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Regardless of the answer, making light seemed an apt solution. “I'll have you know, this smile is professional grade. It's gotten more brides—with zits the size of spitballs, nasty mothers-in-law, and fights over china patterns—down the aisle than you could shake a stick at. Why? Because this smile ... is effective. Makes people trust me. Don't knock it because your professional smile is just a poor man's version of mine.” There, she sounded flippant, fine, but deep in her core, she trembled.
"What are you talking about?” Concern etched across his furrowed brow. Ack, he was infuriating, seeing everything she didn't want him to see.
Suddenly she felt hot, claustrophobic, like the neutral walls and subtly patterned carpeting were closing in around her. She didn't want to talk with him about the hows and whys of Laine Malone—she didn't want to think of them either.
Enough of this. “I'm taking the stairs to clear my head. Thanks for the cake."
"Laine—” he started, his fingertips grazing her elbow.
Screams sliced down the corridor, cutting him off.
Without a pause, Jason charged down the hall with Laine trailing behind. This was her floor—everyone booked on it was a wedding guest. Her heels dug in. Whatever it was, she'd manage it.
The hallway T-ed off, and Jason darted to the right, shouting into his phone for someone at the front desk as he vanished around the corner. The screams ceased, giving way to a barrage of obscenities from a voice all too familiar.
Laine's stomach lurched.
Bridezilla.
Rounding the corner, she nearly slammed into Jason's back, hitting the wall instead to stop herself.
Her eyes went wide as she took in the scene within the small soda and ice alcove. Jason grabbed for Melinda, trying to drag her back from Ed, who was frantically tucking his shriveled penis into his fly. One of the bridesmaids, half-hidden behind him, had her silver, bubble-hemmed dress bunched up around her boobs and her pantyhose around her ankles.
There was no saving this day.
* * * *The reception hall was empty. It had been a mass exodus of tuxedos and taffeta dresses as the entire wedding party followed behind the bride and groom, who left the hotel screaming at each other. Everyone shouting into cell phones, booking flights back home early, bellowing threats at their would-be in-laws. People wh
o would have been family, if fate hadn't stepped in, in the form of a 5'8” blonde bridesmaid cousin who liked it from behind.
Laine's shoulders slumped as she stood within the small prep-room off the reception hall. Staring at the enormous cake in front of her—delivered, in true insult to injury form, ten minutes after the wedding had imploded—her thoughts lost in how to convey the catastrophe to Connie. It wasn't as though they wouldn't get paid for their services—the bills got paid whether the “I do's” were said or not. It was a matter of reputation. The perception of bad luck and marriages-that-might-have-been was enough to close the doors for good. This was the second wedding Laine had coordinated that had been lost hours before the ceremony—and both within a month. She was screwed.
Her stomach tensed; her eyes closed. Why did people want to get married if they couldn't keep their hands from roaming into forbidden territory the very day of the ceremony? She could wonder all she wanted, but weddings brought out a side of some people she would never understand. A need to have it happen, to check it off their “life list", regardless of the circumstances.
"Damn it, damn it,” she muttered under her breath, not sure what she felt worse about, the fact that she hadn't kept a tight enough rein on the grab-ass groom, or the fact that she would even consider trying to keep a grab-ass groom in check.
At least it hadn't been her call to tell the bride as Melinda discovered the guilty parties herself. Laine had tried to talk to her, to make sure she was okay, but couldn't get a word in edgewise between the string of ten decibel curses Melinda directed at the groom as she ran out with a strangely possessive groomsman tucking her under his shoulder.
Maybe she'd be okay. Laine would call her later.
The door shut behind her. She didn't have the strength to see who it was, though she had a pretty good idea. Jason. “Do you need me out of here to clear all this?” she asked.
"No, I told the staff to give us some privacy. They'll wait. Shame, after so much work to get this cake in here, only you and I get to see it."
She nodded silently.
"You okay?” His voice was as strong and soothing as the hands he laid on her bare shoulders. His thumbs pressed into the knotted muscles astride her spine and circled slowly. How did he always know where to find her when she needed a distraction from her head?
Feeling exhausted from the wind up of the day, the efforts invested, she leaned back into his hands. She didn't have it in her to haggle or argue. It was easier to just give in. “I'm fine. Frustrated. Connie's going to tan my hide for this."
Jason's hands stopped moving at her neck. “Laine, Connie is a crusty old bat with a rawhide heart, but even she couldn't object to this. The groom was giving it to a bridesmaid before the wedding. This would have been a marriage made in hell. It was doomed."
"I know, but it's my job to make the wedding happen. It's my livelihood. My chosen career. If I'd been on my toes instead of screwing around with you—"
"Hey now, to my utter and eternal disappointment, there was no screwing going on. You were trying to make this cake materialize. And most importantly, the bride was better off finding out before she actually married that piece of crap. You can't beat yourself up."
So easy for him to be confident in the morality of the situation. He wasn't the one debating over whether he would have been able to do the right thing and tell if the circumstances of discovery had been different. He wasn't the one with a job on the line. Or a past haunting him.
"It's my job, Jason, to make sure that weddings happen. Not to ensure the couple is a perfect fit. I'm not a matchmaker. I'm a wedding planner. My livelihood depends on making the wedding happen."
