by Jen DeLuca
I got to my place at the front of the aisle and turned. April was about halfway down the aisle herself, while Emily and her father were just visible, still on the lane. I looked from them back to Simon. At first glance he looked calm, but that was only a thin veneer. I’d known him long enough to know that the man was about to come out of his skin. There was a wild look in his eyes, a muscle jumped in his cheek from his tightened jaw, and his hands were clasped together in front of him so hard his fingertips had turned red. The early evening sun flashed off the silver hoop earring in his ear, and seeing it made me smile. For all that he had insisted he wouldn’t get married in costume—and he wasn’t, his dark gray suit with a matching striped vest beneath was all Simon—he’d brought that little piece of Captain Blackthorne to the wedding.
Of course, there were a lot of pieces of Faire at this wedding. Venue aside, Mitch stood there in his dark gray suit jacket and a green kilt, wearing a proud smirk. Had Simon really approved that? Seemed unlikely. Out in the crowd, roughly a quarter of the attendees were Faire performers, most of them still in costume. Leather jerkins and long skirts mingled with neckties and flowered dresses worn by family members and in-town friends.
The music changed as Emily and her father came down the aisle. Simon sucked in a sharp breath, and Mitch nudged him. “Look at her.” His voice was a whisper, but it carried to those of us in the wedding party. I was pretty sure Simon couldn’t have spoken even if he wanted to, but that was okay. He didn’t need to. He gripped his hands tighter—could a man break his own fingers that way?—and his gaze sharpened to a laser-point as he watched his bride’s approach. As for Emily, she looked beatific; I’d never seen someone smile with their whole being before. Even the flowers she carried looked happy.
What would it be like to look forward to your future with such unbridled joy? Without thinking, my gaze flicked over to Daniel, and when he turned his head to catch my eye at the same time, I felt a stirring of that same kind of joy deep in my chest. I could blame it on the setting, sure, but I had a feeling it was all Daniel.
The wedding ceremony was like a dream, a pleasant one that I couldn’t fully recall after it was over, but it left me with a glowing feeling. My memory was reduced to snapshots, images of moments. Emily and Simon joining hands, looking like they’d been waiting their whole lives for that moment. April wiping a surreptitious tear during the vows. Caitlin reading a romantic Shakespearean sonnet that made Emily blush and Simon’s hand tighten around hers. The most perfect, sweetest of kisses as they were pronounced husband and wife.
After the wedding, while we took an endless series of wedding-party photos, the chairs were repositioned and the chess field became the reception hall, with tables and chairs set around the edges and a makeshift dance floor in the middle. The caterers set up little stations of appetizers, the string quartet gave way to a deejay with a sound system, and before long everyone was chatting and eating. I was released from all the posed wedding photo–taking to find Daniel waiting for me with a plate of finger food—chicken wings, stuffed mushrooms, assorted canapés—along with a plastic glass of champagne.
“God bless you.” I couldn’t decide what I wanted to attack first, but the fact that I had hardly eaten a bite all day made me practically snatch the plate out of his hand. “Are we sharing this?”
“Nope, this is all yours. I ate my share while I was waiting for you.” He ushered me to a seat at a nearby table and picked up the beer he’d left there. “You haven’t eaten today, have you? You hardly eat during a normal Faire day, and with all of this going on, I figured . . .” He shrugged, and there was that feeling again. That easy, familiar feeling that we’d been together for a few years and not a couple weeks. He knew my habits and the things I liked. He knew me.
I sank gratefully into a chair and took a healthy sip of champagne. My role in this wedding was over. Now I could relax and enjoy myself. No longer a bridesmaid, now just a wedding guest. Thank God.
The food wasn’t particularly Faire-themed, which was probably a good thing. The more conventional wedding guests wouldn’t have gone for a dinner of giant turkey legs, mead, and funnel cakes. Instead it was an assortment of finger foods, like tapas, but in large enough quantities to guarantee that no one would go hungry. Once the guests were full of food, the toasts began, and we raised our glasses again and again, saying lots of “Huzzahs!” to the happy couple before they took the floor for the first dance.
