by Cora Brent
Now that I’d delivered my statement I hopped the gate far more artfully than I had the first time and headed for my truck, grinning the whole way.
CHAPTER THREE
Curtis
She was stunning, a goddamn vision.
I couldn’t stop staring from my position at the end of the line of groomsmen.
And the bride looked pretty good too.
When I finally managed to rip my eyes away from the sight of Cassie’s exquisite beauty I could appreciate that her sister was radiant in her bridal gown as Cord finished walking her down the aisle. Cord held onto his daughter’s arm longer than he needed to and blinked away a few tears when Dalton stepped up to receive his bride. For a moment I wondered if the father of the bride would be willing to let go at all but after one more wistful smile at his daughter he withdrew to his seat beside his wife. Saylor patted his arm and then reached for his hand.
Cassie caught my eye, an angel in her pale blue maid of honor gown. She smiled. I wondered if she could read my thoughts, that I wished we were the ones getting married today. We’d talked about it before, agreeing that it would happen once she was done with school. I knew I’d never have the resources to give her a scene this glamorous but I had no doubt that one day we’d have a moment like this, a moment when we stood up in front of friends and family and made promises about forever. Inside my head I could almost see it unfolding as I stared at the girl I loved.
Then I felt like kind of a dick for letting my mind wander during Dalton and Cami’s wedding so I started paying attention to the ceremony.
Cami and Dalton were the real deal. They were two of the best people I’d ever known and even an oblivious fool like me couldn’t miss the way they held hands at every opportunity and constantly bantered with affection. Cami was a striking firecracker full of intelligence and quick wit, qualities well suited to her profession as a newspaper reporter. Dalton, a former pro ball player, tended to be more easygoing but he could hold his own with Cami’s sharp mind. Cassie told me her sister had decided to keep the wedding on the small side, which to Cami and Dalton meant around two hundred guests. That kind of made me scratch my head because I barely knew twenty people I’d want to invite to a wedding, let alone two hundred. But then again, a good percentage of the guests in attendance were members of the extended Gentry family so they were starting out with a pretty solid number. When I glanced around the elegant hall I had no trouble spotting them taking up three rows of chairs behind Cord and his wife, aunts and uncles and cousins galore.
Dalton on the other hand had no shortage of friends but he didn’t have much family. His parents had been divorced long before his father died last year. His mother arrived alone and I thought Cassie had mentioned he had a few cousins who planned on showing up but the only member of Dalton’s family I was familiar with was his brother Hale. Hale Tremaine stood at the groom’s side with a serious expression and looked altogether like a different guy with his smooth shave and tux.
“Love is what we all share,” boomed the voice of Deck Gentry, the unofficial head of the family. I’d been surprised to hear that he was presiding over the ceremony because I thought you had to be a priest or a judge or something. But it seemed I was wrong because Deck told me he went to a website called Life Church of People, whatever that was, and paid a small fee to be ordained. I thought he was full of shit but he showed me his certificate and here he was looking very solemn in a black robe while saying meaningful things about love that made me feel a little choked up.
“And we all have our own stories,” continued Deck. “Whether they are just beginning, or well underway or as yet unwritten. We are all lucky to be here with Camille and Dalton as they celebrate the day they make this enduring commitment to one another. Today we are reminded that love is the best and most hopeful part of our humanity. And on that note, Camille and Dalton, I now pronounce you wife and husband.”
A soft sigh rolled through the crowd of spectators as Cami tipped her face up to receive Dalton’s kiss. The two of them were an enchanting picture up there and no photograph would ever do them justice. Deck was right. We were all lucky to witness this. My eyes strayed from where Cami and Dalton remained passionately lip locked and found Cassie. She dabbed her eyes as she watched her beloved twin.
Once the ceremony was over the mood quickly shifted to a high energy celebration. My task was to help herd all the guests down the corridor to the larger ballroom where the reception would happen. Cassie stayed close to her sister and I lost track of her in the sea of friends and colleagues and Gentrys. Somehow I found myself walking alongside Deck.
