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Since Eric’s shoulders are in my direct line of sight, I decide to make them my focal point for the rest of the ceremony, only looking up from them when I have to pull Sloane’s wedding band out of my pocket and hand it to Eric. When he turns around to grab it from me, his smile is the biggest I’ve ever seen, and I allow myself to take comfort in it.
My best friend is happy.
The woman I love is happy.
I can live with a shattered heart if it means theirs get to stay whole.
* * *
“Pop, I have to go. They’re giving speeches, and I’m pretty sure I’m next.”
It’s a lie. My speech was over an hour ago, and right after I gave it, I abandoned the reception hall for the quiet comfort of the hallway where I don’t have to try to hide the ache in my chest at seeing Eric and Sloane together.
It shouldn’t hurt like this. I’ve watched them together for years now, and they’ve basically been living in the loft for the past few months, but there’s something about the wedding bands flashing on their fingers as they hold hands and kiss at the table that makes it all more devastating.
And ending up on the phone with my dad is only making me more irritable. He never calls me, but it’s fitting that he would come out of the woodwork on the worst day of my life.
“Still don’t know why I didn’t get an invite,” he gripes. “Eric grew up in my house.”
“That’s not how I remember it.”
“Well, we’ve already established we remember things differently.”
Yes, because you keep trying to rewrite history.
“Can you just tell me why you called so I can go?”
He coughs roughly, and the sound grates on my nerves. “Damn, boy. You can’t give your old man five minutes to let you know he’s dying?”
The whole world stops spinning and a wave of emotions I don’t understand washes over me. I wouldn’t say I’m sad, but there’s a definite note of melancholy lacing the feelings swirling around in my gut. Probably stemming from the childish part of me that still loves him even though he’s never done a damn thing to deserve it.
I scrub my hand over my face. “What are you talking about?”
“Lung cancer, Nic.”
A door opens from somewhere behind me, and the noise of the celebration going on in the reception hall spills out. The sounds hit the quiet hallway in a quick burst then go quiet again when the door slams. I turn my head, hoping no one has come looking for me, and lose my breath when I see Sloane walking down the hall.
“I’ve got to go, Pop.”
I hang the phone up and put it in my pocket before turning to face her. By some twist of fate, we’re the only two people out here, but I know it won’t be long before someone comes looking for her. She’s the bride after all. And the most beautiful one I’ve seen in my life. I press my lips together to keep myself from saying that, or anything else, to her as she walks past me.
The same way she did twelve years ago when one look in her eyes changed my entire life.
Only this time, she stops in front of me and turns on her heel. There’s a steely determination in her eyes when they land on me, and even though I know I’m in no condition to talk to her right now, I can’t bring myself to look away. She comes to a stop in front of me, and her perfectly manicured fingers are on her wedding band, spinning it around in a gesture I can’t help but read as nervous.
“I’ve been looking for you.”
I recoil as if she’s physically struck me, and she might as well have because hearing her repeat the first words she ever said to me makes it feel like someone’s ripping my heart right out of my chest.
“Why?”
Her teeth sink into the flesh of her bottom lip. “I was hoping we could come to some kind of agreement about how to navigate our relationship now that we’re….family.”
The laugh blooming in my throat tastes bitter as hell. Of all the things I dreamed of being with her, family isn’t one of them. At least not in the way she means. “I have no interest in being your family, Sloane.”
She holds her left hand up, and the light catches her ring. “Kind of late for that.”
“Marrying Eric makes you his family, not mine.”