“Come on.” Daniel popped one last mini-meatball in his mouth and wiped his hands on a napkin before he stood and extended a hand to me, his eyebrows raised in a question. “Dance with me?”
As if I’d say no to that. I let him pull me to my feet and onto the makeshift dance floor, moving to a sweet, slow song.
“So, tell me.” I laid a hand on his broadcloth-covered chest, relishing the way the muscles tightened under my hand. “Do you own any clothes that aren’t black?” In black dress trousers and a black button-down shirt with a black tie, he looked like a dressed-up version of the clothes he wore every day.
“Hey,” he said, but his protest had no real heat to it. He covered my hand with his, keeping it over his heart. “It’s an easy color to wear. Everything matches that way.”
I considered that. “One of these days I want to see you in a pink shirt.”
He barked out a laugh. “With my hair? No, thank you.” He shook his head, and the aforementioned hair fell into his eyes. I reached up to brush it off his forehead, and his eyes softened in reaction to my touch. “I’m really not a pink-shirt kind of guy. Besides . . .” He ran a hand up my back and then over my shoulder, the soft fabric of the sleeve of my dress sliding between his fingers like water. “You wear enough color for the both of us.”
The both of us. I loved the way that sounded.
The sun sank lower in the sky and a slight chill crept into the evening, just enough to take the worst of the heat off the day. Daniel and I took a break from the dancing to split a slice of white wedding cake, and I watched Simon and Emily mingle among the guests on the other side of the chess field.
“They look so happy.” I’d had a couple glasses of champagne and some cake by now, so I wasn’t exactly grouchy myself. I leaned back, pillowing my head in the hollow of Daniel’s shoulder, and his arm went around me as though we did this all the time. I wished we could do this all the time. Why did the summer have to end?
Nope. Not thinking about that yet. Instead I turned my attention back to the newlyweds and sighed. What I wouldn’t give to have someone look at me the way Simon looked at Emily. With his entire soul in his eyes. Out of nowhere I remembered how I’d felt at the end of last summer. The restless melancholy, the sense that I didn’t have my shit together, that had led me to send that first drunken message to the man who turned out to be Daniel. It had all been spurred by the news of Simon and Emily’s engagement, and the feeling that I needed to build a life of my own.
Then I felt a touch on my arm, and I turned my head to see Daniel staring down at me, and oh my God. He was looking at me the way Simon looked at Emily. When I looked in his eyes, I didn’t feel restless. I didn’t feel melancholy. A lot had changed for me in a year. He skimmed his fingertips up my arm and to my shoulder, leaving little electric tingles in the wake of his touch. My breath caught in my lungs, and I was lost in the endless green of his eyes.
“Hey, you.” My voice was hushed, barely more than a whisper of breath, but a smile played over his mouth. He’d heard me.
“Hi.” He caught a lock of my hair, winding the strands between his fingers. He bent closer and my eyes slid closed as I waited for his mouth to close over mine.
And that was when a raindrop splashed directly onto the middle of my forehead.
I started, my eyes flying open, and Daniel turned to look up at the sky as I touched the water that had hit me. “Is that rain?” Above us the sky had grown dark, much darker than it should be this
time of evening; there should have been at least another half hour or so of daylight. But now a breeze kicked up, and there was a subtle rumble of thunder in the distance.
“Yep,” he said. “That’s rain. Shit.”
I hadn’t checked the forecast that day, but I wasn’t exactly surprised. Summer thunderstorms were common, especially when the day had been as warm as this one. “At least it waited till the wedding was over.”
“Mostly.” Stray raindrops started falling faster, and in moments they’d coalesced into a steady drizzle. Soon it would be a downpour. Daniel tugged me to my feet and we ducked beneath a large tree that provided some shelter. But that rumble of thunder in the distance meant lightning, so we couldn’t stay there. All around us the party was breaking up quickly. The music shut off abruptly as a couple volunteers, Mitch included, helped the deejay break down his equipment. Wedding guests started running for their cars. Meanwhile, Emily’s parents, April, and Caitlin gathered the wedding presents in tablecloths, pulling them away like Santa Claus with sacks of presents. In minutes, the wedding reception was all but over, abruptly called on account of rain. The only two who hadn’t gotten the memo were Simon and Emily themselves, still on the chess field dance floor, with eyes only for each other.
