so—”
“I’m sorry Con, I didn’t see you sit down,” I say, my irritation growing exponentially at his nosiness, even though I gave him permission to ask his stupid question in the first place.
“I’m serious, man,” he says, completely side-stepping my attempt at confrontation. “Grace is smart, funny, strong—not to mention gorgeous.” He lifts his glass to take a drink. “Trust me when I tell you that women like her don’t come along every day.”
“Yeah?” I say, stretching my legs out in front of me. It’s been a long day of standing and walking. My leg is screaming. Makes me glad I had the foresight to bring my cane. I knew it was going to be bad but taking Molly down to the beach and walking around in soft sand for an hour has made it just this side of unbearable. Doesn’t matter. I’d do it again in a heartbeat because watching her play tag with the waves what pretty much the highlight of my day.
I should think about leaving. Hobble over to where Patrick and Cari are talking to his parents and make my excuses. Drag my sorry ass home and fall face down into bed. Instead, I’m torturing myself by watching some other guy put the moves on the woman I’m in love with. “And your point is?”
Declan shakes his head like I’m too dumb to live. “My point is if you let her slip through your fingers, you’re going to regret it, every day of your miserable life.”
For some reason, his prediction sets a panic bomb off in my gut. “And you’re the voice of experience?”
“You’re goddamned right I am,” he gripes at me. “I wasted eight years of my fucking life, staying away from Tess because I’d convinced myself I didn’t deserve her. Shouldn’t get to have her.”
“And now you think you do? You should?” I say, not because I disagreed but because I’m trying to understand.
“Fuck no.” He laughs, shaking his head. “I could live to be a hundred and never come close to deserving a woman like Tess—but here’s the truth that every Gilroy man knows but none of us want to admit out loud—” He slouches back in his seat and lifts his glass, tilting it at the reception, people laughing and dancing. Talking and eating. “None of us deserve them. Patrick doesn’t deserve Cari. Con sure as fuck doesn’t deserve your sister—and we both know if I got what was coming, I’d be married to Jessica and miserable right now.” He lowers his glass without taking a drink and gives me a shrug. “We are woefully and hopelessly out of our league when it come to the women we’ve been lucky enough to land, so the best we can do is love the hell out of them and pray to God they never figure it out.” Across the lawn, he catches sight of Tess emerging from the house. She’s changed out of her bridesmaid dress and into her usual jeans and tank top. Scanning the party, her gaze finally lands on Declan and smiles.
Grinning back, Declan pushes himself out of his chair and sighs. “So, I’ll ask you again, man—what the fuck are you waiting for?” he says but before I can think of a legitimate answer, he walks away and heads straight for Tess, leaving me alone to wonder the same goddamned thing.
Twenty-nine
Grace
Tess what supposed to Cari’s maid of honor but when Con and Henley announced their engagement, she bowed out with a very gracious, fuck that, I’m not doing this shit twice, and handed the reins over to me.
For the last few weeks I’ve been frazzled. Running around, taking care of last-minute details, like the fact that the florist tried to substitute pink tulips in Cari’s bouquet for the orange she specifically requested and making sure that Patrick’s parents and ours were picked up from the airport and settled into their hotel. Last night, I was sure my head was going to explode from all the pressure.
Today, I’m so grateful for it I could cry because running around and making sure everything is going smoothly is the only thing that’s keeping from devolving into a gelatinous mess of anxiety and frustration.
Because the reception is almost over and Ryan has yet to collect on his demand for a dance. He kept his promise to Molly and took her down to the beach as soon as the photographer snapped a few poses of her in her dress.
“Where is he taking her?” my mother demanded to know, pointing at the two of them as they headed across the lawn, hand in hand, Molly’s flower girl basket swinging easily in Ryan’s grip.
“Down to the beach,” I inform her with a smile, still watching Ryan and Molly walk away. “To look for seashells.”
