Three Girls And A Wedding (21 page)

I sighed. “As ready as I’ll ever
be.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

We worked for several hours without
stopping. The room was pretty big and it took awhile to get the primer up.
Luckily, by the time we were finished with the fourth wall, the first was just
about dry. At least we wouldn’t have to wait long in between coats.

We went into the kitchen, where we
had stashed our food, and snacked on chips and cookies while we drank beer.
Matt told me about the first painting job he had ever had. It was right after
his injury had ended his playing career, and he figured he better find a way to
make some money now that hockey wasn’t going to happen.

“I hope this doesn’t sound rude,
but weren’t you in college?” I asked.

“I majored in business,” he said,
cracking open another beer. “I didn’t know what I wanted to do, only that I
wanted to be my own boss. When I couldn’t play anymore, I felt so stir crazy, I
think I would have gone nuts if I tried to get a job in an office. I needed
something where I was working with my hands. A buddy was on a painting crew,
and it went from there.”

“I’ve always wanted to own my own
business,” I told him, finishing off my beer. “Someday I’ll have my own little
firm and I’ll be able to hoist all this grunt work off on my underlings.”

Matt laughed and then sighed. “We
should probably get back to it.”

Matt didn’t try to keep up a stream
of conversation while we put up the first coat, which I appreciated. It felt
strangely comfortable with the two of us working together in silence,
occasionally singing along to a good song on the radio.

When we had finished all four
walls, we stepped into the center of the room to examine it. “Shit,” Matt
murmured. The red was still clearly visible through the cream paint. It did
look a little more like pink, but it was much too dark. “I guess we’ll have to
do another coat.”

I looked down at my watch. It was
already midnight and we had been working for more than four hours straight. I
walked over to the first wall we had done. “Still wet,” I told him. “I guess
the paint dries slower than the primer.”

Matt peered over my shoulder. “Fuck
it, let’s get a pizza,” he said.

I laughed. “Sounds perfect.”

Matt ordered while I went into the
bathroom to try to wash some of the paint off my hands. When I came back, Matt
was clearing a space in the center of the floor for us and laying down the last
fresh tarp. “I tried to move one of the tables out, but they’re all too close
together. I couldn’t move one without moving them all.”

“Not worth it,” I agreed. “A picnic
is fine by me.”

We sat cross-legged on the floor,
splitting a large with everything and finishing off the beer. “God, I could
sleep for a week,” I muttered, closing my eyes.

Matt looked concerned. “Why don’t I
drive you home,” he said. “I could come back first thing in the morning and do
the last coat.”

“You have work,” I pointed out. He
shrugged. “You’re not missing work so you can do my job,” I said firmly.
“Besides, load-in for the party starts at ten. There’s no way the walls would
be dry in time.”

“So you were lying when you told
Kiki you could sleep in tomorrow.” It was a statement, not a question. I merely
shrugged.

“Well, that wall should be good
enough by now,” Matt said, wiping his hands on his paint-splattered jeans.
“Normally I would let a coat dry for a few hours…”

“But tonight, who the hell cares,”
I finished for him.

Matt smiled. “Exactly. We’re not
really shooting for perfection here.”

The last coat took a bit longer. We
were both exhausted and soreness was settling into our arms and shoulders. When
we finished, I was extremely relieved to see the red had completely disappeared
below the cream.

“Thank God,” I muttered, sinking
down to the floor. “I think I would have started pulling hair out if we had to
do that again.”

Matt started to clean up and I rose
to help him, but he held out a hand. “Stay right where you are, I’ve got this.”

For once I decided not to argue. I
stretched out on our picnic tarp and closed my eyes, thinking of all the things
I had to do before the party tomorrow. Less
than
a week
, I told myself.
Then you’ll be
free
.

“Here,” Matt said, and I opened my
eyes. He was standing over me with a bottle of whiskey.

“Where’d you get that?”

“From the bar. Mr. Barker can spare
it, I’m sure.”

I knew I shouldn’t. I was already
so tired and I had so much to do the next day. On the other hand, maybe the
drink would help me get a few hours of sleep.