“Get out of the rain, you idiots!” I yelled, and Emily flicked her eyes to me, waving me off with a laugh before turning her attention back to her new husband, who smiled down into her eyes as though he couldn’t feel the rain.
Well, I’d tried. I reached inside the pocket of my dress for my keys, and then I remembered. I had keys but . . . “I don’t have my car.” It was at April’s house, because I’d come here in the limo. I’d intended to hitch a ride home with my parents, but apparently I’d forgotten to share that plan with them; they’d left after the cake was cut.
“Come on.” Daniel looked up at the sky again. “It’s just going to get worse. I’ll take you home.”
“You sure?” But we were already running in the rain, our hands clasped together and him pulling me along toward the performers’ parking lot.
He hazarded one glance over his shoulder, a skeptical look on his face. “Of course I’m sure. You think I’d leave you stranded?”
No. If there was one thing I knew for sure about Daniel, he wouldn’t leave me stranded.
* * *
• • •
“It’s just up ahead.” I leaned forward in the passenger seat of Daniel’s pickup as he navigated us through the rain and onto my street. “Third house on the left. With the light on.”
“Got it.” He swung into my driveway. “Wow. I have to say I’m impressed.”
“Impressed?” I looked at the rain-soaked driveway, then back at him again.
“Yeah.” He pulled to a stop and for a moment we both sat there, windshield wipers throwing rain from one side of the windshield to the other, staring at my parents’ completely unimpressive house. “I had no idea receptionists in dental offices made so much. That’s a pretty nice house you’ve got there.”
“What?” My laugh echoed in the cab of his truck, louder than I’d intended it to be. “No. No, this isn’t my house. You know that.”
“What?” He turned in his seat to look at me. “You said third house on the left. This isn’t your house?”
“No. I mean, yes. I mean . . .” I huffed. “I don’t live in there.” I pointed to the side of the garage, to the stairs that led to the door of my apartment. “I live up there. You knew that. From my emails.” Hadn’t I explained my whole apartment-over-the-garage situation to him?
“Up those rickety stairs? No. You’re not going up those stairs in the rain.”
I clucked my tongue and unfastened my seatbelt. “Oh, yes, I am. I do it all the time.”
“Not in those little shoes, you don’t. You’re going to slip.”
“I’m not going to slip.” He was right, but there was no way I’d admit it. The wood plank stairs were soaking wet by now, and these sandals had no tread on the bottoms. I could absolutely break my neck trying to prove him wrong.
“Come on.” He unclicked his own seatbelt and turned off the truck. The windshield wipers slammed to a halt and the truck cab filled up with silence from the sudden lack of engine noise. “I’ll help you up the stairs.”
I scoffed. “What are you going to do, fireman-carry me up there? You’ll get a hernia and we’ll both fall.”
He sighed a long-suffering sigh. We really hadn’t been together long enough for him to be this annoyed with me. “No, but I can walk behind you and make sure you don’t slip.”
I sighed in response and peered up toward my door. So close and yet so far. I’d hoped that while we were bickering the rain would stop, but no such luck. Water covered the windshield now, blurring the streetlights. Lightning lit up the sky, closely followed by a crack of thunder.
“Storm’s getting worse.” Daniel didn’t sound accusatory; he was just making an observation. But I frowned anyway.
“Okay.” I took a fortifying breath. “Let’s do this.” Another deep breath, and I threw open the door to his truck and darted out into the storm. I shrieked as the cold water pelted down on me, and as I ran to the stairs I heard Daniel’s startled shout as he followed me, getting just as wet as I was. And sure enough, on the third step up my foot slipped out from under me on the wet wood. A squeak erupted from my mouth as I started to fall, but Daniel was there. He caught me with his hands on my hips, steadying me until I had a good grasp on the handrail, and then we both pounded up the stairs. I dug for my keys and the rain fell harder just to spite me.
