This distant side of Luna I wasn’t that fond of and I’d have to figure out a way to get her to talk.
18
Luna
Somehow I’d managed to get back to being myself and put Killian’s words out of my head. Most of the time. At least I’d made it through work on Thursday and Friday. I’d even made it through the rehearsal Friday evening, where we all went up to the winery and practiced what Shannon told us to do. She was amazing and just seemed to know how things should go when I was clueless. My mom would’ve known. Between Jim and Shannon, they had it covered.
I did my best to avoid looking at Killian as we went through the motions. He’d gotten to me and I hated that he’d gotten to me. Especially when he might not have been totally wrong.
I’d considered so many options over the last few days. Though I did think that maybe once we were married, things would go smoother as far as the distance was concerned. We were both in better places. We were older and knew what we wanted. We could do this, I thought. But Killian said Harrison turned it down so I wasn’t even sure why it was taking up space in my brain.
He wasn’t going. But he also hadn’t told me about it and I didn’t want him to resent me down the line. Damn. I should’ve talked to him about it that night but everything had me spinning. I’d just wanted to be with him.
Then the reality of how lonely it would be without him if he’d taken the opportunity hit me like a truck. Was that fair? Was it fair to put me not wanting to be lonely before Harrison’s dream? It probably wasn’t but he hadn’t even told me about it so how much of a dream could it really have been?
I was still a bit ticked off that he hadn’t bothered to tell me about the opportunity when it had come up. But I sure as hell didn’t want to argue with him the night before our wedding about that when I knew he wasn’t going anywhere.
Once everyone knew what they were supposed to do tomorrow for the wedding, we all drove back to our house. Beck and Jess rode with Harrison and me. My man couldn’t stop smiling the entire time. Killian rode with his parents. That was for the best. I couldn’t have been cooped up in such a close space with him right now.
He’d enjoyed telling me about Harrison and France. He’d fucking loved it as if his goal had always been to come between us. Well, I wasn’t going to let that happen. He wasn’t going to get the best of me.
We pulled into the driveway with his parents right beside us. Everyone was in a good mood as we got out of the car and went inside. There were so many conversations happening at the same time and they were filled with laughter. Exactly how it should’ve been.
Our house was unrecognizable on the inside.
When Jess had asked me to take my change of clothes to work so I didn’t go home before the rehearsal, I’d thought it was odd. She’d taken the afternoon off to meet up with Shannon to prep for the dinner.
Champagne and blue balloons were dotting the house. The same colors as our dresses. Harrison didn’t know that, but I was touched by the attention to detail. They’d decorated with fabric to make the dining room look like a tent and there were so many candles, I couldn’t count them all. The table was set, as much as it could’ve been, and when I rounded toward the kitchen, the food was waiting. How they’d done that last part while we’d all been at the rehearsal, I’d probably never know.
“This is beautiful,” I told Jess after she’d wrapped her arm around my shoulders. “I can’t believe you two did this.”
“We did have some help,” she admitted. “Harrison worked with the restaurant to have someone set up the dinner while were out at the winery. He is the sweetest.”
I nodded and choked back the emotion. “He really is.”
Harrison came up and claimed me from Jess by sliding his arm around my shoulders and yanking me away.
“That’s not fair,” said Jess. “You know I’ve known her longer.”
He shrugged. “That might be true, but she’s actually mine.”
I giggled. “Girls, girls. I love you both the exact same.”
Beck was walking by as I said that and his shoulders lifted as he cringed. “I hope not exactly the same.” Which made us all burst out into a round of laughter. Including Harrison’s parents. Even Killian cracked a smile.
Shannon and Jess put the finishing touched on dinner which entailed taking the covers off so each of us could make our plates. A lot of people did more formal things for their rehearsal dinner, but that just wasn’t us. It wasn’t me. I was wearing a T-shirt dress with leggings and riding boots. Jessica was dressed much the same. The guys were all in dress pants and button-down shirts, but the top buttons were undone and in Jim’s case, his sleeves were rolled up. Even Harrison’s mom was just wearing a nice pants suit. And dinner was buffet-style.
After the first bite of food, I closed my eyes to savor the flavor of the beef. The food was divine and of course, Harrison had chosen the perfect wine for the night. I was pretty sure one glass would be my limit.
My stomach just wasn’t right and I wouldn’t risk vomiting all over the place on the night before my wedding.
We chatted all at once and who knew what anyone was talking about, but there was a lot of smiling and a ton of laughing. Once again, even Killian appeared to be enjoying himself.
Just as we were finishing up, Jess did the thing where you clang your knife against your wine glass to get everyone’s attention. We all quieted down and waited.
Harrison leaned back and took my hand in his, tangling our fingers together, then set them on my knee.
“Now I know this isn’t necessarily the most traditional dinner or wedding,” Jess began. “But I’ll be damned if I’m going to miss out on making the maid of honor speech.”
I cocked my head to the side. “Isn’t that supposed to be tomorrow? At the reception.”
