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A more likely scenario was that Ruby felt uncomfortable being asked about her wedding. I was sure it didn’t have anything to do with me. She’d agreed that nothing would have happened between us the first night we spent together if she hadn’t thought she was leaving the following day. And the second night, she’d made clear that it didn’t have to mean anything. My feelings for her were clearly one-sided. I simply needed to ignore them for one more week.
We’d just pulled out of the church parking lot to head to the Briggs’ farm for the reception when Harper piped up again, “Ruby, can I be your flower girl?”
“Harp, you can’t ask people to be in their wedding,” I snapped. I hadn’t meant it to sound so harsh.
“Yes, I can,” Harp argued. “I asked you, and I asked Mommy, and she said I could be her flower girl, too.”
“I know, but it’s not polite to ask people who aren’t your mom and me.”
“Okay, well, then, Ruby, you should marry Daddy, and then I can be your flower girl.”
“Harp, you can’t—" I started to correct her as Ruby’s phone rang.
“It’s Remi,” she explained before answering.
I couldn’t hear his side of the conversation, but from hers, it was clear that he was calling to find out how Wyatt’s wedding had gone. As I sat and listened to her describe, in detail, the music, the vows, and the dress, all I could think about was her walking down the aisle to me wearing a white dress and promising me forever.
Knowing that it would never, could never happen made me feel lost and empty inside. I was a panda who fell in love with a penguin.
29
RUBY
“Waitin’ for the right time is a one-sided relationship, cause honey, time ain’t waitin’ for you.” ~ Miss Dottie
“Can I have all the single women on the dance floor? The bride is going to throw the bouquet!” The DJ announced.
I remained seated in my chair. The last thing I wanted to do was go out on the dance floor. Kane had been acting strange all day, not in a bad way. The opposite, actually. He’d been very…attentive, which was only strange because for the past few weeks he’d been distant.
Tonight, it was different. He was different. During the wedding, I’d been acutely aware of every brush of his arm against mine. Every graze of his thigh along my leg. The pews at Wishing Well Community Church were full, which meant we’d all been packed in like sardines. So I kept telling myself that I was projecting what I felt onto him.
When the pastor announced that Wyatt may now kiss the bride, I started to cry. It didn’t come as a surprise to me. I always got emotional during weddings. There was something so precious and sacred to me about two people vowing to love each other for the rest of their lives. Even if I knew, statistically, only half of them managed to do that. And even fewer were happy during those years. There was still something so hopeful about the exchange to me.
Then he’d wiped away a tear that slid down my face after the kiss. The pad of his thumb grazed my cheek before he cradled my face in his palm and asked me if I was okay. The look in his eyes and the tender way he touched me were not in my imagination. They were screaming that he cared.
From the time I’d walked downstairs to leave, I kept feeling like we’d shared moments, but I was convinced that it was just me projecting. So on the drive to the reception, I told myself I was reading into the touches, the looks, and the compliments because I’d missed the connection we’d shared since I first arrived back in town.
But then, he’d been jealous, and I wasn’t sure how to interpret that.
When we’d arrived at the farm, Brady Calhoun asked me to dance during the cocktail hour. I’d agreed, and when I got back to the table, Kane had been…upset. He asked what was going on between us but then immediately retracted his question, saying it was none of his business.
The thing was, I wanted it to be his business. I knew that it was unhealthy, but I enjoyed the fact that he didn’t like me dancing with someone else.
And now, just like when I’d been out on the dance floor with Brady, I felt Kane’s stare like a physical touch. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see his attention was directed at me. There was no way I was going to go try and grab some flowers when I could stay here with Kane.
“Come on, girlie!” Kenna grabbed my arm and tugged me up.
I didn’t want to leave my seat, but I knew that protesting would only make matters worse, so I allowed myself to be dragged out onto the floor. Thankfully, my leaving didn’t seem to detour Kane’s focus from me,
The DJ counted down, “Three, two, one…”
I looked up as the bouquet arched in the air and landed in my hands. The crowd cheered around me as Harper raced toward me with her hands out to see the flowers. I showed them to her, then stood off to the side as people congratulated me and made comments about how I was next to say, “I do.”
Even though I knew it was just a saying, it had me feeling things I hadn’t expected to feel. Before coming home this summer, I’d never given any real thought to marriage or a family. Some girls daydreamed about their weddings and played house; I daydreamed about being on stage and wrote my acceptance speeches for my Tony Awards. But being here, living with Kane and Harper, had me wanting things I’d never considered before.
I watched as Whitney sat on a folding chair in the middle of the room. In an uncharacteristic move, Wyatt dipped his head beneath Whitney’s dress, then put on a big show of sliding the garter from her leg with his teeth. It was the quiet ones that were usually the freakiest. The crowd went wild as Whitney’s head fell back in laughter.
If someone had told me a year ago that I’d be back in Wishing Well attending Wyatt Briggs's wedding to Whitney in the Wild, I would have said they were delusional. But there I was.
