One Last Time: A Second Chance Romance

by Roxie Noir

  Maybe it’s the suit. Seth would look good wearing a burlap sack — even cargo shorts —but Seth Loveless in a suit is devastating.

  The last time I saw him in a suit, it was after one of his brothers’ weddings — Daniel, I think, though I wouldn’t swear to it — and I was doing some light internet research. He looked good in the photo.

  He looks better in person, because photos don’t ever capture the way he moves, or the way he looks at you, or the sheer force of magnetism that is Seth Elwood Loveless.

  “I didn’t,” he says, and now he’s looking back at me, and I wish this glass were full again. “I just came over to see if you wanted to dance.”

  “Your date won’t mind?” I ask, too quickly.

  The smallest, slyest smile tugs at his lips.

  “Should she?” he asks.

  “I can’t speak for her,” I say. “I have no idea what other women tolerate from you.”

  “Would you mind?”

  “Would I mind dancing with you?”

  “If you were my date, would you mind me dancing with you?”

  I tilt my head to one side, cock my hip, and examine Seth through narrowed eyes. I don’t think I’m usually this sassy with my body language, but I also haven’t usually just downed half a bottle of champagne all by my lonesome.

  “Am I me in this hypothetical scenario, or am I your date?” I ask.

  “Yes,” Seth says, and takes another sip of his whiskey. It’s getting pretty low.

  “You can’t answer an either-or question with —”

  “If you,” he says, pointing at me, “Were my date, would it upset you if I danced with you?”

  “You can say it as loudly and slowly as you want, it still doesn’t make sense,” I tell him. “Am I me as in me, or have I transmogrified into your date and am, from afar, judging whether or not you —" I point at him somewhat obnoxiously, like he did to me — “should be dancing with me, Delilah.”

  I point at myself from overhead, pointer finger waving a big circle in the air. Seth takes another sip from his drink, and he’s obviously trying not to laugh.

  “Let’s say transmogrified,” he says. “If you were some other girl —”

  “Excuse me, do you mind if we —"

  “Sorry,” I say, and move away from the table as a middle-aged woman starts looking for her table card. The song is still playing, couples still swaying on the dance floor, and I glance over at Seth and start strolling toward the bar.

  “If I were some other girl I’d probably light you on fire if I saw you look at someone else,” I tell him. “But then again, if I were your date to a wedding, I’d probably be the kind of girl who’s chill enough that nothing bothers her. Or maybe I’d just be dumb, I don’t know.”

  Seth gives a low whistle at this revelation, and I’ve barely stopped talking before I regret that whole light you on fire thing I just said.

  “And what if you were you and you were my date?” he asks, right as we step into the short line at the bar.

  “Then we’re in a parallel universe where something’s already gone horribly wrong,” I deadpan.

  “Ouch,” he says, into his whiskey.

  Oops.

  “You know what I mean.”

  “That bad, huh?”

  The line moves forward, and I give Seth a look because I have no desire to bring up yesterday’s dumb fight, but also, how is not remembering that slightly more than twenty-four hours ago, we got into it over sand?

  I will always have hurt him, and he will always have hurt me, and it sure feels like those wounds are a chasm that we can’t bridge.

  “Really?” I finally ask, and I think he gets the message because he glances away.

  “You still haven’t answered my question,” he says, and I sigh.

  “Are you going to let this go?”

  “Probably not.”

  “Any chance your date is going to come whisk you away and rescue me?”

  “It’s not looking good for that either. Come on, Delilah. If you were my date, would you be mad if I danced with you?”

  “Well —"

  “But a different you. Not you you.”

  “My evil twin?”

  “Sure.”

  I tilt the empty champagne glass into my mouth and get the last remaining drops out, just to give myself that much more fortitude and buy that much more time.

  “You sure are dead set on this answer.”

  “I sure am.”

  I watch the guy behind the bar shake something in a silver cocktail shaker, take the top off, pour through a strainer and into a glass.