“Yes.” She jutted a finger toward me like I’d just guessed the answer to some mystery question. She’d had more than one glass of wine so far. Might have to spend the night here at this rate. “But I’m supposed to get two and one is supposed to be tonight.”
“Says who?”
“Google,” she answered quickly. “Could you just let me do this?”
I snickered but twirled my finger in the air to give her permission.
“I’ve known Luna a long time. The longest of anyone in this room and we’ve been best friends for years. You all know that. But I never told you how we met,” she said. I groaned as I dropped my head to the table. Harrison chuckled and rubbed my back until I sat up again. “Most people think we met at work, but we’ve been friends longer than that. I only worked at the clinic because she told me they were hiring.”
I shifted in my seat. This could go in one of many directions, but I trusted Jess to know which of these ways would be the most appropriate.
“But I’m not going to talk about the actual meeting due to how embarrassing that could be for both of us.” Oh, thank the universe. “I’m going to talk about Luna BH and AH.”
“BH and AH?” Beck asked, looking up at her.
“Before Harrison and After Harrison,” she said as if we should’ve known. “Before Harrison, Luna was a shell of a person moving through life as if she couldn’t see her surroundings.”
I snorted. “That’s definitely not true.”
“Shh. This is my story.” The sound was sharp and quick. It took everything in my power not to laugh at her. “Anyway…” She drew the word out. “I’m just saying that I have known Luna a long time. Longer than anyone here actually and we’ve been through a lot together. Some really great times and some fun adventures and some really dark times,” she said. Harrison shifted uncomfortably beside me. “And I love her like we’re family. We are family. I knew the day would come that I would have to share her and I supposed if I have to, then I don’t mind sharing her with Harrison because he’s the only person I’ve met to date who might love her nearly as much as I do.”
“I’d say more,” he told her with hesitating.
<
br /> Jess shook her head. “Don’t fool yourself, bro.”
The entire table roared with laughter. Jess was my family and I would’ve expected her to say nothing less.
Once we settled down, Killian stood and my heart dropped to my stomach. He hadn’t been the most supportive of this, so I couldn’t imagine why he’d want to make a speech.
“I guess if Jess gave a speech, I will as well. As best man.”
“Tread carefully,” Harrison said quietly. Both of his parents sat back and looked at their oldest son.
“Knowing Harrison the way that I do, and for his entire life, I assumed that one day he would meet someone who made him want to settle down. I didn’t think it’d be so soon, but here we are. Watching our parents for our whole lives has shown both of us what we should be looking for.”
His mom and dad shared a sweet moment across the table.
“Being with the person you’re meant to be should help you be a better version of yourself. That’s one of Dad’s gems,” Killian said. Harrison took my hand in his left and slid his right arm around my back, letting it rest in that spot where my neck met my shoulder. His thumb gently ran over my skin. “Mom said that if you love someone, you help them achieve their dreams. You support them. You help them be the people they want to be and they do the same for you.”
And that was where he ended it. He sat back down leaving everyone questioning what the fuck he was talking about.
I thought all of us were expecting him to say that Harrison and I had found all of that. But he didn’t. He sat down and the silence in the air was deafening. Shannon didn’t look the least bit happy. Her lips formed a thin line. Jess and Beck began to chat at a normal tone to fill the room.
“He’s got to be fucking kidding me,” Harrison muttered as he scooted his chair back.
I set my hands on his chest to stop him. “Just let it go.”
“He—”
I shook my head and moved onto his lap. “Just let it go tonight. Anything you want to say to him can wait.”
Harrison ran his hand over my back, up then down. “Only because you asked me to.”
I’d only asked him to let it go because it had hit a little too close to home for me. Everything he’d said was true and now that I knew about the opportunity in France, I worried that I wasn’t living up to it. Harrison totally was.
But Killian and I were going to have a talk of our own at some point because he needed to get a new hobby than fucking with my head.
“Hey, Luna, can I talk to you?” Jess asked once everyone was back in the swing of things. There were desserts in the kitchen that we all kept munching on.
“Sure.”
She threaded her arm through mine then pulled me through the living room and up the stairs. She didn’t stop until we were in my bedroom. I wasn’t sure why we couldn’t talk in the den downstairs, but whatever.
“What’s up?” I asked her once we were there and she’d closed the door most of the way.
She plopped down on the bed, careful to keep her boots off the mattress. “Actually, I thought you could use a breather after that stellar speech Killian gave.”
I briefly closed my eyes. “Bless you.”
Once I was sitting the same on the other side of the bed, we both moved until our backs were against the headboard.
“Killian is hot but such an asshole,” she said, which made me wince.
“Gross. He’s just an asshole at this point.”
She shook her head. “Sorry, sis. He’s also stupid hot.”
“I’ll take your word for it.”
She snickered then kept pushing. “So what’s going through your head after that? I saw your face. Don’t pretend there’s not something rattling around in there.”
I took a deep breath and blew it out slowly. “His speech got to me,” I confessed.
“As I thought.”
“What if I am holding Harrison back?”
