The wedding is in two days. How have the days flown by so quickly? I was supposed to be at home for a reset, but I haven’t made a single plan other than accepting the spin-off show role. Which is kind of like planning to enter a tornado. And I haven’t even taken more than a cursory glance at the apartment listing Sybil sent me—or looked up any of my own.
In two days, Cooper will be married. Linney will go back to Atlanta, and Mom and Dad will probably soon follow, after they downsize and sell the house. And I’ll be back in LA, apartment-hunting like mad while I prep to turn my entire life inside out again viaLovedBy.
And as for Nate… My eyes find him across the bar. He’s laughing at something one of the other band guys—Bryan—is saying, head tilted back, eyes crinkled, crooked incisor on full display.
It’s nothing, I tell myself.We said we’d be friends, and what happened between us was a mistake.
Maybe we’ll see each other at occasional family events—the birth of Cooper and Cara’s first child… An image of Nate holding a wrinkly, warm bundle of baby blooms in my mind like a bruise, tender and aching all at once.
I grab one of the shots Cooper and JP dropped off at our table and throw it back.
A group of college kids takes the stage, and I try to keep my mind on the moment instead of spiraling about what my life will look like forty-eight hours from now. It’s hard to stay moody when four twenty-one-year-olds are scream-singing “Mr. Brightside,” and by the end of their song, I actually feel a little lighter.
At one point, Nate hops onstage to sing a rendition of “Any Man of Mine.” Two lines in, and he has the entire bar singing with him. Watching Nate onstage is like watching him work. He has an assurance and a presence that draws you in. He also has a truly amazing voice and the stage presence to back it up. I recall him joking about how competitive he was in his a cappella group—I guess it wasn’t really a joke at all. Makes me wonder what else he’s said that he actually meant, but that I didn’t take seriously at the time.
Like only wanting to be friends. Like not being in the right headspace for a relationship. Just because we’re attracted to each other,just because we had one amazing night together doesn’t mean he’s suddenly changed his mind about that.
He’s been telling me the truth all along. I just haven’t been listening.
A bunch of Cara’s bridesmaids start dancing in front of the stage, and they pull me up to join them. “C’mon, Nikki!” one of them cries. I don’t even remember her name, but I’m a ball of mixed emotions over how nice they’re all being. As if I were celebrating the union of one of my actual friends.
“Okay, okay!” I laugh half-heartedly, then grab my vodka tonic and down it. Honestly, this is much easier—and maybe even more fun—than facing the messiness of whatever is going on, unspoken, between me and Nate.
Then I’m up on my feet, dancing and swaying to a bunch of badly sung songs. Though to be fair, the crowd is singing along so loudly, you almost can’t hear the person holding the karaoke mic. I try to channel what Sybil would do—wave my arms around and shimmy my butt and get into the party spirit—but I can’t help glancing over to our table every now and again, searching for Nate, seeing if he’s watching. If he’ll catch my eye. If he regrets how he acted earlier.
Except he’s not at the table now, and I swivel around, trying to see if he headed over to the bar. I turn around in a circle, heart racing. Where’d he go?
And then I’m suddenly dizzy, swaying a bit more than intended.
“Whoa there.” Nate’s beside me, appearing out of nowhere, his voice cutting through the noise. His hand brushes the empty glass in my hand—how many has it been now?—before I can reach for another. “You planning to remember any of this tomorrow?”
I shrug. “We live for the present, Nathaniel!” I shout over the music—my voice laced with sarcasm.
He gives me a small, confused smile, his golden stubble catching the glow of the colorful Christmas lights that festoon the bar. “If you say so.”
“Ifyousay so,” I say, poking him in the chest. Jeez, maybe I’m a bit tipsier than I realized. “Isn’t that your MO?”
“Isn’t what my MO?”
“Living in the present! You don’t do long-term!” I say, still shouting. And possibly slurring, just slightly.
“You want some water? Why don’t we get you some water,” he says, holding my elbow gently.
“Fine,” I relent, mostly because Iamthirsty. And also because maybe if we head over to the bar, under the guise of just getting water, we can actuallytalkfor a minute.
Unfortunately, though the bar is on the opposite side of the room from the stage, it’s still pretty hard to hear each other.
“I didn’t know you were a Shania guy,” I say when Nate pulls a barstool out for me and then takes the one next to me. He sort of half wraps around me—only to wave to get the bartender’s attention, but still, it feels intimate. Protective. I’m surrounded by him. His scent—sunlight and sawdust—hangs over me, making the air thick. It’s overpowering, going straight to my head, more than the shots I did earlier.
Nate finally gets our waters and hands one to me. His lips brush against the shell of my ear as he whispers, “Shania’s my guilty pleasure.”
A shiver snakes up my spine. I want to lean even closer to him. To put my lips on his skin. To drag him right back to Camp Bennet, just us, alone. There’s this desperate, raw need coiling in my chest. It’s like I don’t even care how angry I am, how hurt I am. I just need him here. Maybe it’s mortifying and wrong, but I still want every second before he’s gone.
I take a huge swig of water, trying to clear my mind, but I’m so tipsy that some of it slides down my chin and I swipe it away quickly with the back of my hand.
Just then, a flash goes off.
I flinch and swivel around, though I can’t find the source of the light. I wobble as I stand up from the barstool and scan the crowd. Where the hell did that flash come from? Is someone here taking photographs?
