After This Night

by Lauren Blakely

  But she didn’t have time to fashion an answer to Gayle’s question because when she opened the door to Fillmore Street, Skunk was pacing on the sidewalk like a big bored lion, walking back and forth in a zoo.

  The hair on the back of her neck prickled in worry. Of all the days for Charlie to harass her. The bastard. A sister’s wedding day should be a sacred one. A day even Charlie could respect.

  Gayle didn’t notice him at first while she locked up. Then she turned around, and Skunk spoke to the hairdresser.

  “I was hoping I could get a haircut,” he said gesturing to the salon with its pretty feminine windows decorated with silhouettes of women. This was clearly a salon catering mostly to the fairer sex, though Julia had seen a few men inside from time to time. They didn’t look like Skunk, though. They weren’t big beefy men with faces like slabs of meat, and ankle holsters holding guns. The men who walked through these doors were metrosexuals. Her eyes darted to his feet, and she saw the barest outline of his weapon. He never left home without it.

  “We’re closed now. Open again in an hour,” Gayle said. “Someone will be here then to cut your hair.”

  “I’d really like one now,” he said, then scrunched up his nose, squeezed shut his eyes, and covered his face with a hand as he sneezed so loudly it sounded like a honk. His forehead was sweaty, and he looked pale.

  “I’m sure you do, sweetie, and ordinarily I’d open right up for you,” she said in her best calm voice as she dipped a hand into her purse. She quickly found a tissue, and gave it to Skunk. He took it and muttered a thanks. “But I need to get some coffee in me, and if I don’t my hands might be unsteady. So why don’t you come back and someone else can take care of you then?”

  He blew his nose, then rubbed the tissue across it. His eyes looked red and watery. “Or, maybe go home, take a hot bath and have some tea and come back tomorrow? You might be getting a nasty cold, honey.”

  “I think I have the flu,” he said.

  “Here.” She reached in her pocket for a slip of paper and handed that to him. “A twenty percent off coupon, just for you. For when you’re feeling better. You go get in bed and take care of that flu.”

  Skunk relented, nodding. “Thank you. I’ll be back.”

  He lumbered away, and Julia had a sinking feel that I’ll be back referred to something other than where he’d be an hour from now.

  They were circling her, trying to trip her up however they could.

  Charlie had sent this message—his sick way of letting her know he’d uncovered another soft spot of hers in her friendship with her stylist. His subtle, or not-so-subtle way of reminding her that he had no mercy. He was willing to do whatever it took to get his money by his deadline.

  The deadline was looming ever closer.

  * * *

  Julia pet her sister’s dog over and over, as if the animal might have a calming effect. Dogs sometimes did that, right? Settled nerves and made people happier. She needed some of that right now, so she sat on the edge of the antique white couch stroking Ms. Pac-Man’s soft fur, hoping it would turn these jitters inside her belly into a thing of the past.

  She wasn’t even the one walking down the aisle. She was the damn maid-of-honor and she was supposed to reassure the bride. But McKenna was ready, eager, and not a wink nervous, while all Julia could think about was the ticking clock. She’d texted Gayle a few times, ostensibly about her hair, but really to make sure her stylist was fine. Gayle was getting ready for an Arcade Fire concert, she’d said, so all was well.

  Still, Julia couldn’t help feeling as if someone was watching her. Waiting for her. Poised to take her down.

  Focus on the bride.

  Decked out in a vintage-style tea-length dress, McKenna applied her lip gloss then twirled once in front of the antique, gilded mirror in her suite at the swank Golden Gate Club in the Presidio, a coveted venue for weddings with its view of the San Francisco Bay and the Golden Gate Bridge.

  “You look so beautiful, and this dress is so completely you,” Julia said, even though she’d seen it many times. But that was her job—to shower the bride with extravagant compliments on her wedding day. It would also force her mind off the heightened state of panic inside her body.

  “You’re next, Jules,” she said, and Julia scoffed.

