But that wasn’t really it.
Andrew had been so wrapped up in Paisley that Tori honestly hadn’t thought he’d care.
And she’d wanted to keep the memories to herself.
That sounded silly, even in her mind, but it was true. It had all felt a little magical, almost dream-like, and she’d been afraid that if she talked about it out loud, and had someone say something like do you really think this guy just fell head over heels for you in a night or two?, she’d start thinking about it too hard and doubting and the magic would be gone.
“Just because I didn’t tell you, doesn’t mean it didn’t happen,” she said. Then she frowned. “Wait a second. Do you think I’m lying about him?”
Andrew shrugged. “I’m just saying that I haven’t heard anything about this guy. And he’s not here.”
Paisley stepped closer to them, her eyes shooting daggers. “And you kissed Andrew and then got caught. It definitely sounds a little suspicious.”
“If I wanted Andrew, why would I be trying to convince him that there’s another guy?” Tori asked her.
“Because you thought that you’d have time to tell him how you really feel and to convince him to run off with you, but then I showed up and ruined your plan. Now you’re embarrassed.”
Tori rolled her eyes at that.
Wrong move.
Paisley sucked in a gasp loud enough to be heard over the people around them who had returned to their conversations. Of course, ninety percent of the people around them were still watching this confrontation avidly.
“Look,” Tori said before Paisley could speak. “Josh and Andrew are built a lot alike. I haven’t seen Josh in a long time. I saw a guy who looked familiar and who’s wearing a mask—” she added in her defense. “It was just a mistake. There’s nothing going on with Andrew and me. We’re friends. That’s it. I would never kiss him.”
“Hey,” Andrew, the idiot, protested. “It’s not like we’ve never kissed.”
“You’ve kissed before?” Paisley said, her sobs forgotten in her outrage.
“That was eighth grade!” Tori said to Andrew. What was he doing?
“And tenth,” he reminded her.
“Oh my God,” Tori groaned. “None of that matters. That was forever ago.” She turned to Paisley again. “I swear I thought he was Josh. I wanted him to be Josh. I wish right now that he was Josh.”
Paisley sniffed. “I don’t believe you. I think you’ve been in love with Andrew forever. I know you don’t want this wedding to happen.”
Okay, Tori could not, in good conscience, insist that she was thrilled Andrew wanted to marry Paisley, and she couldn’t convincingly convince anyone that she was happy about this wedding. Which meant that she took just a beat or two too long to reply. “I just—”
“I don’t believe you!” Paisley stamped her foot.
Looking for an ally, Tori turned to Andrew. “Andrew, you have to tell her that nothing’s going on.”
“Nothing’s been going on,” he said to Paisley. “I had no idea that Tori wanted to kiss me.”
Tori felt her mouth drop open. Okay, he was drunk. But seriously? “What are you doing?” she asked him, stepping closer.
He shrugged. “If you have feelings for me, it’s okay. It’s understandable. I don’t like the idea of you with some guy you met down here last year either.”
“It’s okay?” Tori repeated. “It’s understandable? Either? Are you insane?”
He shook his head and swayed slightly. “You don’t have feelings for me?”
“Of course I do,” Tori said. But she added quickly, “Friend feelings. Affection. Caring.”
“Love,” Andrew said. “You love me. It’s okay.”
Tori glanced at Paisley. She looked like she was about to have a stroke, but she seemed to be waiting to hear Tori’s response.
Tori took a deep breath. “Yes, I do love you, Andrew. But as a friend. Like a brother. I’m not in love with you.”
“Paisley and I have discussed this and she says that we need to acknowledge your feelings for what they are so that they’re out in the open where we can all deal with them,” Andrew told her.
They’d talked about Tori’s feelings for Andrew? Or what they thought Tori’s feelings for Andrew were anyway. Tori frowned at the other woman. “What the hell does that mean?”
