by Julia Kent
So to speak.
“What was that about?” I ask as I stand in front of the suite’s door, not-so-subtly making it clear we need to go. Andrew and Amanda are waiting for us. I know if we stay here we’ll end up naked again.
I also know that if we leave, Mom doesn’t automatically know our location, and that is more enticing right now than sex.
Believe it or not.
“Jessica Coffin,” he mutters.
If I had any interest in sex a second ago, it is now vanquished.
“What about her?”
“She’s hashtagging our wedding.”
“You’re surprised?”
“And talking about us on television.”
“Okay, well, there were a lot of cable news vans there.”
“National television.”
“Huh?” I look at the wall television.
“Don’t worry, Shannon. Grace is dealing with it, and—it’s complicated,” Declan says.
“It’s always complicated,” I grouse, but I grudgingly leave the room with him, teetering on these new heels the tailor brought. As we walk down the hall, I take Dec’s arm and work out the kinks in my body, willing joints, tendons, heels and clothing to work together to make me walk in fluid motion, like a graceful swan.
I manage to look like a bull moose on roller skates.
So I’m improving.
“You look so hot in those shoes,” he whispers as we wait for the elevator.
“You have a bull moose fetish?”
He lets a few beats pass. “Sometimes I really worry about you, Shannon.”
“Hey. You picked me. What does that say about you?”
“That I’m the smartest man in the world.” He kisses my temple as the elevator doors open and we glide on.
Like I’m on roller skates, you know?
Exactly like that.
As I rub my sore ankle, the elevator sending us rapidly up to the rooftop, Declan stands within inches of me, ready to dip down and rescue me from my clumsy self.
“I hope our kids have your grace,” I grumble.
“And your looks.”
“But your eyes. So green,” I marvel. The kid conversations are fairly new territory. I love it. A delicious tingle rivets through me like someone’s holding a jackhammer of future fun against my skin, injecting it straight into my bloodstream.
Kids.
Kids with Declan.
The elevator doors open into a solarium filled with couples in various stages of fancy lunches. Two years with Declan has made this scene slightly less surprising, but every time we dine out I still have a part of me that marvels at eating in sit-down restaurants where they don’t roll the silverware in paper napkins, and where jelly doesn’t come in little plastic, foil-topped packets.
The solarium is filled, along the edges, with orchids. Not a few sprinkled here and there. Oh, no.
Filled with orchids.
Along the perimeter of the glass-covered room (“room” being an understatement, as it’s bigger than my childhood home) is a series of planter boxes, about a foot deep and three feet tall, filled with dirt.
And orchids.
It’s like being surrounded by flower labia.
What? It is. Try looking at an orchid without imagining an annual gynecological visit. Go ahead. Try.
The decor is Italian marble. Fountains pumping water 24/7, surrounded by sculptures of half-nude people who look just enough like Matt Bomer and Jennifer Lawrence to make me look twice.
Living with Declan has also taught me to look for subtle corporate influences. Product placement is more widespread than you’d ever imagine.
Like, you know, a coffee bean on top of a car, to advertise a fake coffee shop.
Or something like that.
I spot Amanda and Andrew at a table over by an orchid that would make my friend Josh faint. They are engaging in public displays of affection that result in stoning in a minimum of nine countries across Asia.
“Get a room,” Declan growls at them. His words make them break their faces apart, which is refreshing. They haven’t fused their flesh just yet, so there’s hope.
“We have a room. One we can’t use right now, because the cleaning crew is in there,” Andrew says with a fake frown, standing and giving his brother a huge hug.
“Only because decontamination takes so long,” Declan replies, his face split with a genuine grin.
Andrew just grunts, while I hug Amanda.
All the cross-hugging happens and we sit down. A waiter appears instantly with my favorite bottle of white wine. Declan gives Andrew an arched eyebrow.
“Nice touch,” Dec says.
Andrew just shoots him a grin that says, I win.
“You called Grace, didn’t you?”
The grin falters.
Declan lobs back the grin Andrew lost.