“Good job,” I told him. “I would never have guessed you had such a romantic soul.”
Deck was indignant. “What are you talking about, Mulligan?” he said, pausing to glance fondly at his wife and daughter as they walked right in front of us. “I’m the goddamn king of romance.”
“Apparently you are.” I nudged him with a grin. We knew each other well. Deck had been a buddy of my dad’s back in the old days and he’d helped me with a few life situations since then. He was one of the good guys in a world that contained too many bad ones.
Deck fiddled with the collar of his black robe. The material looked itchy.
“Are you gonna wear that thing all night?” I asked him.
He grinned. “Sure.”
“Where’d you get it anyway?”
“A friend of mine is a superior court judge.”
“Really?” The news didn’t surprise me. Deck’s wide spectrum of associates tended to be a diverse lot. “Are judges in the habit of lending out their robes?”
“Perhaps. But I got this one from an online Halloween store.”
The conversation came to an end when I felt a tug on my sleeve and a small woman with dainty Queen of England features asked me where the shitter was. She used that word. Shitter. I didn’t know who she was or if she was even attending the wedding but I escorted her on a hunt for the nearest restroom and held the door open as she smiled before pressing two dimes into my hand. I hadn’t realized today’s duties would include tips. I tossed the coins into a fancy marble fountain on my way back to the reception hall.
People were still filing into the room as Cami and Dalton received their guests at the doorway. There was a lot of buzz and laughter and exclamations of good wishes along with the powerful scent of forty different kinds of perfume that made me think of the time Cassie dragged me to the Scottsdale Fashion Square Mall. The line moved fast because everyone was eager to eat and dance and drink and do whatever they did at wedding receptions. I wasn’t really sure. I hadn’t been to a wedding since I was ten and attended the backyard barbecue nuptials of a neighbor back in my hometown of Emblem. There hadn’t been any marble fountains there.
“Curtis,” Dalton greeted me, pumping my hand before pulling me into an awkward half second man embrace. “Thanks for all the help.”
“Congratulations,” I said, giving him an affectionate slap on the back before turning to Cami and offering a handshake.
“Cut out the formality and give me a hug,” she scolded, wrapping her arms around me for a friendly squeeze.
“I didn’t want to mess up your dress,” I explained, hugging her back. “Seriously though, I’m so happy for you guys.”
When Cami released me to take her husband’s hand I found myself confronted by the maid of honor.
“Can I have one of those too?” Cassie asked with a raised eyebrow.
“I think I can spare another one,” I said and pulled her close.
“And don’t be afraid to mess up my dress later,” she whispered in my ear but before I got too excited she had to back away and deal with wedding stuff. Apparently Cami was having some trouble getting the train of her dress pinned up.
Cadence Gentry, the younger sister of Cami and Cassie, rushed over. “I told the DJ to announce your grand entrance in exactly one minute,” she said.
Cadence was away at college so often I’d neve
r really gotten to know her very well. She shared a mix of qualities with her older sisters. Cami’s wit, Cassie’s charm, plus a wild dose of unpredictability.
Cassie looked down. “What did you do with your shoes?”
Cadence lifted her gown and displayed a pedicured bare foot adorned with silver toe rings. “Heels aren’t my thing. Anyway I’m ready to dance. Had to ditch the eye candy though. It was getting on my nerves.” The youngest Gentry sister nodded at me. “Curtis, you’ll dance with me later, right?”
“Wait.” Cassie was perplexed. “You ditched Gareth?”
Cadence glanced back at the DJ booth, distracted. “Yeah.”
“Who’s Gareth?” Dalton asked.
“Her boyfriend,” Cami answered.
“I thought his name was Tim,” I said. I’d met the guy a couple of times and was unimpressed. He was the sullen beta male type who looked like he should be pouting on a billboard for three hundred dollar cologne.
Dalton was also confused. “I thought his name was Tim too.”