“I know that you’ve always told yourself that you only loved Andrew as a friend,” Paisley said, suddenly looking cold and completely in control rather than steaming mad and out for blood.
Wow, that switch turned on and off quickly.
“I have loved Andrew as a friend,” Tori told her.
“But when the person closest to you is suddenly closer to someone else, it can stir those feelings up and help you realize what they really are. You’ve always imagined a certain life with Andrew. Maybe in your head it was on neighboring farms or something,” she said, the scorn for that idea clear in her tone. “But the truth is now hitting you—his entire life is different. His future is different. And it doesn’t include you. And now that you’re losing him, you’re realizing that you’re in love with him.”
Tori felt a stabbing in her chest at the truth in Paisley’s statement. Andrew’s life and future were totally different now than she’d always imagined they’d be. Not that she’d imagined them as husband and wife, but she’d always assumed he’d be a part of her life, down the road, sharing things like holiday dinners and events like the births of children and the deaths of parents. She would take care of his animals and he’d help her wade through her dad’s will when it came time.
And now all of that was…gone. It would all be different. Most of that would be nonexistent. If Andrew helped her with her father’s will, it would be from a distance.
She felt tears stinging her eyes and pressed her lips together. Her throat was so tight that she couldn’t argue with Paisley’s assumptions.
Paisley stepped forward, reaching for Andrew’s hand. She regarded Tori with a touch of pity, and a lot of triumph. “It’s really important to be honest about how you feel,” she said. “It’s only fair to both Andrew and I. He needs to know where you stand. He can’t assume. And it isn’t fair to me to be asked to give you time alone together anymore. If you were just childhood friends, that’s one thing, but you can understand why I would be concerned now.”
It was Tori’s turn to gasp. “So you don’t think that Andrew and I can have a private conversation now because you think I’m in love with him?”
She saw exactly what Paisley was doing. The other woman was jealous of Tori and Andrew’s relationship—a friendship, dammit—and history, so she’d come up with a way to justify keeping them apart. And a way to make it all Tori’s fault.
“Exactly.” Paisley said it coolly.
“So, you’re absolutely convinced that I’m in love with Andrew and planned this kiss and some kind of jilted-bride scenario?” Tori asked.
“Yes, I am.” She leaned into Andrew and ran her hand up his chest. “Fortunately, I’m completely sure of Andrew’s feelings for me.”
Tori wasn’t sure about that. Why work so hard to keep him and Tori apart then? And maybe Paisley hadn’t noticed the way Andrew had kissed Tori back.
Tori was not going to say that though. It didn’t matter. He was drunk and she’d caught him by surprise and the kiss didn’t mean anything.
“Come on, Andrew, time to go.” Paisley started tugging him toward the door.
“I can’t just leave Tori here,” Andrew protested, taking a few steps with Paisley anyway.
“Oh, I think she’ll be okay,” Paisley said, glancing over her shoulder at Tori. “Apparently she found her way down here alone and met a ‘friend’ last year.”
Andrew shot Tori an apologetic look, but he let Paisley lead him out of the building.
Tori watched the other bridesmaids turn and follow them out.
Then she blew out a breath.
Well…fuck.
She had
, in fact, found her way down here on her own last year.
And even though he had stood her up, she was missing that “friend” more than ever right now. If he’d shown up, she could have proven to Paisley that she had no romantic feelings for Andrew. Having Josh sweep in in the middle of that debacle would have been perfect. Paisley would have had to acknowledge that Tori had not only been telling the truth, but she would have seen that Tori wasn’t pining after the boy next door. The spoiled bitch would have seen that Tori could, by God, attract a hot, sexy playboy with panty-melting drawl who looked at Tori like she was his favorite flavor of everything.
Yeah, that would have been perfect.
But it hadn’t happened. At all.
And it finally sunk in fully that Josh had not shown up for their rendezvous. Tori felt a knot in her stomach and a sadness that was far more intense than made sense. She barely knew the guy. It had been a year. There had always been the chance that one or both of them wouldn’t, or couldn’t, make it to this spot on this night.
