If I make a scene, I risk losing her. She looks frail enough to shatter, and I’m sure as fuck not going to be the one to break her.
The only thing I want to do is protect her.
Okay, in all fairness, I also want to fuck her brains out. But that’s clearly not going to happen when she looks like she’s about to cry.
I narrow my gaze at Devon, who has the good sense to hop up and scurry away. Presumably back to whatever hole spiders hide in while they’re spinning webs.
Since Tavey looks so fragile, I pick up my chair and move it a couple of inches away before lowering myself into it. I give her space as I survey the table. The second empty glass. The cloth napkin twisted around her fingers. The extra twist where her hair has been repinned.
I worked hard to make tonight perfect for her. My gut told me tonight was the perfect time to make my move.
My heart has known for months now that Taveyis mine. My dick has known it even longer. Since, the first moment I saw her.
Damn, I’ve been patient. I can keep being patient.
My gut might have told me this was it.
But apparently my gut is a fucking liar.
fourteen
“DRESS” — TAYLOR SWIFT
Tavey
Sometimes, even cake is not enough.
This is one of those times.
Not that the cake isn’t good.
It’s excellent cake. Dark chocolate with some kind of blackberry filling and dramatic black frosting roses that probably stained half the wedding party’s tongues an alarming color.
Under other circumstances, I would be deeply invested in this cake.
Right now, I am mostly using it as a prop.
A delicious, emotionally supportive prop.
Because if I am holding a cake plate, then I look like a person who is busy doing something normal instead of a person who is actively trying not to implode in the middle of a wedding reception.
Totally different vibe.
Miller is still beside me. Quietly observant in that way that he always is.
Every now and then he says something dry in my ear and I laugh despite myself because he is constitutionally incapable of not being funny at exactly the wrong moment.
He is also, I notice, not touching me.
Not in the way he was before.
No hand at the small of my back. No fingers threading through mine. Just — proximity. Warmth. Presence. Which is fine. Which is normal. Which is absolutely not me cataloging every square inch of space between us and assigning it meaning.
I take another bite of cake.
The thing is — and I am aware this is the kind of thought that only arrives after several themed cocktails — I don’t actually think tonight was ever what I thought it was.
I think I wanted it tobesomething, and so I decided itwassomething, and then I showed up in a fantasy costume with dragon clips in my hair and approximately twelve yards of scarf, and I just… assumed.