“It used to be,” Cadence said with impatience as if the whole thing should make perfect sense.
“Did you break up?” Cassie wanted to know.
Cadence was tired of talking about Tim-Not-Tim. “Never mind. It’s not important.”
Everyone had already found their assigned tables and was waiting for the next step so Cadence sort of shoved Cassie and me to the side before giving the DJ the thumbs up sign to spotlight Cami and Dalton.
“Introducing Mr. and Mrs. Tremaine!”
The room erupted in applause with plenty of hoots and hollers, the loudest coming from the table of Gentry cousins. I spotted Brecken over there with them, and I thought it was a kind gesture by the Gentrys to seat him at a family table. We weren’t officially family but we’d always been treated as if we were.
Those of us in the wedding party took our places at the head table. I felt a little funny sitting up there as if I was somebody important but then I reminded myself that it didn’t matter because no one was interesting in looking at me.
Hale was on my left side and frowning at his fluted champagne glass. “I hope they’re serving something harder than this bubbly shit.”
Cami whispered something to Cadence, who scurried over to the DJ in her bare feet. A moment later the announcement came.
“There is an open bar in the back but the bride and groom want to remind you to drink responsibly. And absolutely no one under the age of twenty-one will be served any alcohol.”
“Boo!” howled Kellan Gentry but I saw him quiet down and lower his head as soon as his no-nonsense mother Stephanie shot him a look from the next table.
Hale was already up out of his chair. “You want anything?” he asked me.
I shook my head. I wasn’t much of a drinker. Especially at an event where I needed to be on my best behavior. “Nah, I’m good. But thanks for asking.”
Hale nodded and made his way to the bar. He’d come to the wedding alone and I’d seen him roar into the hotel parking lot on his bike, refusing to allow a tuxedo to cramp his style. He stayed away for such a long time I was finished with my steak dinner when he finally returned. Meanwhile, my ear had been talked off by one of Dalton’s buddies from his ball playing days. The guy was probably all right if you were in the mood to focus endlessly on stuff like strike zones and on base percentages but I was glad when the meal ended and the DJ called for the bride and groom to take the dance floor.
Cami and Dalton danced to a newer cover of Your Song and didn’t appear to be aware that there was anyone else in the room as they moved to the music in between frequent kisses. People had started to leave their seats to mingle and head out to the dance floor so I rose and extended a hand to Cassie.
“Care to dance, beautiful?”
She turned her luminous smile on me and batted her eyelashes before slipping her hand into mine. “Just my luck to be asked by the most handsome man in the room.”
I didn’t recognize the song that was playing now but it didn’t matter. The beat was slow enough to justify sliding my arms around Cassie’s waist and bringing her in close enough to feel the sweet curves of her body.
“Have I told you how gorgeous you are?” I whispered in her ear and breathed in the vanilla scent of her favorite perfume.
Cassie tipped her head back, her blue eyes inspecting me. “You’re not too tough on the eyes either, Mr. Mulligan.”
If Cassie and I were alone things would be escalating real quick. However, we were in the middle of the dance floor at her sister’s wedding so I swayed to the music and pretended I was a gentleman.
The dance floor was already getting crowded. Some of the couples I recognized, some I didn’t. I saw Cord’s brother Creed dancing with his spirited, talkative wife, Truly. Then we were passed by a glamorous middle-aged couple who danced literal circles around the rest of us slobs, dipping and twirling like ballroom dancing pros. I’d met them once before. They lived somewhere overseas and exotic but I couldn’t remember where. Maybe it was Portugal. The man, Brayden, was a cousin of Cassie’s mother.
“Looking good, Millie,” Cassie called to Brayden’s wife as the two of them whirled past. They paused long enough for Millie to blow her a kiss.
Off on the sidelines I spotted the youngest Gentry sister talking to her parents. Cord frowned and shrugged while Saylor gave her daughter’s arm a motherly tap before allowing her husband to lead her out to the dance floor.
“Hey, what was the deal with Cadence’s boyfriend?” I asked.
