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8
BEAU
The day of Zac and Layla’s wedding, I kept checking my phone in case Layla’s cousin decided to request my services under theday-ofcategory. It had a huge surcharge, so even though normally I would have been excited and hope she’d do it, not today.
Today, I needed my notifications to be completely silent. I couldn’t afford to turn down a job with such a high payout, but I really didn’t want to have a client for this particular wedding.
I finally let myself breathe when it was showtime and there still hadn’t been a new request. No way would she wait untilminutesbefore the ceremony to book her fake date. Hours, sure. It happened. But not minutes.
“You ready?” Paul asked Zac, slapping him on the shoulder hard enough to make the gold medals of his uniform clink together.
“I’ve been ready for a long time,” Zac replied.
The rest of us groaned at his cheesiness, and I jerked my chin toward the door. “Let’s get this show on the road, then.”
We filed out of the groomsmen’s dressing suite at Starlight Manor, and as we made our way to our positions in front of the guests, I couldn’t help but stare at the table where I’d sat when I talked to my dad last weekend.
The pain from that day came crashing back in a rush, causing all the air to leave my lungs in a quiet burst. It’d been too much.He’dbeen too much. How could a father really get on the phone with his son, from hundreds of miles away, and say stuff like that?
It killed me that I’d been stationed so far from home for the last ten years. Maybe things would have been different if I’d stayed. When I joined the Marines, I’d been eighteen and eager to see the world. Eager to run from the fact that I’d lost my mom not long after losing my brother, and I wanted to skip out of the town where everybody knew it. They’d looked at me with such sadness in their eyes, and I was just… over it.
Pops had given me his blessing with a smile and a simple “Don’t be a stranger,” and then sent me on my way. But once he’d gotten sick last year, I wished more than anything he would have kept me out of the military. Maybe I’d have ended up at the same factory he’d worked at, and I would have had a completely different life.
Maybe not better but different. Closer with him. Less feelings of guilt, maybe?
“Hello, Mr. Devereux,” Ms. Hattie said as she ambled up to her place as the wedding’s officiant. Which made sense since she’d had a hand in the matchmaking of this couple.Add another notch to your belt, Ms. Hattie.
“Hi, Ms. Hattie. How are you?”
“I’m well, thank you. You look dashing this afternoon.”
I rubbed a hand over the gold buttons down the center of my dress blues. “Thank you, ma’am.”
She turned her Cheshire cat smile toward Paul and greeted him, too, then winked at the groom. It was a bummer Will had to miss this, but he’d opted to stay with Aria and little Oliver since they’d just brought him home from the hospital a week ago.
“Who are you escorting this evening?” Ms. Hattie asked me with a wink.
“No one. I’m off duty tonight.”
“Oh, how fun. Well, enjoy yourself. My son is a Marine, too, you know. Maybe you can all spend some time with him tonight since he doesn’t have any friends here.”
Ah, the infamous target of Lyndi’s grandma’s matchmaking. Great. I bet Ms. Hattie was in cahoots with her, and that meant Lyndi was in for it. I’d never seen Ms. Hattie strike out when she zeroed in on two people she knew were meant to be together.
“Who’s your son?” I asked, looking into the crowd of guests in the white chairs before us.
I spotted him right before Ms. Hattie whispered that he was wearing a navy-blue suit. Yep, he sure was. And it was a pretty freaking great suit, unfortunately.
Not only that, but the dude didn’t have a big nose, like I’d imagined when I’d talked to Lyndi about him. In fact, he had a great nose. In a totally objective way, the guy was handsome.
And that really sucked for me, since I’d hoped he wouldn’t be. Then again, I still had hope that the guy was a jerk. If so, he could be as handsome as a movie star, but I’d never let him get anywhere near Lyndi. And if he didn’t back off, then I couldbreakhis pretty nose.
“Yeah, we’ll hang with him,” Paul said when I remained silent, nodding at the guy. “He’s in town from Oki, right?”
While Paul chatted with Ms. Hattie, I kept sizing him up. He looked like he could tell his meddling mother was up here trying to make him some friends, and I laughed a little to myself, relaxing a bit. It wasn’t his fault his mom was a bulldozer. Maybe he didn’t evenwantto be with Lyndi.
Though, I wasn’t sure what his reason would be for not being interested.
But still.
