AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Cancel honeymoon suite.
The list went on, and I motioned to her dad that I’d begin taking care of things. Stepping out of the room was a relief, and I immediately looked around for RJ. I needed to tell her, but I also wanted to be next to her right now. I shook away the thought and found the hotel staff first. I knew it would take time to reset everything, but the last thing the bride needed to see was the lovely scripted version of their initials on every surface when the B in J&B was MIA. I texted RJ, hoping she’d have her phone near her since we hadn’t begun yet.
Lear:Groom is AWOL.
RJ:I knew that guy looked skittish.
Lear:One point for you.
RJ:I didn’t mean that to sound so cold.
Lear:I know. Meet me in the bridal suite.
I hurriedly filled in the hotel’s event manager and rushed back to the suite, where the scene was unchanged. The bridesmaids loitered outside looking green, and Jayda, the bride, sat inside with only her mother, who rubbed her back, and her father, who continued to pace, presumably planning the castration of one Benjamin Mercer.
I cleared my throat. “Would you like me to say something to the guests?”
The bride’s parents shared a look across the room. “Maybe we should do it,” her mother said, looking to me for confirmation. They were very proper people—concerned about which rules of weddings should be followed and how things were done, especially the mother of the bride. It felt good to know the answers. Penny had made me read books on wedding etiquette before I started, and though I’d balked, I was glad she had. My phone buzzed in my pocket and I had a feeling she was calling to check in on things. I thought about ignoring it, but given the number of vendors I’d just quickly asked to pack up, I had to check. It was her, and I shoved my phone back in my pocket. The bride’s mother still looked at me for the answer.
“There’s no one way to handle it. It’s up to you.”Please don’t make me be the one who has to do it.There were many moments where I missed working with a professional football team, but never as much as this one. I’d seen powerful, hard-as-nails people tear up when their team won or lost, but I’d never had to watch the team’s owner sob because the commissioner wasn’t coming to the party.
RJ stepped into the room, her posture as poised as ever, but her expression looked uncertain as she met my eyes. Jayda sobbed loudly again, and RJ’s expression shifted to something more flat. I wasn’t sure what I expected—for her to offer the woman comfort or exchange sympathetic glances.
“We’ll do it,” her father said. I wondered if he was just jumping at the chance to do something, but I stepped aside and nodded,letting him and his wife take a moment to convene, their hands clasped. I wasn’t sure why I noticed the clasped hands, but it’s all I could focus on. They somehow clung to each other and held each other up.
“I’ve already asked them to shift to just dinner in the reception space, and they’re making the changes they can now. People can head that way for drinks and appetizers if they want,” I said in a low voice. He nodded grimly and held his wife’s hand. I thought I should follow them, but Jayda looked lost, and it tugged at my heart. I met RJ’s eyes, wondering if she’d have some feminine instinct to comfort the girl or say something profound, but she stood still. It was not like RJ to have nothing to say, to not step in, and I waited a few extra moments, hoping she would.
Finally, I stepped across the room and dropped to one knee in front of the bride in her white dress, the miles of fabric surrounding her like a darkly ironic marshmallow. “Do you want me to get your bridesmaids?”
“I’m so embarrassed. I don’t want to see anyone.” She shook her head, and then the silence hung around us, only her small sobs punctuating it. She looked up from her own clasped hands, eyes red, black eye makeup smeared. “What am I going to do?” Her voice was small. “He was going to be my whole life. What am I going to do?”
I shifted my weight, remembering asking myself that question. Remembering crying when no one was around because I had to let it out, and then getting angry that I had to show weakness, even to myself. “I don’t know. I think today probably feels like the worst day of your life, though.”
She nodded.
I wiped my palms down the legs of my pants. “It maybe feels hopeless and black, like you’re drowning?”
“Like I can’t swim,” she said, voice hitching as another sob ripped through her.
I nodded, swallowing. I set my hand next to hers, where she held a handful of material from her full skirt. I tried to remember what Penny and Caitlin and eventually Uncle Harold told me. I remembered ignoring it and brushing off their platitudes, but I channeled them anyway. “Youcanswim, though. You will.”
“How do you know?”
“I’ve been there. Had everything pulled away from me by someone I loved. Not exactly like this, but I was left alone.” My chest tightened, and I bit the inside of my cheek hard.
“What did you do?” The woman looked up miserably, eyes already swollen from the crying.
“I took time to be sad and mad, and then...” I searched for the word, wishing I’d followed her parents out to the reception. The back of my neck heated, knowing RJ was listening to this. I didn’t want to tell the bride that I was over it, that it just stopped sucking, that I didn’t stay up at night getting angry, because I did. I rested my hand on top of hers. “I started thinking about swimming to the surface, and then eventually I started swimming.”
She pressed her lips together, eyes plaintive. “Did you get there? To the surface?”
I sensed RJ shifting from foot to foot behind me, but I didn’t turn. The bride’s dad’s voice carried down the hall as they returned, and I stood. “I’m working on it.” I squeezed her hand and stepped back to make room for her parents.
I swallowed again, not sure why I was needing to do that so often, as her dad pulled me aside to go over a few details. I blocked out the conversation with his daughter while we talked about logistics, but I kept letting my gaze wander to where RJ had been standing. She’d slipped out, and I didn’t know if she’d heard what I said to Jayda, or what she thought. I realized as I left the suite to take care of about two hundred details that I didn’t know if I wanted RJ to have heard me or not. On one hand, I wanted her to know me.Increasingly, I had this urge to tell her things I didn’t tell other people, to make sure she saw all of me. On the other hand, she’d made it clear she wasn’t interested in drama, and I had a sinking fear she’d see me, all of my drama, and leave. I didn’t like the idea of one more thing being in the air unsaid between us, but I had to focus on the job in front of me.
•••
THREE HOURS LATER,I closed the door to my room and leaned against the cool surface. Since everyone had traveled to the destination wedding, no one had much to do besides hang out. A surprising number of people had stuck around for the party, and though the mood was somber, the bar was stocked. I’d been on the phone, putting out fires and trying to help undo a honeymoon Penny had helped to plan on top of the wedding. I was exhausted from all that, not to mention that I couldn’t get my conversation with the bride out of my head. I’d been bogged down in memories since stepping out of that room and feeling alone. I hadn’t seen RJ for the rest of the night and hadn’t had time to text her. I assumed she’d left, since there was no reason for her to stay. I wanted to be the reason she stuck around, though. The portable battery pack had made a valiant effort, but my device sat at nine percent.
