Chosen.
As though my happiness—not someone else’s, not everyone else’s—is the priority.
And not just my happiness. But my comfort.
My experience.
Shit, my existence.
I suck in a shaky breath as the full force of this feeling moves through me.
The lead singer and the bass player harmonize together: “You’re the best thing that ever happened to me… You’re the best thing that ever happened to me…”
I try to swallow the bocci ball that’s suddenly lodged in my throat.
Swaying on the dance floor, Margaret and Merrick have locked eyes, smiling at each other like they are the keepers of the biggest, sweetest secret.
But they aren’t the only ones who know what it means to have the best secret.
Because I’m in love with Beck Olivier.
And it’ll be the fight of my life to keep that under wraps.
Chapter Nineteen
BECK
How?
How is it possible that she keeps surprising me?
Every time I think I know what to expect from her, that I am learning her inside and out, she does something new to blow my mind.
Because I sure as hell didn’t expect the dancing.
Hattie hates running. But she probably covers five miles just in the corner of the dance floor we claim. “Shut Up and Dance,” “Mr. Brightside,” “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough.”
My girl. Does. Not. Stop.
By the time they cut the cake, I’ve ditched the suit jacket and yanked open the tie, and the pins in Hattie’s hair I loosened have rocked their way out. Her hair has gone from garden to jungle, and I fucking love it.
Her mom, on the other hand?—
“Hattie! Your hair looks a fright—” Hattie’s mom practically lunges for her as the wedding party positions itself around the three-tiered cake.
“Mom!” Hattie bats her hands away and ducks behind two other bridesmaids. I’m glad no one else hears the crunch of plastic from the water bottle in my hand.
“But you look?—”
“Mom, it’s no big deal,” Margaret intervenes, waving her mom away. “It’s a party. We all look like we’ve been dancing the night away.”
“Which we have,” Hattie’s new brother-in-law says, pulling Margaret tighter against him before kissing her cheek.
“How about we just—” the photographer lowers his camera, steps in, and plucks a dangling rosebud from Hattie’s hair.
“Ow!”
My jaw sets, but before I can garrote the guy with his camera strap, Hattie glares at him with murder in her eyes.
