Winter Jacket: Finding Home (24 page)

“To the brides!” the guests echoed.

After the rest of the speeches had been made and dinner plates had been taken away, only Troian and I remained at the head table.

“I don’t know if you were aware of this, but you’re at a party,” she remarked, “specifically the wedding of your two best friends.”

“No, I know.”

“Then why do you look like this is the worst day of your life?” she challenged.

“I’m sorry,” I sighed. “I guess I’m not in party mode tonight.”

“You know what you should do?”

“I’m sure I’m going to regret you finishing that thought.”

“Sonja the intern.”

“What about her?” I asked.

“You should do her.”

“Jesus, Troi.” I whipped my head around to see if anyone had overheard.

“What?” She looked at me with wide eyes. “Anyone with eyes can tell she’s into you. She’s been looking at you like a love-sick puppy ever since you saved her from Jane at the tiki bar.”

“You’re imagining things,” I mumbled.

“I know I discouraged you from hanging out with actresses, but Sonja’s not in that crowd. And as my present to you, my Best Woman, I’m giving you my blessings.”

I silently regarded the white tablecloth instead of responding, but I let Troian’s words run around in my brain.

“It would serve Hunter right,” she mumbled.

I looked up sharply. “This has nothing to do with her.”

Troian held up her hands, immediately retreating. “I only want to see you happy, Bookie. You know that.”

I took another slug of my beer. “I’ll take it under consideration.”

“That’s all I can ask for.” Troian stood and brushed at the skirt of her wedding gown. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I think my wife is beckoning me to cut a cake with her.”

This time, Troian’s words made me smile. “You’re gonna call her ‘wife’ all the time now, eh?”

“You’d better believe it,” she grinned.

I left the head table as well and made my way to the makeshift bar, which was little more than a tall, wooden crate set up on the hillside. Even though Troian didn’t drink, she’d insisted that everything at her wedding have an open bar; there’d be no tacky cash bar on her special weekend.

My beer glass was empty, but I was nowhere drunk enough to seriously consider Troian’s proposal of taking Sonja back to my room that night. I tapped at my empty pint. “I’m gonna need another one of these,” I informed the tuxedoed man who was tending bar. I was going to need a whole lot more.

I leaned against the makeshift bar and stared out over the rim of my glass at the wedding party, a sea of familiar and foreign faces, as I drank deeply from my pint. More people had shown up for the reception than had been present at the wedding itself. In addition to anonymous crew like myself, a few of the actors were in attendance, but the show was still too new along with their careers that the Minnesota crowd didn’t appear particularly star-struck.

Nik and Troi had successfully cut their cake and hovered near the dessert area, thanking and hugging more guests. I spotted a table of work friends, mostly other writers. With the exception of the party to celebrate getting picked up for a full season, I rarely saw them outside of jeans and stained t-shirts. Seated between Edward and Gloria, I saw Sonja. Seated and with a table positioned between us, I couldn’t see the bottom half of her burgundy dress, but the asymmetrical top cut a diagonal line across her chest. I hadn’t seen her at the rehearsal dinner, so I imagined she’d carpooled up the coastline just for the day. And it made me wonder if she had a place to sleep that night.

I hazarded another glance in the direction of Hunter’s table. I didn’t see her seated there, however, and wondered if she had bailed early. I didn’t have to wonder for long. Halfway through my beer, I spied her and her slate dress standing beside Nikole, engaged in conversation.

I stared, indulgent, until she looked in my direction and our eyes connected. She cocked her head to the side and a small, wistful smile played on her lips. I lifted my glass to her in returned salute, sure that the same sad smile I saw on her face had taken residency on my mouth as well.

I should have looked away, should have finished my beer and called it a night. But instead, I watched her stride purposefully in my direction.

“I liked your speech,” she approved when she reached my side.

