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I stood next to him, plucking flowers out. “Of course it matters. It still needs to look good.”
“We’re dismantling the well wishes for a nonexistent funeral. I’ll be honest, it’s not my top concern.” He held up three carnations— two peach and one red—in his hand like a bouquet. “This is fine.”
I arranged two carnations and bent to pull a white rose from the flower cross and a sprig of greenery from the spray on the ground. “This is better.”
I wanted to grin when he gritted his teeth.God, it’s possible he might hate admitting he’s wrong more than I do.
“Fine,” he said, copying my movements. “Thank you for your help.”
We worked side by side for a few minutes, using the discarded floral wire to bind the flowers until we had enough to do the chairs. “I hope Tina isn’t getting read the riot act,” he said quietly, setting a bundle of flowers aside.
“Me, too.” I finished the last twist on my floral wire and moved to the first row of chairs, wrapping the wire around the ribbon andadmiring it. I heard the question in his voice, theShould I have done it myself?, but I didn’t comment. “Tina can handle it,” I said, not really sure what Tina could handle. I didn’t know her well, but he made a humming sound. It made him sound vulnerable, and I stifled my instinct to tell him he should have been the one to deliver the news, because I didn’t want him to feel bad.
“We only have twenty-five minutes,” Lear said, his back to me.
I started on the next row of chairs. “Then you should move more quickly.”
I kind of wanted him to volley something back, waited for it, but he stayed silent, moving a step up the aisle behind me, so I worked faster, stepping forward before him the next time and down the line. Back-to-back, we sped through the process, each clearly planning to win this unspoken race.
I tied off my last one and threw my hands in the air, declaring victory. “Done!”
I thought I heard him swear under his breath when I declared my win, but he didn’t say anything directly to me. He was taking this professional and respectful thing too far, because it wasn’t as fun to win when he wouldn’t acknowledge he wanted to win. Instead, he nodded. “Thank you.”
We walked back up the aisle, and he started gathering the remains of the coffin spray and setting it behind a concrete barrier out of the way. I followed with the rest of the cross and we cleared the altar. It was too quiet. “Maybe there will be a few bridesmaids you can regale with this story later.”
I regretted it immediately. I didn’t even know why I’d brought up that rehearsal and how he’d flirted with the groom’s daughters. It wasn’t like I really cared.
He dropped a heavy arrangement of purple and pink blossoms on top of the rest of the discarded flowers. “Excuse me?”
I was in it now. “I don’t know if they’re as keen on you as Trevor’sdaughters, but this could make a good story. Some women love a man with flower-arranging skills.”
He looked away, scanning the venue and, again, clearly holding back what he wanted to say. “I don’t flirt with women when I’m working.”
“Sure.” I dug through my bag for the ceremony script and began a quick read through the text. I raised one eyebrow, feeling his gaze on me. “Of course you don’t.”
“You know, you...”
“I... what?” I liked this better, the back-and-forth. I could win at this. Him just being distant and flatly kind was boring.
He shoved a hand in his pocket and looked at the watch on his other wrist, and I’d never wanted to make someone lose their cool more in my life. “Thank you for your help. You saved the day.” With that, he turned on his heel and strode back up the aisle. One of the small bouquets I’d fastened had fallen and he dipped to pick it up, refastening it. “And I think that means I won.”
Chapter 10
Lear
TWO WEEKS LATER,I sat next to RJ, who shut her laptop where she’d been taking notes on the ceremony for Aubrey Morris and Thomas Goodman. “Is there anything else about the ceremony you’d like to talk through?”
I tapped my finger against my chair. We sat side by side, and I’d spent the better part of ninety minutes biting my tongue and letting RJ take the lead on this conversation like she wanted, even though I’d had a lot of thoughts. Penny’s reminder to keep RJ happy played on a loop in my head, and I’d reminded myself twenty times to shut up like I had at the wedding with the funeral flowers. I’d never felt more grateful and annoyed with someone at the same time, especially thanks to RJ’s little comment about flirting with Trevor’s daughter, whose card was still somewhere in my glove compartment.
“Well,” Aubrey said, raising her forefinger as if she needed to be called on, “we were thinking we wanted to have everyone dance down the aisle. Have you seen those YouTube videos?” She smiled wide and in my head I cringed—everyone had seen those videos, and I remembered laughing with Sarah, declaring we’d never do that in a hundred years, much to the relief of our close friends and family who would have been made to dance.
“Sure.” I feigned interest and enthusiasm for the idea withoutencouraging it too much, and RJ’s expression flattened, her lips moving into a straight line, her eyes unmoved.
“Well, we found this video. Honey, can you pull it up?”
Thomas pulled out his phone and fiddled with the screen, holding it up to RJ and me.
“It’s this group doing the evolution of boy bands! Isn’t that fun?” Aubrey beamed, her voice rising to a pitch I didn’t know possible in the human vocal range. “Think of all the different dances, and it would be long enough for everyone to come down the aisle. It’s totally us!”