  She didn’t even know how to respond. The notion of her being married was so foreign, her sister might as well be talking about orbiting Saturn right now. “Let’s get you down the aisle,” she said.

  Julia washed her hands one final time. Yes, Ms. Pac-Man had had a pre-wedding bath, but even so she didn’t want scent of a pooch on her as she held a bouquet. She grabbed her daisies, the perfect flowers for McKenna’s sunny disposition, and held open the door for the other bridesmaids: McKenna’s good friends Hayden and Erin, and Chris’s sister, Jill, who had flown out from New York for the weekend, taking two days off from her starring role in the musical Crash the Moon.

  They headed to the expansive grounds, across the rolling green hills, to the bluff overlooking the water. The waves lolled peacefully against the shore in the distance, and the afternoon sun warmed them. The weather gods were on their side today—the sky was a crystal blue, and there was no wind. A rare blessing in this windiest of cities, and Julia was grateful.

  White chairs were spread across the lawn, and their friends and family were there. Julia spotted Davis in the second row, and instantly her thoughts flicked to Clay. The two men were best friends, and she found herself wondering if her name had ever come up in their conversations.

  The music began and the other bridesmaids walked down the white runner spread out on the lawn. Julia turned to McKenna and whispered in her ear. “I love you. I’m so happy for you,” she said, then she squeezed her hand.

  “I love you too,” McKenna said, and her voice threatened to break. Julia reached out, and gently wiped the start of a happy tear from her sister’s eye. “Don’t ruin your mascara.”

  “I won’t.”

  Julia took her turn down the runner, thrilled to finally see this day arrive. Though it hadn’t been a lengthy engagement—in fact it had been markedly short, clocking in at two mere months—this was a day that she’d longed to see. Nearly two years ago, the man McKenna had been involved with dumped her via voicemail twenty-four hours before their wedding, leaving her with a houseful of mixers, pasta makers and place settings she’d never use. Her sister had been devastated. Chris wasn’t like that, not in the least, but Julia had asked a few days ago if she’d had any lingering worries.

  “You nervous at all now that it’s so close?”

  “Nope. I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life,” McKenna had said.

  She looked it, too, radiant in her joy today.

  When Julia reached the raised stage, her throat hitched, and a tear slipped down her cheek as she turned to watch McKenna walk down the aisle. She delighted at the song that filled the air. McKenna hadn’t picked Pachelbel’s Canon or the wedding march. She’d chosen hers and Chris’s song—Can’t Help Falling in Love.

  That was the best kind of love, wasn’t it? The kind where the love was its own entity, a living, breathing presence between two people, demanding to be felt. A life force of its own. That’s what her sister and Chris had, and her heart soared with happiness that McKenna had found the one.

  Chris couldn’t take his eyes off his bride as he waited at the edge of the bluff, watching her every step as she walked closer. The last words of the Elvis song faded out as she stepped next to him. Take my hand, take my whole life too. He whispered something to her, and she whispered back, and Julia was no longer jam-packed with worries over Charlie and Skunk. It had all been replaced by this torrent of happiness she felt for the two of them.

  As the justice of the peace cleared his throat, Julia quickly peeked at the crowd, spotting familiar faces–Chris’s family, McKenna’s videographer, her dog trainer, her friends from the fashion world, along with Chris’s brother who stood next to h
im, some of his surfing buddies in the seats, and people he worked with on his TV show. Then her eyes landed on the profile of a handsome man in the back row who was taking a seat. A latecomer, he’d just arrived. The man raised his face and Julia’s heart stopped with a quick shudder.

  Then it started again when, somehow, across the crowd of people, the sea of suited men and elegantly-dressed women, of family and friends and new faces, he made eye contact with her, locking his gaze on hers. The sounds of the ceremony, of the vows being exchanged turned to white noise, and all she could see, hear, and feel was him. No longer separated by a continent. No longer connected only by the tether of email. He was one hundred feet away, and he never once stopped looking at her.

  Her skin was hot, and her heart was beating loudly, and as soon as the groom kissed the bride and walked back down the aisle, she was damn near ready to launch herself into his arms.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Sometime in the last few weeks he’d decided several things.