  I don’t know why Seth is being like this, all of a sudden, two years after he claimed he never wanted to see me again. I don’t know why he’s picking fights and then apologizing for them, showing up at my sister’s wedding, haranguing me with dumb questions.

  But I know I don’t hate it. I know that there’s a mean, ugly part of me gloating over the fact that he’s got a date somewhere, but he’s here, asking me to dance. I don’t like that I feel that way, but I do.

  “I’d hate it,” I finally say, still watching the bartender. “If you were here with me and dancing with another me? I’d hate it.”

  There’s a long, long pause. The line moves forward again, we’re almost next, and I have no idea why I didn’t just lie.

  It would be fine. Why the hell didn’t I just say that?

  “Would you light me on fire for it, or…”

  “You’ll never find out, will you?” I tease, even though the champagne glass has gone slippery in my hand and my heart is beating too loudly. “I’m not your date, and I don’t have an evil twin. I think.”

  “It might explain a lot if you did,” Seth muses, and the couple in front of us takes a beer and a glass of champagne and finally, finally, we’re at the front. Seth gets more whiskey. I get more champagne. The married-people dance finally ends, the strains of music fading gently away to a smattering of applause, probably because Ava and Thad are doing something cute and romantic.

  My stomach squirms for reasons that have nothing to do with them.

  “Which table are you at?” I ask Seth. We’re strolling slowly, aimlessly, and I’m not even sure that we’re walking together but it also feels like I should say something.

  “Good question,” he says, and digs in his pocket, pulls out the tented piece of paper, turns it over.

  Then he pauses.

  “I think it says two,” he says, frowning at the hand-calligraphed script on the back.

  “You’re not at table two,” I tell him, glancing over at the card. “That’s the bridal party…”

  I trail off. It’s right there, in black ink. Table two.

  I stare up at him, the pieces suddenly falling into place as he smiles, a little sheepish, and shrugs.

  “You’re fucking kidding me,” I say. “What — did she —”

  “There you two are!” Vera says, suddenly emerging from the crowd, resplendent in royal blue and done up to the nines. “Good, you found each other.”

  I swallow hard and try to breathe. That’s not enough, so I do it again, but I can already feel the heat rising into my face and my throat closing with embarrassment and surprise and bright, sharp anger.

  “You set us up?” I ask, my voice brittle enough to snap in two. “And you played along?”

  Vera reaches out and cups my face in one hand. To my credit, I take a step back instead of smacking it away.

  “Delilah, you know how you are,” she says. “I should have told you, but I just knew you’d be so happy to see him again, and I knew you didn’t want to be the only one alone at the wedding just for the sake of your detox. You deserve a little happiness, sweetheart.”

  I can’t speak. I can’t even move. All the blood in my body has rushed to my skin and I’m boiling over, a droplet of sweat already trickling down the back of my neck, my throat constricting.

  “Have a wonderful time,” she says, then kisses me on the chee
k. “Now, I’ve got to go see about a cake! Try the mini quiche!”

  Just like that, she’s gone, swirling away into the crowd. No big deal, she just casually mentions that she went against my explicit wishes, decided she knew best, and set me up with the one person in the entire world I shouldn’t be at a wedding with.

  “You okay?” Seth asks.

  I swallow, breathe, breathe again.

  “I’m going to kill her, and then I’m going to kill you,” I whisper.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Seth

  Delilah doesn’t move. She’s just staring at the spot where Vera blended back into the crowd, her jaw flexing, her face bright red.

  “I’m that bad?” I tease.

  It’s the wrong thing to say, because her head snaps around and now the full force of her fury is concentrated on me, as if I’ve opened a blast furnace.

  “You didn’t think to tell me?” she hisses. “I saw you twice yesterday and you still opted to let me look like an idiot at Ava’s wedding?”

  I push a hand through my hair, forgetting that it’s supposed to be neat today.

