I loved when he did that, said what everyone was thinking.
I sucked in a shaky breath, and his eyes followed the movement. “Are you more nervous about the cover, or because I’m standing here?” His voice was soft, but there was a challenge behind it, a dare.
“Honestly?” I tried to sound nonchalant, but it came out as a squeak. “Not sure.”
He grinned, crooked and slow. “Good. Same for me.”
He leaned in, just enough that I caught a whiff of his cologne, amber, cedar, something that felt like exhale and home. His lips were almost brushing my ear when he practically growled, “This dress.”
The theme of the cover was Something Borrowed Something Blue so I’d chosen a more adult version of the blue dress that I’d worn to Adam’s dad’s wedding the night of our first kiss. It was a backless, low V-neck that showed quite a bit of cleavage with spaghetti straps, form fitting and tea length hitting me mid-calf. The material was stretchy and clung to my curves.
“Remind you of anything?” I asked coyly.
He exhaled what sounded like a groan as his knuckles brushed down my outer arms. “Are you trying to torture me?”
A full-body shiver zipped up my spine, and I willed myself not to blush.
“You look so fucking beautiful tonight.”
I felt like I was a teenager again, when the whole world pinpointed down to the crush standing next to me? It was even the same crush. I was supposed to be a grown-up, impervious to this kind of hormonal nonsense. Yet here I was, in a room full of magazine editors and industry powerbrokers, melting because Adam Knight had complimented me.
I needed to say something, anything, to prove I could still form words in his presence. “How are the girls?” I asked.
“They miss you.”
His words shot straight to my heart. “I miss them, too. How are you? How are you feeling?”
“I miss you.”
Somewhere in the background, the band switched from smooth jazz to a halfhearted pop cover, and the energy in the room shifted. People began gathering in loose semicircles around the stage at the front, where the event coordinator was tapping the mic, prepping for the event to begin.
The stage lights dimmed to a whitewash, casting dramatic shadows over the crowd.
The managing editor took the stage, her sequined dress reflecting every beam of light. “Good evening, everyone! Thank you for coming to our Something Borrowed Something Blue Edition launch party…” She lifted her arms and suddenly, the entire warehouse filled with twenty foot tall images of the photo shoot.
The next few minutes were a blur because I hadn’t expected the entire venue to be covered in my face. Mine and Adam’s with some of the kids.
Adam moved a little closer, keeping his back to the crowd so I could hide behind him if I wanted. He’d always been good at this sort of wordless protection.
I was still trying to absorb all the enormous projection of our faces when Adam leaned down again, this time so close I could feel the brush of his cheek against my hair.
“Holy shit, look up,” Adam whispered in my ear.
“What?” I blinked up, half-fearing, half-knowing, and there it was—projected on the ceiling in cinematic, impossible scale, the “You may now kiss the bride” shot. Our shot. I gasped as I tried to process the reality of three hundred partygoers staring at our probably hundred foot faces, mouths a millimeter apart, looking deeply, madly in love, like we’d been in our very own version ofThe Notebook“it still isn’t over” wedding edition.
The crowd’s cheering came in waves, but it was all white noise, hazy at the edges by my own body’s internal alarm system. I heard the roar of my pulse above everything else, like a conch shell pressed to my ear. There was an electric current running beneath my skin, a low-voltage hum made of embarrassment for myself and pride for my sister.
I wasn’t prepared for the sound of Birdie’s voice on the mic. As soon as she began to speak, I knew something was off. There was a quiver, a hush, like someone had gently set a hand over her mouth and then let go. She started, “My sister Billie Bliss…” and the words cracked, Birdie’s measured, fearless cadence breaking as though she’d hit an emotional pothole she hadn’t seen coming.
Oh no, Birdie was crying.
My eyes shot to the stage. Birdie, my fierce, fearless, flawless baby sister, with tears trailing down her cheeks and a hand pressing to her chest like she was holding her own heart in place. She was looking towards me, her lips moved around my name like a lifeline.
“Why is she crying?” I spoke without moving my lips, a skill I was oddly good at. I could have killed it as ventriloquist in vaudevillian times.
Adam’s voice was low, close to my ear. “She just won Designer of the Year.”
“She did?!” I couldn’t believe I missed it because I was so fucking panicked because of the photos. Hopefully someone got it on camera.