Jess groaned. “Come on. The night before your wedding? Harrison loves you, dummy. You’re not holding him back from anything.”
After worrying my bottom lip, I decided I needed to tell her what I knew. It was the only way she’d be able to understand where I was coming from.
“I might be coming between him and his dream.”
She cocked her head to the side. “Why would you say that?”
Instead of looking at her as I told her this, I fiddled with the edge of the comforter on our bed. The bed I shared with Harrison. I couldn’t believe I was marrying him tomorrow.
“I recently found out that he had an offer to study with a master sommelier in France. He turned it down.”
She narrowed her eyes on me. I only knew that because I could see her out of the corner of my eye, but this was Jess. She wasn’t going to judge me, so I finally looked directly at her.
“But if that’s what you two decided,” she told me, “why would you think he’s not going because of you?” Her eyes widened slightly. “Unless… did you tell him you wouldn’t be here when he got back?”
I shook my head.
“Have you talked to him about this with Harrison? Do you even know what he wants? Because that man looks pretty damn happy to be marrying you tomorrow. He’s probably never been this happy.”
“He never told me about it, Jess. He just turned it down, but I worry we wouldn’t make it through another long-distance thing anyway because we didn’t make it through the first one.”
“I can understand that,” she said quietly.
We were silent for too long before I said what had been nagging me in the back of my mind. “Now I’m left wondering if I should postpone the wedding so he could do that.”
“Call off the wedding?” she just about yelled. “You know he has the winery here too, Luna. There could be lots of reasons he turned it down. Why didn’t you ask him?”
“Quiet.” After a quick glance at the door. “Postpone. So he doesn’t think he has to stay here just to keep me. I can’t go with him, but I don’t want to repeat any mistakes we’ve made. And he has people to run the winery. He could do that from there pretty easily.”
The door flung open roughly. It hit the doorstopper with a cartoon doink sound, causing both of us to hop up off the bed like we were teenagers who’d just been caught making out.
“Jesus, you scared me,” Jess told Harrison with her hand over her heart, like she was trying to keep it from beating out of her chest.
“Give us a minute,” he said to her, but he never took his eyes off me.
He was teetering somewhere between utter anger and desperately hurt.
Not exactly how you’d want your future husband to look the night before your wedding.
19
Harrison
Eavesdropping hadn’t been part of my plan when I’d come upstairs. However, it looked like people might be leaving soon and Luna would want to be down there to say goodbye. Never in a million years did I think I would overhear Luna telling Jess that she might want to cancel our wedding. Whatever she was feeling, she should’ve come to me, not Jessica.
I put aside any hurt I had over the fact that she was even contemplating it. Now wasn’t the time for my hurt feelings. Luna loved me. I knew she did, so that wasn’t a question. Something else must’ve happened for her to even consider ending this again.
I pushed through the semi-open door a little harder than I’d meant to. The door flung back and hit the stopper, making a disturbing noise. Both women scurried off the bed as if they’d been caught doing something they shouldn’t have been doing.
Jessica scrambled out of the room, giving Luna an empathetic look on the way out. She also shut the door fully without me having to ask her to.
“What the fuck, Luna?” I asked, folding my arms over my chest. I didn’t want to yell at her. I only wanted her to explain what I’d just overheard.
“Wh-What do you mean?”
“Let’s not pretend that you don’t know I overheard what you said to Jessica. We d
on’t really have time for that as there are people in our dining room right now and about thirty-five showing up to watch us get married tomorrow.”
Luna was biting her lips together the whole time I spoke. The tilt of her eyebrows and quivering of her chin were all signs that she was about to cry. I didn’t want that, but we had to get through this.
I walked over into her space, but I didn’t reach out to touch her. This woman had my heart in her hands and the damn thing would shatter depending on what she said.
“Do you not want to marry me?” I tried my best to keep my voice from cracking. Both with fear and sadness.
“Of course I do,” she said quickly. “It wasn’t about that.”
“Then what was it about?”
She glanced to the door and asked, “Can we talk about this after everyone leaves?”
“We’re talking about this now.”
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. After blowing it out slowly, she said, “I know about France.”
At first, it didn’t click. “France?”
She tilted her head to the side and narrowed her eyes at me. Still nothing. About ten seconds later it hit. France. My offer to go study there. The offer I hadn’t mentioned to her. The fucking offer I’d only told my fucking brother about who then forced me to tell my dad.
I was going to kill him and that was on top of still needing to have a chat about him going to Luna for a massage. I hadn’t done it up to this point because she acted like it wasn’t a big deal and I didn’t want to make things weird between them.
“Oh, baby. No.” Now I did move closer and reached out to touch her. I cupped her face as she looked up at me with those gemstone eyes that were shimmering with moisture.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” she whispered.
“Because it was a non-starter.”
Luna moved out of my grip. “I don’t want to hold you back, Harrison,” she told me. Her eyes had a sad, downturned quality, as did her voice. As if this was a conclusion she’d already made. “But I can’t handle you leaving again.”
All of Me: A Holiday Bites Novel Page 12