“Oh, him.” Cassie wrinkled her cute nose. “She filled me in on the story at dinner. My sister can be fickle all right but Gareth, formerly known as Tim, was proving to be too high maintenance.”
“Let’s back up a step,” I said. “What’s with the name change?”
“That happened a few weeks ago. He’s changing it for his modeling career or something. Right before the ceremony he texted Cadence to say that he was suffering from an attack of low blood sugar. She told him there was a coffee stand in the lobby with plenty of snacks but he said the only thing he wanted was a gluten free hamburger. She told him to quit being such a prima donna and he texted back that she was a selfish bitch so she suggested that he should go get his gluten free hamburger and then stick it up his bony waxed ass.”
I snorted. “Good for Cadence.”
Cassie smiled. “I have a feeling she’ll recover.”
I gestured across the room. “I have a feeling she’s already recovered.”
Cadence was now chatting up the DJ, a bearded twenty something fellow with a variety of facial piercings, and I could tell from his eager expression that he was very interested in anything she had to say. But after eliciting some kind of promise from the guy, Cadence flashed a polite smile and didn’t linger. She immediately sought her grey-haired grandfather and coaxed him out of his chair. He was Saylor’s dad, the lone grandparent attending the wedding. Both Cord’s parents were dead and Saylor and her mother had been estranged for decades.
Probably due to Cadence’s intervention, the music abruptly changed to a pulsing party rhythm, one of those retro tunes from the eighties that gets everyone moving. The floor became instantly more crowded and we had to adapt to the new beat. I wasn’t exactly a dancing king and felt like kind of a joke for trying but I liked checking out my girlfriend’s sexy body as she moved to the music so I played along. Brecken hadn’t been in my line of sight for a while but I had faith that wherever he was in this crowd he was fine.
“Go Grandpa!” Cassie whooped as the man did his best to keep up with barefoot, nimble Cadence.
Saylor’s dad laughed and waved and I figured if the old man could be a sport then so could I so I stepped up my game, twirling Cassie impressively, dipping her low to steal a kiss before morphing into my best Patrick Swayze Dirty Dancing impression, which probably wasn’t very good at all but made her laugh and throw her arms around me.
“I see you’ve been keeping some of your talent
s under wraps,” she giggled.
“I didn’t know I had it in me,” I confessed.
She was still rocking to the beat in my arms when her father came over and tapped her on the shoulder.
“Your mother needs you,” he said and I knew Cord well enough to see that something was bothering him. His blue eyes, so similar to his daughter’s, were narrowed with tension. Cassie squeezed my hand before following her father through the crowd and out the door of the reception hall. I thought about chasing after them to see if there was anything I could help with but then I thought that if that were the case Cord wouldn’t have hesitated to ask.
No one around us seemed to have noticed anything unusual had just happened. Cami was on the floor now, dancing to Footloose with some of her friends. Cadence and her grandfather had been joined by some of the younger Gentry cousins and I saw Creed’s wife Truly shoo her son Jake off the sidelines and onto the dance floor with her. Jake lived in Portland and visited for holidays and weddings but since we’d never found a reason to say more than ten words to each other he was something of a mystery to me. The feeling was probably mutual. Jake politely nodded in my direction as I squeezed past him and his mother.
In the process of threading my way through the maze of tables I came across Creed and Chase Gentry, Cord’s brothers. The three of them were triplets and while it was easy to tell them apart by appearance the stark difference was really in their personalities. Though they were as close as any brothers ever were, Cassie told me once that her uncles were like the opposite ends of the scale while Cord was their balance. From what I could tell, Creed and Chase Gentry were in a state of perpetual disagreement. In fact they were arguing about something right now.
“What the hell?” Creed growled. “Give it back before you screw it up even more.” He made a grab for the phone his brother was peering at but Chase swiveled to avoid his reach.
“You have too many apps and games and shit on here,” Chase said. “That’s why you ran out of storage.”
“What are you doing?”