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Only my love, loyalty and genuine happiness for Collette gets me through the next few moments, and I redirect my tidal wave of emotions towards her, telling myself that the tears that won’t stop leaking from my eyes are only happiness for my friend, and not mourning for me.
I make it through the ceremony and dinner unscathed, thanks to some helpful interference from Stephanie, but even she can’t help me come toast-time. Thomas is best man to my maid of honor, which means we stand beside each other, and I half expect him to corner me and ask what’s going on—he knows, I know he knows something is up.
But he betrays nothing, not even when I finish my speech (I crushed it), and our fingers brush while exchanging the microphone for his speech, which he also crushes, although in a more cerebral way than my joke-filled speech.
Then the dancing starts, and at the first slow song, my reprieve is over. Thomas doesn’t ask me to dance, so much as demands it with his eyes as he makes his way towards me.
Stephanie tries to step into his path, but he cuts her with a searing gaze, and she takes a startled step back. She tries to step forward once more, but her husband touches her arm, shakes his head no.
Traitor. Ethan Price is clearly on Thomas’s side and thus dead to me.
Thomas stops in front of me, extends a hand. Not a word, just a single palm. There are a million excuses I could make and yet, I find myself putting my hand in his, letting him lead me to the dance floor.
In spite of my mood, I relax for the first time in twenty-four hours when I step into his arms. It’s that same baffling contradiction again, that the same man who causes all of my confusion and frustration is also the one to soothe it.
Everything about him is sure and steady. His shoulder against my cheek. His hand holding mine. His arm holding me so close.
He shifts the grip of his right hand slightly, and for a second I realize he wants to let go, but it’s only to reposition, maneuvering the long strand of blue hair that Collette had wanted me to pull out of the updo “for flair,” and wrapping it once around his finger.
I want to weep.
“Thomas,” I manage on a whisper.
“No,” he says quietly, firmly. “No. Not here, not now. You’re going to end things between us, and I’m going to let you, because that was our deal. But first, Mac, you’ll give me this dance. This will be what you remember when you think of us, not the conversation we’ll have when it’s over, and not whatever’s caused that conversation. And even if it’s not what you remember, let it be what I remember. Please.”
I close my eyes, and unlike at the ceremony, when the tears come this time, there’s no pretending it’s due to wedding happiness.
The song is one of Collette’s favorites, that cheesy-yet-classic Aerosmith song, “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing,” and though I know every word, I haven’t actually really listened to the words until now, and they’re an achingly perfect fit for Thomas’s request to let us have this moment, this dance. The perfect song for us, being present now, not missing a thing because it can be gone at any minute.
“How’d you know?” I whisper. “That I was ending things.”
He inhales slowly, his hand moving up slightly on my back, fingers pressing against the fabric of my dress, as though to keep me close. Closer. “I just know. I always know, with you.”
Don’t let me go.
But I know that he will, if I ask him to. And I am going to ask him to, because if I’ve learned anything in all this, it’s that I want Thomas Decker to be happy. And if that means letting him go, to find the future wife I can never be, I never want to be . . . then I’ll let him go.
No matter how much it hurts.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Saturday, November 5
Jon and Collette’s reception is in the ballroom of a fancy, old-school hotel on the Upper East Side, with Central Park just across the street.
When the song ends, Thomas takes my hand and leads me to the coat check. No words are exchanged, not until we find ourselves on a bench just inside the entrance of Central Park.
“Alright,” he says, after we wait for a giggling teenage couple to go by. “I had my dance. Now you get your say.”
I look down at my feet, my fancy pink stilettos that match my fancy bridesmaid dress. I take a minute, gather my thoughts.
“You quit your job for me,” I say.
His head whips around. For all his talk about knowing me, he hadn’t seen that coming, and he lets out a low groan.
