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And hey, at least I wasn’t the only fully grown man on the planet whose parent tried to force into a relationship. And my pops might have my head a total mess right now, but it could always be worse. He wasn’t nearly as bad as Ms. Hattie.
The music that signaled the start of the ceremony broke me from my thoughts, and I looked up to find Shelby coming down the aisle in a red dress with a bouquet of red roses.
I flicked my eyes to Ms. Hattie, seeing a gleam in her eye as she looked at them. Yep. The only thing Ms. Hattie loved more than meddling in people’s love lives was floral arrangements.
When I turned back toward the guests, my breath caught in my throat. Lyndi. There was Lyndi, walking toward me in the very same dress Shelby had on. But on her… wow. I couldn’t even think. I couldn’t feel my dang toes.
She was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen, which was crazy, because I’d seen her in bridesmaid’s dresses before. This wasn’t new. But this was the first time I’d been standing up here next to the groom, and at this angle, it just felt… different.
Some sappy part of me couldn’t help but imagine her walking down that aisle for adifferentreason. In adifferentdress.
But then I caught sight of Ms. Hattie sticking out a finger to point Lyndi out to her son, and the resulting smile on his face made my stomach turn.Oh, brother.So much for him not being interested in her.
Lyndi had been looking down at her flowers with a slight blush coloring her cheeks, but as she neared the aisle, her eyes found mine. Heat spread through me like a wildfire, and I gulped, tugging at the suddenly way-too-tight collar of my blues.
She slipped over to her place on the other side of the aisle, and the spell was broken. And then I spent the entire ceremony doing my best not to look at her. The trees, the ground, shoot—the back of Zac’s head. I tried to look anywhere but at her.
I failed miserably, of course.
And judging from the way her eyes dashed away from me every time, she was having the same problem.
* * *
When the ceremony was over and the bridal party was huddled off on the side of the house to take photos, I meandered over to Lyndi and leaned over, speaking low in her ear. “Uh-oh. Looks like I get to see you in front of the camera sooner than I thought.”
“Hush.”
I chuckled. “Don’t be so nervous. You look amazing.”
My eyes slid over her petite form in that apple-red dress, and when I looked up to meet her eyes again, I found them slightly narrowed. But then her lips twitched into a small smile that made my pulse jump. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Okay, she wants to do the bridesmaids first,” Layla said, gliding up to us in her pristine white dress. “You ready, Lyn?”
“As I’ll ever be,” she replied, tossing me one more glare as she went, like she was daring me to encourage her again.
I’d pump her up all day if I needed to. The woman deserved it. Besides, it was kind of part of my charm as Mr. Fake Date. Compliments were my specialty, and Lyndi looking the way she did in that dress made it easier than most.
In fact, the more time I spent with her, the more I wanted to compliment her. She seemed completely oblivious to her own appeal. Not in an annoying or self-deprecating way, but in a way that suggested she genuinely had a hard time seeing that the things that made her feel so strange were the same things I found so alluring.
It wasn’t simply that she was beautiful. She was, but that wasn’t it. It was the little things. Like how she set alarms on her watch so she’d remember all the different things she wanted to photograph during a wedding.
It suggested an attention to detail that was incredibly attractive to me for some reason, but it also showed that she had a tendency to get lost in the moment if she didn’t have reminders, and I liked that, too. I’d be down to get lost in the moment with her sometime.
I also enjoyed how she could get so lost in a book that you’d need a forklift to bring her out of it. Bombs could be going off around her and if she was in the zone, she wouldn’t look up. It was cute. It made me laugh. Even before I realized how much I liked what I was looking at.
But now, as I stood here watching her pose for photos with her girls with that shy smile and wariness in her eyes, I wanted nothing more than to walk right up to her and remind her to relax.
And that was when it hit me. I was in big trouble. I never looked at women the way I was looking at her now. I paid attention to the little things out of obligation, not out of yearning.
This woman didn’t simply light me up, she made me burn. I burnedforher, but I also burned because I couldn’t have her. And somehow at the exact same time, I burned because I couldn’t stay away, either.
Layla leaned over to Lyndi and whispered something in her ear, then turned back to the camera and smiled widely. Just in time for the shot, a blinding smile broke out over Lyndi’s face.
Whatever Layla told her was surely in an effort to create that smile. Over the last year, I’d noticed Layla always brought out this level of comfort in Lyndi that no one else could, and it was fun to watch. Lyndi would be quietly socializing, looking like she’d rather be anywhere else—like she’d settled for sitting in a chair with her nose in a book, offering witty remarks but not much else—then her sister would show up, and a relaxed, confident, energetic side would emerge. I was glad to see that if I couldn’t go up there and help her in some way—since, obviously, why would I?—at least she had her sister to do it.
After we finished taking photos, the bridal party was released to join what was left of the cocktail hour so Layla and Zac could get their photos taken alone. I walked in the grass beside Lyndi as we headed for the large white tent.