Amanda and I roll our eyes in unison. I didn’t know that was possible, but apparently, the collective ego of the two youngest McCormick brothers is so large it shoves everything in the room to the side and forces all objects into the gravitational pull of their orbit.
Including our eyeballs.
“How’s married life treating you, Dec?” Andrew asks, just as Declan can’t answer, his mouth full of wine.
Amanda shoots me a look that says everything and nothing.
“Oh,” Andrew adds. “That’s right. You’re not married yet. Wonder how that happened?”
“I see why he’s CEO. He’s direct, fearless, and a bit of a prick,” I whisper in Amanda’s ear.
She stiffens.
Oops.
“Prick?” she hisses. “He’s not a prick! He’s a jerk,” she adds. “He’s been a jerk ever since James discovered how trendy your escape has been in the news, and how it’s boosting Anterdec’s profile.”
“Why would Andrew be upset by that?”
She shrugs. “I don’t know. Have you ever noticed how competitive they are?”
We look over at Dec and Andrew, who are arguing about whether Montrachet or Scharzhofberger is a better wine.
“Nope. Never noticed,” I say faintly. Grasping at anything but the wedding escape as a topic, I notice her earrings. “Oooo, look at those!” A combination of amber topaz, lapis lazuli, and sterling silver catch the sunlight and glitter. I reach over and let the dangling jewelry rest on my fingertips. “Gorgeous.”
“Andrew got them for me,” she says with a happy smile, reaching over to clasp his hand. “A surprise gift delivered from Tiffany when we woke up this morning. These and my breve latte were the second-best things I woke up to.” She squeezes his hand.
Andrew gives Declan the same smile, except on his face it looks smug. Self-satisfied.
Triumphant.
“What did Declan get for you, Shannon?” he asks.
“Get for me?”
Declan’s tongue rolls in his cheek so hard it might as well be drilling for oil.
Andrew’s eyes light up. “He didn’t give you something this morning?”
“Oh, I gave her something this morning,” Declan murmurs in my ear.
I bat at him, giggling, reaching for my wine. “I got this outfit. And these shoes,” I say.
“Mmmmmm,” Andrew says, drinking the rest of his wine and giving Declan a look I don’t understand, and definitely don’t like.
“James tells us that the public relations department at Anterdec is over the moon about all the positive free press the wedding is getting for the company,” I assert.
Declan gives me an appreciative thigh squeeze. Andrew’s smile goes sour.
What the hell is going on between the two of them? Is Amanda right? I know Declan was crushed when James picked Andrew as his successor, but he never fought it. He could have created a fuss with the board of directors but chose not to create that kind of divisiveness when James was stepping down because of his prostate cancer diagnosis.
Competition is in Declan’s blood, but I’m getting a creepy vibe here, as if they’re
vying for some title that Amanda and I aren’t aware of.
“It’s true,” Andrew says, clearly reluctant to admit whatever’s about to come out of his mouth. If Amanda weren’t here to soften him, I’d think he was angry. For brothers who are only two years apart and who work in the same business, the two are so different. Declan’s closed off and placid, like a calm sheet of mirror on a lake.
Andrew is all action, with laser focus, and an aloofness that I know masks a boyishness underneath that makes him and Declan spar.
He also has a freakish fear of wasps, generated entirely by his anaphylactic reaction. We both flout death on a regular basis when it comes to spinning the random dial for bee and wasp stings. Andrew takes risk assessment and prevention to a degree that I find intolerable.
Obsessive.
Bizarre.
It hits me, though: the wedding. He overcame his deep-seated fear in order to rescue Amanda from drowning. I almost smack my own head in a Eureka! moment. Of course.
Of course that explains all this weirdness.
Months of wedding preparation made me miss out on so much of my normally layered life. While Amanda and Andrew’s developing relationship was on my radar, it wasn’t front and center.
Like now.