“You look beautiful.” I bit my lip as soon as the words tumbled out. I wasn’t supposed to be complimenting her. I wasn’t supposed to be sticking around long enough to have any kind of conversation with her.

She ducked her head and tucked a soft lock of blonde hair behind one ear. Her cheeks flushed an attractive shade of pink. “I, uh, I forgot to thank you earlier for the birthday flowers. They were lovely.”

I swallowed hard. Neither Nikole nor Troian knew that while at the flower shop with Nikole, I had ordered a bouquet of wildflowers for Hunter’s birthday. I hadn’t heard from her about them, so I’d assumed she’d thrown them away or had re-gifted them to a patient at the hospital.

“You’re welcome,” I said roughly. “I hope it wasn’t a big deal that I sent them to the hospital. I didn’t know where I should send them, since, um, since I assumed you’d moved out of my house.”

She smiled evenly. “Some of the nurses teased me about them, but they were just jealous.”

“Where
are
you living these days?” Hunter’s messages to me were always about the cat or my house, nothing about the details of her life—if she’d moved out, how her job was going, if she’d gone back to school, or whom she was dating. I tried not to think too much about the latter question.

“I’m actually back at my old apartment,” she revealed. “I called Loryssa to see if she was still living there and if she had an extra room. She and Eric are still together, but just scraping by each month with rent, so I moved into my old bedroom since they weren’t using it.”

I hid my face with my pint glass, not wanting my expression to relay more emotion than it should. When we’d first started dating, Hunter had been living in a two-bedroom apartment with Sara, a friend of hers from high school. Sara and I had never really bonded even though she too had once been one of my students, but I’d preferred her to Hunter’s second roommate, Loryssa—a model-beautiful woman who’d slipped into Hunter’s bed after a night of heavy drinking. To say I had been upset would be an understatement.

I could feel her curious eyes on me, waiting for a reaction. I only responded when I reached the end of my beer. “I’m glad it all worked out.”

She nodded and chewed on the inside of her lip, and her eyes dropped to her own glassware. It was a curious reaction—almost as if she was disappointed I hadn’t said or done something more when she’d mentioned Loryssa’s name. I didn’t trust the girl, but I had no claim over Hunter anymore.

“I think Troian’s trying to get my attention,” I announced. She wasn’t, but I needed an excuse to extradite myself from the conversation.

Hunter nodded and awarded me a soft, wistful smile. The smile had me wanting to stay; who knew the next time I’d get to talk to her again like this? But self-preservation had me walking away with my willpower and dignity still intact.

I found Troian sitting by herself at the head table, surrounded by an assortment of empty wine glasses. Nik wasn’t in sight, but I assumed she was making the rounds and being her warm, welcoming self.

I flopped down beside my best friend. “Why so glum?” I had an excuse to be in a sour mood, but she looked too serious for the occasion.

“I paid for a DJ and no one’s dancing,” she complained. “I could have set up a laptop and saved myself the money.”

“I don’t see you dancing either,” I pointed out. “Who wants to dance if even the bride’s not out there? Shouldn’t you be dancing with Nik or at least a toddler and giving the photographer some photo ops?”

Troian drank from a water glass. She’d successfully avoided alcohol so far; quite the feat when your wedding and reception were being hosted at a vineyard. “Nik’s around here somewhere,” she said, waving a hand.

“Are you really worried about the money?” Troian was notoriously sensible when it came to dollars and cents. She wasn’t cheap, but she was frugal. The only time I’d seen her make an unreasonable purchase had been her sports car in Minnesota.

“No. But why isn’t anyone dancing? This is a nightmare.”

“No one’s drunk enough and all of your California friends are too cool for school. If we were back in the Midwest—”

“People would be doing the polka or the Macarena,” Troian cut me off. “Please, I don’t need that visual.”

“Don’t worry,” I said, patting her hand. “The Best Woman is on it.” I stood from the table and crossed over to the table where our friends from the studio—an unorthodox combination of writers, techies, and actors—sat.