“Fine, you were right!” I shouted to be heard above the storm as I fished my keys out of my pocket. “I would have fallen on the stairs!”
“I can gloat later!” he yelled back. “Open the door!”
I turned the key in the lock and pushed, and we practically fell into my apartment like something out of a French farce. He slammed the door behind us, and the noise of the hard-falling rain was cut off like a switch had been thrown. For a few moments all I could hear was our breath, hard and a little labored from our mad dash up the stairs. I turned around, raking my disheveled hair out of my eyes, and looked up at Daniel, leaning back against my door. He was so tall in this tiny space, but it wasn’t an imposing presence. He was a mess, soaking wet, looking as bedraggled as I felt, and a helpless laugh bubbled out of me. He joined in almost immediately, his laugh more a loud rush of breath, and as it died out I noticed the rain was coming down even harder, the water pinging off the skylights above us. Another noise too: a faint chirrup from the vicinity of the couch.
“Oh.” Daniel pushed his hair out of his eyes, raking it straight back before taking a step forward. “This must be Benedick. Your true love.” He reached out his other hand, but Benedick looked at him with startled eyes before zipping away toward the bathroom.
I tried not to laugh at the hurt in his eyes when he looked back at me. “That’s right. I forgot you’re not a cat person.”
“I never said that. I said I’ve never had one. There’s a difference.”
“Well, it shows.” But I kept my voice kind. “Cats startle pretty easily. He doesn’t know you, and with you looming over him like that—”
“I don’t loom.”
“You’re ten feet tall, of course you loom. Not to mention you’re soaking wet.” So was I. And with the air conditioner running I was also freezing. I suppressed a shiver.
“Oh.” He looked down at himself, plucking his wet shirt away from his chest with a sigh. “Well, there is that.”
I ducked into the bathroom for towels and to check on Benedick, who glared at me from behind the toilet. When I caught sight of myself in the mirror, I tried not to scream. I’d worked so hard on my hair, and now the carefully pinned-up curls listed to the side like a drunken wedding cake, flowers poking out haphazardly. And the less said about my suppose
dly waterproof mascara, the better. When I came back out, Daniel was back to leaning on the front door, his expression unsure.
“I should probably . . .” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder, toward the downpour outside, and my heart fell into my stomach. It was only his uncertain expression that kept me from despairing completely. He didn’t want to go. He was just giving me an excuse to kick him out if I didn’t want him there.
I didn’t take it. “Don’t be silly.” I handed him a towel as thunder rumbled outside. “You can’t go back out in that. It should let up soon. Stay.”
Seventeen
The word hung in the air between us, and I was afraid to breathe, to make any sound that would erase it. Daniel reached for the towel but I didn’t let go, so when he tugged on it, he pulled me closer to him. He ran a thumb under my makeup-smudged eyes before stroking my hair. “You’re wet.” His voice had dropped an octave, and a shiver ran through me that had nothing to do with the cold.
I wanted to snicker. I’d been hanging out with Mitch for too long, because my first instinct was to respond with a dirty joke. But Daniel had let go of the towel to take my face between his hands, and I remembered he’d been about to kiss me at the wedding reception before the rain interrupted us.
There was nothing to interrupt us now. His kiss was a greeting, an affirmation, a confirmation that he was meant to be here at this very moment. No perfectly-broken-in pair of jeans had felt as comfortable, as right, as his mouth felt on mine.
But comfortable didn’t last long. The heat in his kiss chased away the chill of being caught in the rain. I let my mouth open under his as he began to press, to explore, and before I knew what was happening he had turned us, so now my back was against the door and he pressed against me, crowding into me, and I didn’t mind it a bit. I let the towel fall to the floor as I reached for him. The skin of his neck was cold against my palms but warmed up fast, and the wet hair at the base of his skull slicked between my fingers.