  That she might be lying. That she might be trouble. That he might be about to become the poster child for fool me twice, shame on me.

  But most of all, he’d decided that his gut told him she’d meant what she said. Even though she hadn’t given him the details of why there’d been a man with a gun demanding her presence, he’d made the choice to believe her.

  Blind trust, maybe. Or possibly blind something else. Either way, his instincts said she was telling the truth. His gut had served him throughout his career, so he’d decided to listen to it.

  Now that he was here with her, he wasn’t thinking with his gut. He wasn’t thinking at all. He was feeling.

  His whole body was humming, vibrating at a frequency only she could sense. His skin sizzled, and blood rushed hot through his veins. Nearness to her was an aphrodisiac.

  “I like your suit,” she said, going first.

  “I like your dress.”

  “You’re here,” she said with wonder in her voice as she eyed him up and down. He didn’t think he’d ever tire of the way she looked at him with hunger, need, and passion.

  “I’m here,” he said, quirking up his lips. They stood gazing at each other, but they hadn’t touched yet. They were inches apart, and there was something almost fragile about this moment. As if they might break if one of them moved. He didn’t know who would make the first move, but he hoped it would be her since he’d made the effort to show up.

  “How?” she asked, still breathless.

  “Your sister and her husband.”

  “They invited you?” she asked, her lips curving into a wide, gorgeous smile.

  “Invited. Or insisted. Take your pick.”

  “Really?” she asked, and a breeze blew by, making the soft little tendrils of her hair flutter against her neck. He wanted to bend his head to her neck, layer her skin in kisses that made her shiver in his arms and melt into him, that turned her so hot inside her knees went weak and she nearly buckled with desire. He’d catch her, hold her, make sure she didn’t fall, except into him.

  He did none of that. His hands were stuffed in his pockets, or else he’d be touching her, wrapping his arms around her, running his fingertips along her hipbone, covered in the fabric of her black dress.

  “Yes. Really. Chris invited me a week ago, and said he needed his lawyer here. Which was about the worst case of acting I’d ever heard, since no one needs his entertainment lawyer at his wedding, so McKenna grabbed the phone, reprimanding him, and then laid it out.”

  “What did she say?”

  “She said she thought it would make you happy if I were here, and that you being happy was the greatest gift she could have on her wedding day. Well, besides marrying Chris,” he said with a happy shrug. “Far be it from me to deny the bride of my newest client her greatest wish.”

  He watched Julia process his words. She swallowed, drew in a sharp breath, and clasped her hand over her mouth, covering a sob. A tear slipped down her cheek.

  Instantly, he reached for her, swiping the tear away and leaning in close. “You okay?”

  She nodded. “I just love my sister so much,” she said in a broken voice. “But she’s wrong.”

  Clay stiffened. No. Not now. Not after he’d taken this big chance. This big leap. Not after all their emails and calls. “Why is she wrong?”

  Julia shook her head. “Because I’m not just happy. I’m unbelievably happy that you’re here.”

  The darkness lifted, and his entire body felt light and full of hope. She wrapped her arms around his neck, threading her fingers in his hair, and tilting her chin up to him. He ached all over just being near to her. She licked her lips, kept her eyes on him, and he’d never seen a more beautiful woman, nor had he ever wanted to kiss someone as much as he wanted to this very second.

  He ran the backs of his fingers softly against her cheek, watching as she leaned into him, her eyes floating closed for a brief second as she whispered, “You may kiss the maid-of-honor.”

  “Now that makes me unbelievably happy,” he said, gathering her in his arms, tugging her beautiful body close to his, and brushing his lips gently across hers. She gasped lightly when he made contact, that involuntary sound the most perfect reminder of why he’d listened to Chris and McKenna, snapped up a ticket, and flew across the country. Why he took the chance once again with Julia. He could pretend he was doing this for a client, simply responding properly to an invitation for a social occasion. He knew better than to lie to himself. He was doing this because he’d made the choice to trust her. The alternative—being without her—was too much to bear.