But she still felt like crying.
So, now what was she going to do? The wedding had been on track for being an incredibly frustrating, awkward affair anyway. Now? Now that the entire bridal party thought Tori was after Andrew? Now that Andrew thought that Tori was in love with him? This had all the makings of the worst week of her life.
She could leave.
There was nothing that said she had to be here. There were lots of people who would prefer she leave.
But, no matter how stupid he was when he was drunk, Andrew was still her best friend. They’d been there for every major occasion in the other’s life forever. If she missed his wedding, she’d always regret it.
Probably.
So she needed a way to salvage this. A way to prove that she did not want Andrew for herself. She just didn’t want him with Paisley.
No, Tori, you can’t think about that. If you break this wedding up, everyone will definitely think it’s because Paisley was right. Andrew might even think that. And that will make everything between you and Andrew awkward forever.
She couldn’t let that happen either.
She really needed to prove that the kiss had been about another guy altogether. A real guy. A guy that actually existed and had romanced her last year and had asked her to come back. A guy she really wanted to kiss. In front of people. Like Andrew and Paisley. For instance.
She needed Josh.
Tori turned toward the bar and pushed through the people to get back to the bartender.
“Hey!” she called to him.
“What’s up?” he asked.
“Can you tell me how to get to Autre?”
Was she going to show up and convince him to be her plus one at this wedding even though he’d stood her up and probably completely forgotten her?
Yep.
Hey, she was going home to Iowa in a few days. What was the worst that could happen?
Josh threw the rope onto the boat, kicked the cooler out of the way, and stomped onto the deck behind the group of tourists who had just debarked the airboat.
“Thanks so much, Josh, we had such a great time.” Barbara, the forty-something who had brought her three kids and husband on the swamp boat tour, handed him a thirty-dollar tip.
He gave her a smile. “Hey, thanks, I appreciate it. Y’all were a lot of fun.”
They hadn’t been. The boys hadn’t shut up the entire time and their father kept insisting on answering their questions, incorrectly, before Josh could. But part of his income was tips, so if he had to push the charm out between gritted teeth, he would. He could definitely use the extra cash tonight. He could drink at his grandma’s bar for free, but he couldn’t get shit-faced drunk there without a ton of questions that he didn’t want to answer about his pissy mood and why he was getting drunk. He’d have to buy his own liquor tonight.
“Thanks a lot, Josh.” Another of his tour attendees handed him forty bucks.
“You bet, Randy. Great to meet you guys.” He clapped the older businessman from Bismarck on the shoulder.
He collected tips and thanks from the rest of the group and smiled through it all. But the second the last person disappeared into the gift shop, Josh dropped his smile and headed back to get the boat ready for the next tour.
They had a busy day ahead and he was determined to just keep his head down and get through it. He could handle the tourists. They paid him. But he couldn’t deal with his partners today. His brother Sawyer owned thirty-five percent of the business with Josh and their cousin Owen each owning fifteen percent. The other thirty-five percent had been owned by Sawyer’s best childhood friend, Tommy.
Tommy had died about six months ago and his portion of the business was now, legally, his sister Madison’s. But Maddie lived in San Francisco and was a silent partner. They sent her cut of the profits regularly, but she didn’t give input into the business.
The guys got along great and everyone worked hard. Even more so since Tommy’s death. Losing him suddenly had brought them all even closer. Their business was thriving. But working together, and living in the tiny town where their families all also lived, made it hard to even sneeze without fifty-seven people blessing you.
Josh realized that sounded like a nice thing but, well…yeah, it was mostly a nice thing. But some days a guy just wanted to sneeze in peace. He did not want to get into what was making him a surly asshole today. And he would be a surly asshole if any of the guys got on his case about anything.
He threw new packages of raw chicken into the cooler as he tried not to think about last night. The gators were active today and he’d found four to feed for his last tour. He’d head down a little more east this next time and see who was swimming around down there.