“She’ll ruin her dress,” she huffs, dropping her hand in preparation to push past me so she can follow them and drag Molly back. “I told her—”
“It doesn’t matter what you told her,” I say, turning to look at her while stepping in front of her to stall her progress. “I told her it was okay because she’s four years old and never seen the ocean before and because that dress is going to be trashed by the end of the day whether she goes down there to see it or not—and because I’m her mother and what she does or doesn’t do is my decision. Not yours.”
She crosses her arms over her chest and cocks her hip. “And you’re perfectly okay with her strolling off with a strange man who could do god knows what to her?”
“No.” I have to force my fingers to uncurl themselves when I feel them start to clench. That’s how angry I am at my mother right now. Angry enough to hit her. “I’m allowing her to go down to the beach with someone she loves and someone I trust.”
When she drops her arms away from her chest, I expect her to push me aside and storm after them, regardless of the fact that I’m the mother or what my wishes are but she doesn’t. “I hope neither of you come to regret it, Kathrine Grace,” she tells me. “Living with your own poor choices is one thing, but forcing them on a child is something else entirely.”
That was over four hours ago and she hasn’t said a word to me since. Normally, I’d be relieved but she’s been standing in a corner talking to my father for the past twenty minutes and for some reason, it’s making me nervous.
“What do you think they’re talking about?” I ask Patrick, tilting my head in my parents’ direction. When I felt his hand on my elbow a few minutes ago, the grip of it pulling me away from the gift table with a murmured, let’s dance, I nearly had a stroke because I thought it was Ryan, coming to collect. Instead, it was my newly-minted brother-in-law, brideless and looking for someone to push around the dance floor.
Patrick’s clear green gaze follows my head jog and the dimple dug into his cheek loosens up just enough to tell me that he has a pretty good idea of what’s going on. “Who knows,” he says, his shoulder shrugging under the weight of my hand. “I stopped trying to figure out you Faraday women a long time ago.” Despite the teasing, I have the distinct feeling that things are happening around me that I have no control over. Things that concern me. And he knows it.
“Patrick—”
Before I can demand he tell me what’s going on, a large. Looming shadow stretches ov
er us and I look up to find Went grinning down at me. “Mind if I cut in?”
“I do.” Patrick gives me a wink before letting his hand drop away from the small of my back. “But I’ll let you do it anyway,” he says before handing me over to Went and making his escape.
Coward.
Went steps into his place in front of me and slides his tattooed arm around my waist, his hand coming to rest on my hip to pull me close and I automatically lift my hand to press it against his shoulder to keep space between us. Instead of being offended, Went laughs. “Geez, Faraday, the nuns at St. Anne’s would’ve loved you.”
“I’m a bonafide Teen Mom, so I sincerely doubt that,” I tell him, earning myself another chuckle while he maneuvers me around the dance floor with surprising grace.
“I know what you’re thinking,” he says, dropping his arm away from my waist to give me a twirl. “Devastatingly handsome. Talented artist. Successful businessman. Famous family—” He pulls me back in and slips his arm back into place, his face tipped down so he can look at me. “and he can dance? I wonder what else he’s good at.”
“Actually,” I tell him with a sweet smile. “I was thinking that I’m pretty sure I saw your sister on the Kardashians last week.”
“Oh yeah?” He twirls me again. “Which one? Thanks to Captain Viagra over there,” he says, jerking his chin in his father’s direction. “I have five of them.”
Despite the fact that I have the feeling that things are going on around me that I don’t understand and probably wouldn’t like if I did, I laugh at his joke which eggs him on even more.
“Don’t let the gray hair fool you,” he tells me in a tone that makes me wonder if he’s joking or not. “My dad’s a player—and he likes ‘em young. If he thought you were available, he’d ditch the grill and be over here trying to steal you away from me in a heartbeat.”
“I am available,” I tell him because for a second I think he’s referring to the fact that we’re dancing and I don’t want him to get the wrong idea about what’s happening between us.