  But he was also choosing to let go of the past. He wasn’t going to blame Julia for Sabrina’s problems, nor punish himself either by reassigning them to her. The month apart from her—all talk and no contact—had reset his head in some unexpected way, reassuring him that he could try again.

  By God, how he wanted to try again as she melted into him, her body so tantalizingly close as they kissed under the sun, surrounded by wedding guests who surely didn’t care what two random people were doing because they weren’t the bride and the groom. They were the maid-of-honor and the man who had to have her, no matter the cost. He kissed her tenderly at first, light and soft as the moment called for, here on the bluff, San Francisco Bay waves rolling on by. But as she inched closer to him, pressing the full length of her gorgeous frame against his, the gentleness fell away. A groan worked its way up his chest. He pulled her harder, needing her as close as could be, needing her mouth. She whimpered and parted her lips, inviting him to taste more. He explored her with his tongue, kissing her the kind of way two lovers kiss when they haven’t seen each other in a month.

  What a long, hard month it had been. She wriggled her hips subtly against his cock, which was straining now against the zipper of his pants. The barest of contact with his erection sent his body spinning. “Julia,” he whispered harshly, her name a warning.

  Her mouth fell away from his, and she brushed her lips along his jaw, up to his ear. “I want you,” she said, in a hot murmur. “I want you now.”

  Nothing else mattered but grabbing her hand, and finding the nearest coat closet so he could slam the door and take her.

  But the second he laced his fingers through hers, someone tapped on her shoulder.

  “Picture time!”

  The bride was beaming, and her smile could light up a midnight skyline, he reckoned. But then, that’s how it should be on your wedding day.

  Julia brushed her hand once over the front of her dress, as if she were smoothing it out, then McKenna caught Clay’s eye.

  “You made it,” she shrieked, then threw her arms around his neck. He angled himself so she couldn’t feel his hard-on. The last thing he needed was the bride thinking he was a pervert, or telling the groom that his new lawyer had been sporting wood.

  “Congratulations, McKenna. I’m so happy for you and Chris,” he said, and when she pulled away he continued. “And I donated to the New York City AS
PCA in your honor.”

  “Oh, you didn’t have to,” she said, then patted the outside of her leg, and a blond Lab-Hound-Husky arrived at her side, parking herself perfectly in a sit. “But Ms. Pac-Man thanks you.”

  “She’s even cuter in person,” Clay said, gesturing to the dog, before he extended a hand to the groom, congratulating him as well on the nuptials.

  Soon, McKenna scurried her sister, her husband and her dog away for photos. Julia leaned in to give him a quick peck on the cheek before they headed to the bluff for a round of pictures.

  Clay took a deep breath, and hoped the photographer made quick work behind the lens.

  “Fancy meeting you here.”

  Clay turned to see his buddy Davis. “Hey man,” he said, clapping his friend on the back, though Davis was joking—Clay had told him the other night that he’d be at the wedding. Davis was here with Jill, the groom’s sister.

  “Guess we’re the odd men out,” Davis said, tipping his forehead to the wedding party that included the women both of them were involved with.

  Wait. Was he involved with Julia again? Or was it crazy to think that, given the track record they both had of running? He didn’t know what they were, or what they would be.

  “Yep. Looks like we are,” Clay said. “Think this’ll be you anytime soon?”

  Davis nodded, a sneaky glint in his eyes. “As a matter of fact, I believe I will be popping the question at the Tony Awards next month.”

  Clay smiled widely, then hugged his friend. “Congrats, man. That’s fantastic. You two are great together.”

  “I think so too.”

  As he chatted with Davis, neither of them did a very good job of looking anywhere but at the wedding party, Davis’s eyes on Jill, Clay’s on Julia. There was something both peaceful and right about this moment, this wedding, these people he barely knew who’d invited him into their most important day. It felt fitting to be here, and soon the gorgeous redhead would be back by his side where she belonged.

  * * *