“Oh, what the hell,” I said,
sitting up and taking the bottle from him. The whiskey burned as it went down
but it left me with such a lovely warm feeling that I took another pull before
passing it over to Matt, who had joined me on the tarp.

“That’s good whiskey,” he muttered,
wiping his mouth.

We sat in silence for a moment,
passing the bottle back and forth.

“Is your dad still a painter?” Matt
asked eventually.

“Yeah,” I said and my stomach
dipped a bit, as it always did when I thought of my dad. We hadn’t spoken in a
few weeks and I felt guilty. He knew how busy I was and I had a feeling he was
purposefully trying not to distract me. I should have called him.

“Does he live around here?”

“Chicago,” I said quietly.

“Oh, that’s right, Kiki mentioned
you lived there.” He left the statement dangling, not asking any question but
giving me the space to tell him more if I wanted. And suddenly, I wanted to.

“I went there for college so I
could be close to him,” I explained. “He was going through a rough patch and he
was alone out there.”

“How’s he doing now?” Matt asked.
There was concern in his voice, and maybe a touch of curiosity because I hadn’t
fully explained about the rough patch. But I knew he wouldn’t press me.

“He’s okay,” I told him softly.
“Six years sober, actually.”

I met his eyes, daring him to judge
or make a comment. He merely nodded.

“That’s a great accomplishment.”

“It is,” I agreed. “There was a
time…lots of times really, when I thought he wouldn’t make it.”

“It was pretty bad, huh?”

I shivered, thinking about those
years. “He always drank too much,” I said finally. “Mom didn’t work when I was
young; she wanted to stay home with me. But his drinking got worse and there
was never any money.”

I didn’t know why I was telling him
all this. The only people I had ever shared these things with were Annie and
Ginny. But there was something about Matt that made me trust him. I knew he
genuinely cared about what I was telling him; he wasn’t interested in the
gossip or the scandal. But he would let me talk, he would listen, if I wanted
him to.

“She left him when I was twelve,” I
whispered. “She had to, I guess. He was never violent with us, but he just
couldn’t stop drinking. There was never any money, we were constantly getting
evicted…even after she went back to work. He ended up in the hospital a couple
times…it was scary. We thought it was just a matter of time before he died.” My
words trailed off as I thought of those horrible nights, the phone calls that
had woken us up. “She tried to get him into treatment but…Anyhow, she decided
she’d had enough and we moved out.”

Matt was silent for a moment. “That
must have been pretty hard for you, to leave him when he was sick. To not know
what was happening when you were already so worried.”

I nodded, my throat feeling tight.

“She had to work so hard once we
were on our own,” I said quietly. “Taking care of me, putting herself through
school. We lived in this shitty little apartment in the city and I was alone so
much while she was at work or school. It was scary.”

I looked up at him, expecting to
see pity in his eyes and dreading it. Instead, the gaze that met mine was even.
“I don’t know why I’m telling you all of this,” I said. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” he said, holding
up the bottle. “Deep shit is exactly what you should talk about when you’re
sharing a fifth of whiskey.”

I smiled, so grateful for him in
that moment that I wished I could lean over and kiss him.

“Did things get better for you and
your mom?” he asked.

“Yeah. She got her real estate
license and got a good job where she met my stepdad. Eventually we were able to
move from the city to Royal Oak. It was a much nicer place to grow up. She
still worked like crazy, but by then I had met Annie and Ginny so…” I shrugged,
smiling. “What else did I need?”

He smiled back. “And your dad got
help?”

I nodded. “My senior year. He went
away to rehab for six months then moved in with a friend in Chicago. He was
still struggling, but sober. He’s managed to hold on all this time.”

I took a large gulp of the whiskey.
“Okay, enough of my sob story. What heavy shit do you want to share?”

Matt chuckled softly and took
another swig. “Let’s see, you already know my big dark secret about going to
private school.”

I laughed. “And it scarred me for
life, let me tell you. I’ll never look at you the same way again.” I heard a
flirtatious tone in my voice but I ignored it. The whiskey had definitely gone
to my head. I was feeling warm and fuzzy and not caring very much about how
much he could hurt me.