We’re in a new reality, where Declan and I are at the core of a media spectacle, the year-long planning for the thousand-person wedding just got thrown out the window, Andrew is the new CEO of Anterdec and their father is ill, and he threw himself (literally) headfirst into his relationship with Amanda just yesterday, at our wedding.
Good grief.
That was yesterday.
The wine’s gone to my head, because the orchid next to Amanda begins to dance.
“Yesterday,” I whisper.
“Does she routinely quote Beatles lyrics?” Andrew whispers to Amanda.
“Honey?” Declan doesn’t use many terms of endearment in public, so I know I must look a sight. “What’s wrong?”
“Yesterday. We fled the wedding yesterday.”
“Right.”
“It feels like a year. Mom found us this morning. We kicked her out of the room—”
“And us, too,” Andrew mutters.
“Because we needed privacy,” Declan clarifies, his voice so full of warning that Amanda and I frown at each other in worry.
I look at Amanda’s arms, which are covered in a lightweight cotton crewneck shirt, three-quarter sleeves the shade of the wide-open blue sky above us. Angry red welts, swollen and raised, peek out above her wrists.
She looks like Wolverine did a number on her. Surgical tape covers the skin along her other arm.
“Your arm!” I gasp. “Is that from yesterday? In the pool with Chuckles?”
“And Muffin and Spritzy, yeah,” Amanda says, wincing. Andrew slings his arm around her shoulders and gives her a side hug, the two of them closing their eyes and sighing together.
“Too much,” I whisper. “It’s all too much. We’ve been through a lifetime in twenty-four hours.”
Andrew opens his eyes, brown gemstones glittering with a strange mixture of mirth, anger, and protective outrage. “You and Declan sure do know how to make an exit.”
Amanda laughs, reaching for the wine and refilling her glass, her stretch making the bandages show even more. I do the math. Somehow, they managed to leave the wedding, get her proper medical attention, fly five and a half hours to Vegas, check into their hotel room, sleep, and find us this morning.
All while managing Momzilla.
It really is too much.
For everyone.
“I’m so sorry,” I say, reaching across the table for Amanda’s free hand, tears making my vision blur. “You’re the ones we should apologize to.”
Declan flinches, his chin pulling back and eyes troubled. He gives me a look of compassion tinged with skepticism. “Apologize? To Andrew?”
Ignoring the fact that he’s completely leaving Amanda out of this, I respond, “Yes. I know that apologizing in the McCormick family is a form of UN-prohibited torture, but normal people say they’re sorry when they’ve hurt someone, intentionally or unintentionally.”
Andrew gives me an appraising look. “She really does study us. Dad said he thought she did, but this proves it.”
“Is that true?” Amanda asks him.
“Is what true?”
“McCormicks don’t apologize to each other?”
The dual snorts from the men are her answer.
“Well,” I announce archly, “I am not a McCormick—yet—and I am going to apologize, deeply, to both Andrew and Amanda,” I announce, then chug the rest of my second glass of wine. “I am sorry that by escaping the wedding, we dumped so much of the responsibility off on you.”
“Oh,” Declan groans, the sound one of relief. “That.” He waves his hand toward Andrew. “Right. I’ll apologize for that, no problem.”
Andrew’s eyes narrow. “What did you think Shannon wanted you to apologize for?”
“Doesn’t matter.” Declan’s clipped tones make my antenna go up, too.
“It matters,” Andrew argues.
“No.”
My eyes dart over to Amanda, who looks at me like, You’re the McCormick men expert. Explain this.
I shrug and cheer when the waiter interrupts us with salads. Andrew clearly ordered everyone’s meal ahead of time. Declan doesn’t seem to care about that.
“I’m not sorry for escaping,” I add, almost as an afterthought. Declan’s hand reaches under the table for mine, clasping it. Aha. That’s what he thought I was insisting we say, as if we should apologize for asserting ourselves and reclaiming our wedding.
Oh, no.
Hell, no.
“You shouldn’t be.” Andrew’s words come with a healthy dose of laughter as he digs into his salad. “Your mom is nuts.”
Declan’s grip relaxes and he smiles at his brother.