He stored the cooler and made sure all of the life jackets and headphones were put away properly. Then he propped his hands on his hips and looked around. Shit. There wasn’t much more to do before the next tour.
Tori didn’t show up at Bourbon O last night.
He couldn’t fucking escape the thought. Even with the work. On the airboat, a lot of the time it was too damned loud to talk to anyone. So that left a lot of time in his own head. He couldn’t do any educating or “tour leading” until they got down into the areas where the cypress trees and old shacks and gators gave them the real bayou experience. Then people loved to hear the stories and facts and ask questions. And then he fired up the airboat again and it was too loud to hear a thing. Except his own thoughts.
Why didn’t she show up? Does she have a boyfriend? Is she okay? Did she just forget about him? But mostly…did she have a boyfriend?
He wanted her to be healthy, of course. He definitely didn’t want to think that she’d forgotten him. But holy shit, the idea that she had a boyfriend was the thing making him downright intolerable. Even for himself.
It had been a year. She was gorgeous and smart and funny and sweet. He knew that of the three options—she’d forgotten, she was sick, or she was taken—taken was definitely the most likely.
He stomped up onto the dock. He’d hose the boat off. That wasn’t as good as breaking shit, which was really what he felt like doing, or getting drunk—also definitely a preference—but it was something.
Turning the faucet on full blast, he aimed the water at the deck of the boat, hosing off bits of mud and grass.
And still thinking. Dammit.
He’d known that the chances of her being there had been slim. Who met a person, spent six hours together talking, and then agreed to get back together a year later with no contact in between?
No normal person.
Sure, every other member of his family would do that. But normal people, like Tori Kramer, did not. Tori had been very normal. Clearly out of place on Bourbon. Clearly out of place at Mardi Gras. And it had drawn him like a fish to bait. She had so clearly been a tourist on her first trip to the Big Easy, like so many women he met every night, and yet…there had been something refreshing about her. Sh
e’d owned not fitting in. She’d been onto his I’m-charming-you-for-tips bit from the minute he’d opened his mouth. And yet, he hadn’t been charming her for tips. He’d immediately wanted to make her smile. He’d immediately wanted to be the thing she thought about when she went home and thought back on her trip to New Orleans.
He really hadn’t understood why at the time—or in the three-hundred-and-some days since then—but he’d wanted to make her laugh, kiss the hell out of her, and protect her. He’d really wanted to send her back to the farm untouched by the stupid-drunken-what-happens-in-NOLA-stays-in-NOLA experiences that most visitors took home with them. He’d wanted to go to her hotel room and taste every inch of her. But even more, he’d wanted to take her home and introduce her to his grandma.
That’s what had made him send her back to her hotel room alone. Twice.
He’d been waiting all his life to meet a girl who made him want to act like a crazy, romantic ass for her. It was Landry family legend that the men all eventually stumbled upon the girl that made him willing to throw all pride and sense of self-preservation out the window. When he found her, he married her.
Josh had sent Tori back to Iowa without even having her phone number, not quite trusting the love-at-first-conversation thing that he’d felt happening, but trusting that if she was the one, she’d be back. On Mardi Gras. At Bourbon O.
And then…she hadn’t been.
And he was more pissed about that than he really wanted to admit. To anyone. And certainly to the family who would be floored…and would then insist he do something stupid like drive to Iowa to find her.
Which he was already considering.
“Josh!”
Fuck. He pretended that he didn’t hear Owen calling to him.
He was really not in the mood for Owen. Owen loved to push buttons and really didn’t worry about little things like pissing people off to the point that they took a swing at him. He could admit that he sometimes deserved getting popped in the mouth, but he also had really good reflexes, so it didn’t happen as often as it probably should. He was especially dedicated to making sure the people around him didn’t take things too seriously. Except work. Owen took their business seriously.
My Best Friend's Mardi Gras Wedding Page 5