  “She asked me not to tell you,” I say. “It was supposed to be a surprise.”

  “I can’t fucking believe her,” Delilah whispers, tears wobbling in her eyes. “And I can’t fucking believe you, because you are complicit and you are not my date. Excuse me.”

  Delilah strides off without another word, then disappears through a door in a swirl of dusky pink and fury.

  Fuck. Fuck. That’s not how I thought this would go. I didn’t think she’d like it, but I didn’t think that she’d react with this kind of pure, iridescent rage. I thought maybe she wouldn’t hate the idea of spending a few hours with me.

  I thought maybe we were ready for something new, after two years of pretending we don’t know one another. Friendship, maybe.

  But clearly not. Clearly she hates the sight of me, hates the thought of me so much that she stormed out of the reception at the mere suggestion that I might be sitting next to her at dinner.

  I down the rest of my whiskey in two gulps, which is a shameful way to drink whiskey this expensive, but the Radcliffes can bear the expense. I put the glass on a table with other empty glasses, and I wipe my thumb along my lip to collect the stray whiskey drops.

  Then, something strange happens: I feel bad. Maybe she has a point. Maybe I should have told her.

  Maybe this was a total dick move after all.

  I shake my head, straighten my tie, and go find the guy with the crabcakes.

  I finally find her upstairs, in the rooms where the cocktail hour was held. The overhead lights are all 0ff, the only illumination from the fake candles in fancy brackets on the wall, and it’s very, very quiet.

  She’s sitting in a deep windowsill, turned sideways, back against one side of the nook, feet flat against the wall on the other, and she’s looking out.

  I clear my throat as I enter the room, because I think I’ve surprised her enough today. Delilah doesn’t move.

  “I wasn’t kidding,” she says, still looking at the window. “Dates require consent. You have to ask someone to be their date, and if they say no, even if you still attend the same event, you’re not doing it as dates. You’re just doing it as people who happen to be in the same room.”

  Her voice sounds funny, and she still doesn’t look at me. I swallow hard, grit my teeth, then relax my jaw. Delilah has always felt like a lit match near gasoline, and it’s hard not to catch on fire.

  “I brought a peace offering,” I say, holding up a plate of crabcakes and brie puffs and a glass of water.

  “Did she make you?” Delilah asks, bitter and sarcastic. “Can’t have Delilah getting mad and ruining the wedding. People might talk.”

  “I thought of it by myself, thanks,” I tell her, then pause. “Well, sort of. Daniel once told me that when Rusty’s in a bad mood, he always gives her a snack and a drink before trying to reason with her.”

  “Don’t you dare try to reason with me,” she says, but she finally turns her head. “And I don’t know how I feel about being compared to a… five-year-old?”

  “Nine,” I correct.

  Her face is blotchy, her eyes puffy under those eyelashes, her lips a deep pink as she rests her head against the wall, drapes her elbows on her knees, the skirt of her dress falling from her shins.

  “You’re kidding,” she says. “That kid’s nine?”

  “Going on nineteen,” I say, and offer the plate.

  Delilah sits up straight, swinging her feet to the floor, her heels making a quiet thunk as she stands.

  “What did she offer you?” she asks, grabbing a crab cake and popping it into her mouth. “Riches? A horse? Some kind of business deal?”

  “I could’ve gotten a horse?”

  “So she blackmailed you,” she says. “Which is presumably also why you didn’t tell me yesterday. You feared Vera’s retribution.”

  She’s holding her left arm around her ribcage, clamping it down with her right elbow as she eats the brie puff, watching me. There’s a hard edge to her voice, but it’s not bayonet-sharp anymore.

  “Actually, I only agreed after I chased you down in the parking lot,” I admit.

  Delilah frowns in alarm.

  “I left the brewery at like… eleven-thirty last night,” she says. “Did you talk to her this morning?”

  I grab a crab cake and pop it into my mouth.