“Kiki told me you’d had a rough
time with girls,” I said suddenly, feeling brave. “Is there a story there?”

He squinted his eyes at me for a
moment and I was sure he wasn’t going to tell me. But then he took a large pull
from the bottle, wiped his mouth and said, “I was engaged once. In college. I
had dated her for three years and I was sure she was the one.” Matt spoke quickly,
staring at the ground. “We were planning a huge wedding for the spring, all the
bells and whistles, when I got hurt in a minor league game. It wasn’t too long
after they told me my career was over that she left.”

I gasped. I couldn’t help it. Who the
hell could do something like that?

Matt smiled bitterly. “Turns out,
it wasn’t me that she loved. She thought she was bagging herself a professional
athlete. When it was clear I wouldn’t be one, she called the whole thing off.”

I wanted to hug him, to tell him
how terrible I felt. But he hadn’t done that for me. He hadn’t made me feel
worse by pitying me. He had just listened and accepted my story for what it
was.

“That’s a really shitty thing to
have happened to you,” I said simply, taking the bottle from him and taking a
sip. I handed it back. “It must have sucked.”

Matt looked up at me and my breath
caught in my throat at the look in his eyes. He looked vulnerable, sad, and so
grateful.

“I guess that’s why I get kind of
pissy
about this wedding,” he said.

I laughed. “Kind of?”

He smiled ruefully. “Okay, really
pissy
—happy now? It’s just easy to remember how
little all of this crap matters when it really comes down to it. Emily and I
had all of this—the engagement party, the fancy venues. And in the end,
it counted for nothing.”

I nodded. “There is a difference,
though,” I told him. “Kiki and Eric are the right ones for each other. That
bitch obviously wasn’t the one for you.”

He smiled at me and I again wished
I could kiss him. Maybe it was just the alcohol talking…crap. The alcohol. I
looked down at the bottle, which was now more than half empty. “Um, how the
hell are we supposed to drive home now?”

Matt’s wide eyes met mine, and I
knew he couldn’t drive either. The urge to curl up on the tarp and fall asleep
was almost overpowering, but I knew I would regret it in the morning. Deep
conversations over whiskey were one thing, but waking up next to Matt the
morning after was not a scenario I felt I could face.

“I’ll call Eric,” Matt said
finally. “He can come and get us.”

I was relieved. After the hours we
had just spent trying to make his fiancée happy, I didn’t even feel bad for
disturbing Eric. As Matt made the phone call, I started gathering up our things
and then went to use the bathroom.

I met Matt back in the lobby, where
he was turning off the lights. “Hey, Matt?” I asked. He stopped what he was
doing and peered at me in the darkness. “Thank you,” I said softly. “For
helping me tonight and for…well, for everything.”

Slowly, as if waiting for me to stop
him, he lifted his hand and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. “You have
paint in your hair,” he said softly.

“
Mmmhmm
,”
I said, my breathing shallow from the nearness of him, from the feel of his
fingers trailing lightly down my neck.

“You’re welcome, Jen,” he said,
taking a small step toward me. I felt my heart rate increase. Please, please
let him kiss me again.

A beeping horn sounded from the
parking lot, pulling me from the dreamy haze of the moment. It was Eric, and
sitting next to him in the SUV, waving way too energetically for three a.m.,
was Kiki.

Matt sighed. “I guess that’s our
ride,” he muttered.

I felt flustered and hot. What the
hell was I doing? Tomorrow was a huge day and I had work to do. Matt had made
it perfectly clear the last time that he wasn’t interested. It was stupid to
let myself believe he might feel the same way I did.

I picked up my purse and smiled at
him brightly, feeling fake. “I guess we should go then.” I turned and walked
through the front door to where Kiki and Eric were waiting, leaving Matt behind
me in the darkness.

Chapter Twenty-Four

‘The rehearsal dinner
is a very important aspect of your wedding. It’s your chance to make sure that
all of your hard work and planning has paid off, to set your mind at ease that
every little detail will be perfect for your ceremony. If any of those details
have yet to be accounted for, now is the time to address the problem.’—
The Bride’s Guide to a Fabulous Wedding!