All is well in McCormick Man Land.
They have a common enemy. And for once, it isn’t their dad.
Emotion wells up in me, and not just because the waiter arrives with shrimp cocktail the size of lobster claws. Amanda can sense it, and she reaches for my shoulder, giving me a sisterly touch.
“It’s okay, Shannon. You can breathe now. Really. Sure, it’s a mess.” She chuckles. “When isn’t life a mess? But the mess is back there. In Boston. And, really, it’s Marie’s mess. She made it.”
“I can’t believe James let her spend $700,000 of Anterdec corporate funds on that wedding,” I say.
Andrew starts choking. His phone buzzes at the same time, and the waiter delivers some sort of bacon-wrapped fig thing in front of him as Andrew fights to check his phone.
Declan’s stomach growls and he drops my hand. “Sorry. Food first. Affection later.” We grin at each other, and Amanda relaxes. This give-and-take between the four of us is casual and comfortable, weirdly familiar and blindingly new. Is this what adult life feels like? Are the four of us about to become a thing, with regular social time spent together and dinners out?
If so, it’s an exciting prospect. Dec and Andrew spar and compete, but underneath it all they’re each other’s best friend. Amanda and I are besties. In this foursome, the getting-to-know-you phase is strongest between me and Andrew, but then again, he’s seen me naked. I’ve seen him drunk.
And we have that whole deadly bee-and-wasp-sting allergy in common.
We have a decent foundation here.
Andrew’s call is short but yields this nugget of information:
“PR says the value of all this free press is probably going to be more than the cost of the wedding. Good Morning America, The Today Show, The View, and Ellen Degeneres all want you on their shows.” He doesn’t even bother looking at Declan, zeroing in on me just as I shove a piece of shrimp in my mouth.
“Hmmmm?” He clearly thinks I’m the softer of the two of us, as if appealing to me to go on those shows will work.
“No.” Declan’s answer is f
irm.
“I wasn’t telling you.” Andrew ignores Declan, eyes on me, charm turned on to the Nth degree.
“Mmmmm mmmm mmmmm hmmm mfff,” I try.
I fail.
Amanda just shakes her head and leans in to Andrew. “I think they’ve had enough. Do they really need to go on major morning news shows and talk about what happened?”
“It’s them or Marie.”
“They’re trying to book her mother on those shows?” Declan asks, incredulous.
Andrew surveys the table with hawk eyes that make me realize I consistently underestimate him. “No. They think she’s too unstable to book.”
“They’re right,” Declan answers.
I kick him under the table. He reaches down to rub his ankle.
“You know,” he says tersely, “it would really be helpful if you wore a sign of some kind to indicate when it’s acceptable to refer to Marie as crazy, and when it is not. This is getting old.”
“Sorry. Habit.”
“Look,” Andrew says evenly, “it’s basic public relations. Anterdec’s getting great passive positive mentions in the traditional press, social media, and on podcasts.”
“Podcasts?” I squeak.
“Oh, yeah. One of the wedding guests fed audio of Marie’s meltdown as you were leaving, and it’s epic,” Amanda says.
“One of the wedding guests? The initials wouldn’t be JC, would they?”
“Jesus Christ,” Declan mutters.
“Was he on the invitation list?” Andrew asks drolly. “I wouldn’t be surprised.”
“Jessica Coffin,” Amanda says in a voice that makes me love her even more. “The Antichrist herself.”
Declan stares at Andrew, who suddenly isn’t making eye contact with anything not fermented. So many secrets between these two. So many.
Too many.
My Spidey Sense is tingling. The subtext between them runs deep.
Bzzzzz.
My phone. My mom. The message:
We have to talk about this. What are you doing for lunch?
I look around, grab another giant shrimp, and drown my sorrows in shellfish.
“Marie?” Amanda asks, perking up. She turns her head just as Andrew leans toward her, and her dangling earring catches in his hair. Untangling it, she laughs, the sunlight shining on the gemstones.
I laugh and look at Declan.