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“Youronlynephew, the last I knew, is having guys’ night with his three cousins under the care of Eliza’s friend Grace. You want to talk about saints…”
“Hey, there’s Henry brother number three.” Drake North, Zane’s fraternal twin, came up and shook my hand with a friendly grin. “Big day for you two, huh? You officially become double brothers. Not only brothers-in-law but stepbrothers too.”
“It’s twisted, for sure,” I said, laughing. “With the two families combined, we’ll have a baseball team complete with subs if you count all your spouses.”
“Holidays will be over-the-top from here on out,” Zane said.
“Like they aren’t already,” Drake said over the din as he glanced around the gathering. “We’ll have to rent out an entire hotel wing to fit everyone.”
“Our mom hasn’t been this happy for years,” Zane said. “Your dad seems like the real deal.”
“He’s a good guy,” I said, ignoring the uneasiness in my gut and laughing it off. “I can say that now. My answer was different when I was thirteen.”
“If you’re talking about Dad, he was a good guy then too,” my older brother Seth, the second oldest of us Henrys, said as he joined us. He was three years older than me but usually acted more like ten years older. “You were just a hellion.”
“I wasn’t that bad,” I said lightly, even though I’d always had a rep for being the wild Henry brother. I liked to think I was calming down these days. I just wasn’t sure my brothers had noticed.
“We Norths have one of those too,” Drake said. “Sierra’s got Cole pretty well trained these days though.”
“Like you can talk,” Zane said to Drake. “Mackenzie’s got you handled too.”
I didn’t know most of the Norths well yet, with the exception of Zane, but every time we got together, there was no shortage of trash talking and shit giving. They fit right in with us Henrys, though it seemed the Norths were a little more lighthearted than we sometimes were. Maybe that was just a byproduct of all of them getting laid regularly. Apparently every last one of the five of them had gone from confirmed bachelor to blissed-out love connection within the past couple of years. With the exception of Hayden, we Henrys were a lot more steadfast in our bachelordom.
Drake’s wife, Mackenzie, appeared at his side then, looking glamorous in a deep purple dress that was short in front and longer in the back. She wound her arms around Drake’s neck, stretched up on her toes, and planted a kiss on his lips. I couldn’t help but notice the look on his face, like he had everything he could ever want right there in his arms, and I wondered briefly what that would be like. Maybe someday I’d find out, but that was hardly on my radar right now.
My dad and Faye North, his wife-to-be, had decided not to include many traditional wedding elements since they’d both been married before and widowed. There was a string quartet playing in the background. Centered in front of an overlook to a scenic waterfall was an arch strewn with flowers in plum and lavender and white. There were six rows of chairs, no aisle, as no one was giving anyone away, and there was no separation of guests into bride’s side or groom’s side. From early on, the two families had seemed to morph into one big, loud group.
There was some commotion, and I realized a woman was herding people to the chairs, so I scanned the area for Chloe and found her among a group of women—Hayden and Sierra and Eliza and Lexie, the four other North wives, plus a couple others I didn’t recognize. As if she felt my eyes on her, she met my gaze and made her way to me.
We came together behind the rows of chairs. I took her hand, and though I’d never been ill at ease in a crowd of people, something about her touch gave me comfort I hadn’t been aware I needed.
“Hey, date,” she said with a smile.
“Hey, EVP.” That was my nickname for her, short for executive vice president, which was her position at Marks International Hotels.
We made our way to seats in the front row, ending up next to my oldest brother, Cash, and his date, some blonde I’d never seen before and, if I knew my brother, would never see again. He gave me a single nod but didn’t speak. Gradually everyone found seats and quieted expectantly.
The officiant stood front and center, and to one side were Faye’s two attendants. On my dad’s side was his best friend, Tony, and my mom’s brother, David. The four of them stood there, waiting, and then my dad came in from the right side, and Faye approached from the left, until they met in the middle and joined both of their hands together between them.
It was a poignant moment, the way they stared into each other’s eyes and smiled at each other as if there was no one else in this giant, high-ceilinged room. Suddenly it hit me, and I understood why I was on edge.
That was my dad up there, staring into the eyes of the woman he loved, and that woman was not my mom.
CHAPTERTWO
CHLOE
Ididn’t go to many weddings.
My circle of friends was small but mighty, limited to my best friend, Presley, and the man at my side, Holden. I had a boatload of colleagues and coworkers, and plenty of them had tied the knot in the twelve years I’d been with my company, but the times I’d been invited, I’d sent my regrets. Weddings and romance and happily-ever-after love had just never been my thing.
When Holden had asked me to be his plus-one to his dad’s wedding, though, it hadn’t occurred to me to say anything but yes, even if the invitation had surprised me.
We were friends who went way back, but we didn’t see each other very often, mainly just when Holden came into Nashville for something else and had some free time. We didn’t tend to go out socially, as one another’s date. We texted. We exchanged puns, which had always been our common interest and something that connected us. We got dinner or watched a movie or just hung out at my place. That was the extent of our relationship, regardless of what my true feelings for him were. He had no idea about those, and I intended to keep it that way.
We were opposites, and I didn’t buy into the whole opposites-attract thing. I was attracted to Holdenin spite ofbeing so different from him, mainly because he had a protective tendency toward me that had reared its head countless times since we were five. That and, well, he looked like he did, which was tall and handsome as hell, with light brown hair, sage-green eyes, and a smile that was more than surface deep. He was personable and lovable to everyone he met, and let’s just say I… wasn’t.
Don’t get me wrong. I liked myself. But I didn’t tend to let others get to know me well, and people often judged other people by surface things that had nothing to do with anything. Like, for instance, where they lived or how much money they had.