  “No,” I say. “She actually asked after the first time you were at the brewery, and I said no. But then I called her back later.”

  “At midnight.”

  “It wasn’t technically midnight yet.”

  She chews for a minute, both arms folded over her midsection.

  “Good,” she says, after a moment. “I hope you woke her up from a really amazing dream, and I hope she never properly got back to sleep. I hope she woke up every thirty minutes all night long.”

  “She was very courteous about it,” I say.

  “Of course she was,” says Delilah. “Vera knows her manners, unless you’re her actual family, in which case she pulls shit like this behind your back because she thinks that —”

  Her fists clench and she draws in a long, deep breath, clamping her lips together with her teeth.

  “Imma kill her,” she says again, almost under breath. “Imma kill you too, but I’m really gonna kill her.”

  “I also brought water,” I say, holding up the glass.

  “In case I’m actually the Wicked Witch of the West?” she asks with a snort, eyes still closed.

  “In case you’re thirsty.”

  She breathes again, then exhales.

  “Thanks,” she says. “It’s too bad, I’d love to have some flying monkeys under my command right now. And a broom that could shoot fireballs. You know, I always felt she was treated unfairly.”

  I take a sip of the water myself.

  “Yesterday it was virgin sacrifices, and today you’re an apologist for the Wicked Witch?” I say. “Are you trying to tell me something?”

  Delilah laughs, her head tilting back, her earrings swinging from her ears.

  “Double, double, toil and trouble,” she chants, waving her fingers in the air. “Cauldron burn, and fire… wait, no.”

  I glance down at myself.

  “Not a toad,” I say, and Delilah just sighs.

  “I tried,” she says. “Can we sit? These shoes are stupid.”

  Delilah turns, leads me back to the window nook, hops up. I sit on the other side, the appetizer plate and the glass of water between us.

  “I can’t believe she did this to me,” she says, leaning her temple against the wall, her neck long. Underneath the lace of her sleeve I can see snow-capped mountains, a lake, clouds, a sun.

  “I brought you snacks, I can’t be as bad as all that,” I say.

  Delilah laughs. It’s a short, quick, rough ha but it’s a laugh and I’ll take it.

  “Well, you are, but I mean this,
” she says, waving her arm in the air to indicate the whole building. “I mean that even though I made my wishes perfectly crystal fucking clear, she decided that I’m not allowed to be single.”

  Another deep breath, her skirt twisting between her fingers.

  “She’s always been this way,” she says, and now there’s an unsteady edge to her voice. “She thinks that because I’m single and thirty I’m some pathetic, sad spinster who must be crying herself to sleep every night because, as we all know, the only true path to happiness is through dick. She thinks I’m some object of pity that she has to fix.”

  Her eyes are bright again, her jaw clenching as she stares straight ahead into the dim room. I turn so I’m facing her, one leg folded under me, the other foot flat on the floor, knee in the air. I doubt I’m supposed to sit like this in a suit, but James Bond sprints in tuxedos all the time and he looks fine.

  “You’re not,” I tell her.

  “And, of all people, she had to tell you that I’m lonely and desperate for a date,” she says. “And you had to agree to this shit show for some godforsaken reason.”

  I pull the blue handkerchief from the pocket of my suit jacket and hold it out.

  “Here,” I say.

  Delilah takes it, holds it for a minute like it’s a rare bird, then tries to hand it back.

  “This is silk,” she says.

  “Okay,” I tell her, not taking it back.

  “I can’t actually use it, I’ll fuck it up. I’ve got about fifteen layers of makeup on.”

  I just shrug.

  “It matches your tie and everything.”

  “Just use the damn thing,” I say, leaning my head back against the wood paneling of the nook.

  Delilah laughs, and it’s welcome but unsteady, as if she’s walking along a balance beam and could fall off to either side.

  “Thanks,” she says, then takes a deep breath and dabs very, very carefully underneath her eyes. “I still cry when I’m angry. As you can tell.”