“Guys, I have a huge favor to ask.” I lowered my voice and leaned in conspiratorially and they all did the same. “The brides are concerned that no one’s dancing. Can I trust you guys to remedy this problem?”

Sonja leaned forward and flashed an eager grin. “You’ve got it, Professor.”

I snapped my head in Lucy’s direction. She shrugged and smiled sheepishly. Apparently what happened in Nightshade didn’t necessary stay there.

The dancing was contagious. Once I convinced the young, attractive people at the party to let go of their inhibitions, others followed. I didn’t particularly enjoy dancing unless a beautiful woman was attached to my hip, but even I joined the mob after a while. Nik and Troian came out to dance as well, and I was happy to see that the deep concern had disappeared from Troian’s face.

I mostly danced with people from work—I didn’t know many of Nik’s friends or family and Troian’s traditional family scared me. But after a few songs, I recognized someone else in our group—Hunter.

We smiled and acknowledged each other’s presence, but I was sure to maintain a respectable distance between us at all times, always positioning at least a few random bodies between us as a buffer. I didn’t trust myself. But as the night wore on and the drink count increased, the buffer zone dwindled, along with my reservations.

Our eyes locked and her mouth curled into a shrewd look. She curled her finger in a come hither motion. By now the warning voice inside my head had become flashes of one color—red.

I didn’t know who touched whom first, but at some point I realized that my hands were at her hips and her arms were thrown around my neck. I dug my thumbs into her hipbones, which had her eyelashes fluttering and her seeking out her lower lip for something to bite. It was simultaneously too much and not enough. Thankfully we both wore dresses with full, crinoline skirts so a generous bolt of fabric separated our lower bodies. But that didn’t mean we didn’t try to get closer than was appropriate.

She leaned in, lips nearly brushing against my ear. “You still owe me a dance.”

I pulled back. Her blue eyes bore into mine, her eye contact unwavering. I should have separated from her. Drank some water. Let my emotions and my body cool down. But instead I found myself asking her the question that could change everything: “Do you want to get out of here?”

I wasn’t blind to her hesitation. We both knew this was a bad idea. If Troian hadn’t been busy falling even deeper in love with her new bride, she would have been pulling us apart and reminding me to be careful with my heart. Alcohol could only numb the emotions for too long. But Troian was too distracted to talk or at least shake some sense into me.

Hunter nodded, looking as flushed as I felt.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

My heels sank into damp grass, hindering my already wobbly progress. It took all of my concentration not to walk out of my shoes as we picked our way through the dark. Hunter tiptoed behind me through the soggy dirt, laughing as she too was sucked into the soft earth. She reached for me in the darkness to steady her steps. Her warm hand slipped through mine, but we managed to lock pinkies and jointly hopped the rest of the way to the guesthouse.

All of the windows in the farmhouse were dark. Everyone staying in the property was still at the reception. A solitary lamp—a mason jar with a miniature light bulb inside—illuminated the front porch, which was little more than a succession of wooden pallets. I reached for the front door, but Hunter’s hand at my elbow stopped me. I turned to her, worried that maybe she’d realized this was a bad idea. Maybe she had changed her mind.

My eyes searched her beautiful face for some sign as to what she was thinking, but her face was unreadable. She took a quick step and slid into my space. Surprisingly steady hands fell to my hips. One hand left my hip and slid up my body to cup the side of my face. Her fingertips brushed my cheekbone and temple. I closed my eyes and turned my face into her touch to press my lips against her palm.

Her fingertips guided me back and she leaned towards me, erasing the breath between us. My hand went to the side of her face—perfect mirror images of each other. It felt like the first night we’d spent together; I had known there would be consequences when I’d kissed her a full year ago. She’d stood in her bare feet in my front foyer, ready to flee the embarrassment of rejection, but I’d kissed her and had led her upstairs to my bedroom. And I was about to do it again.