Not that I’ve seen him often, but he’s always smiling when I see him washing his truck with his golden retriever watching on.
Bob laughs nervously, and the bride—a woman closer to my age than Bob’s age—rushes over in an ivory scoop-neck satin gown. There’s nary a jiggle in her slender thighs under the tight material, and I don’t think she’s wearing Spanx to keep her stomach that flat.
“Josh. You made it.” She kisses him on both cheeks, then turns to me and takes both of my hands in hers. There’s something vaguely familiar about her high cheek bones, the thick blond hair, and the upturned nose. “Oh, my, aren’t you precious. I’m so glad you could be here for Josh today. I know this has been hard on him, but when it’s love, it’s love.”
She kisses both my cheeks too, then waves to someone behind us. “Oh, Aunt Marge! Excuse us. The seating chart is over by the door.”
Bob hustles to keep up with Caroline, and I shoot Josh a curious look. “You know your boss’s fiancée?”
“We dated once,” he says briefly, and I suddenly realize that’s why she’s familiar.
She was at his house more than once when I stopped by to say hi to Muffy and Aunt Hilda over the summer.
“Once?” I press.
“Let’s go figure out where we’re sitting.”
We’ve been relegated to one of the back tables, which is still an awesome view of the tank, because there’s no bad view when the whales and eels and schools of every kind of ocean fish imaginable swim past the huge wall of windows. I take a seat beside a bird-like woman in black who already has three empty drink glasses in front of her.
“Get you something before they start?” Josh asks, dipping low so he can whisper directly in my ear.
“Ah, a glass of red, please.”
He disappears after bestowing a heated smile on me, and the woman in black with the salt and pepper hair gives me a once-over before following Josh with her eyes. “Can’t believe she gave up that for an old cheating geezer.”
I snap my jaw shut when I realize I’m gaping. Because it sounded like—
The woman chuckles. “So you’re the ringer.” She slides glossy eyes over me. I’m starting to feel like a slab of steak in a meat counter. “The boy has taste, I’ll give him that. Wait until you see my—hiccup!—date.” She lowers her voice and leans in until I can smell the gin on her breath. “He’s twenty. And I paid him to give me a lap dance halfway through the ceremony. Those college boys will do anything for a couple grand. Don’t tell—hic!—Bob that that’s where his alimony’s going, mm-kay?”
So, it’s going to be one of those weddings. “Your secret’s safe with me,” I tell her.
She winks. “I like you.”
“I like you too.”
Josh returns with an easier smile and two glasses of wine. “Mrs. Smith,” he says to the woman.
She snorts. “Call me Sarah. Mrs. Smith is about to be that floozy. No offense.”
He darts an uneasy glance at me, but I just give him an amused I know what’s going on smile.
“None taken,” he tells her.
Another man, this one tall, olive-skinned, with short dark hair and a suit that seems to be custom-fit, approaches the table and pulls a chair away from the black linen tablecloth. “Water for you, Sarah.”
“Honey, say it in Spanish and use that accent,” she says.
He obliges, his youthful face lighting up as she slips him a hundred-dollar bill.
Bob’s watching, but I’m pretty sure he missed the money under the table.
“So, your ex is marrying your boss?” I murmur to Josh.
“Prefer to think of it as him saving me from making a big mistake.” He’s smiling, but his voice isn’t.
Yep.
Definitely that kind of wedding.
“Don’t suppose you want to make out?” he asks while Sarah’s date—whom she’s calling Enrique, but who is apparently actually named Sean—pulls her up for an impromptu slow-dance.
Without music.
Before the ceremony starts.
Actually— “Is this the whole wedding, or just the reception?” I ask.
“The whole fucking wedding,” he replies on a sigh.
I scope out the rest of the wedding guests and decide Bob and Caroline aren’t so much popular as they are generous, because nobody seems to be interested in much more than staring at the fish and whispering to each other.
“Just how broken-hearted are you?” I ask.
“Why?” Josh wants to know.
“If we have another date, will it be about us, or about them?”
His eyes dart to the side.
And weirdly, I’m not so disappointed.
Or maybe not weirdly.
“I just broke up with Nick Murphy,” I tell him, because why the hell not? Josh and I clearly aren’t going to be each other’s soul mates. We might as well be honest friends.
His eyes go round. “The hockey player?”
“Yep.”
“Holy shit. And now you get this? That’s a serious demotion in the dating world.”
“Nick Murphy who’s having a shit season?” Sean asks, suddenly stopping. “Is he having a shit season because you broke up with him? Dude. You gotta get back together. He’s my boy. And we gotta win that back-to-back championship. I already bet next year’s tuition on it.”
“When did you break up with him?” Sarah demands. “Was it before or after that horrible game in New York?”
“We weren’t actually dating,” I say quickly.
“It was before!” Sarah shrieks.
Sean shakes his head at me. “I don’t care what you want to call it, you need to give that man more love. We need him stopping pucks.”
“He really is having a shitty season,” Josh says.
“Dearly beloved, we’re about to begin,” a man calls at the front of the room. “If you could take your seats, please?”
“How long were you dating?” Sean whispers around Sarah, who’s also watching me with eyes way more alert than they were a minute ago.
“We weren’t—eight months,” I whisper, because I’m not interested in explaining the entire situation.
“You got him through the championship!” Sarah shrieks.
“I—”
“Wait. Wasn’t that when the whole team was sent to charm school?” Josh asks.
“You know about charm school?”
He nods, all the tension gone. “Yeah. I read that blog—you know, the This Chick Loves Hockey blog?”
I gasp. “That’s my friend Maren’s blog.”
“Whoa, you know Maren? She’s fucking hot,” Sean says.
The minister clears his throat, but it’s hard to see his glare with him backlit by the lights coming through the ocean water.
“Could you introduce us?” Josh whispers.
“You get your booty on your own time,” Sarah hisses. “We need to get Murphy back to the top of his game. Now, why did you break up with him?”
“The wedding’s about to start,” I whisper.
“Fuck them, cheating bastards,” Sean says. “What did he do? He didn’t cheat on you, did he? I’ll put him through the fucking wall if he did.”
“He forgot my birthday, okay?”
Both men stare at me like I’ve sprouted a unicorn horn, but Sarah nods. “Good for you, honey. Good for you. Bob forgot every one of my birthdays for thirty years, and now look where we’re at.”
“We’re talking about the Thrusters winning,” Josh reminds her.
“You can’t ask a woman to screw a guy just so a sports team will win,” Sarah shoots back. “What’s in it for her?”
“Uh, diamonds?” Sean says. “Unless he’s cheating. Is he cheating?”
“I don’t think so,” I sputter.
“Is he at least smart enough to realize you’re his good luck charm and he wants you back?”
I pause.
To the best of my knowledge, Nick has never apologized to anyone voluntarily.
And in addition to the teddy bears, roses, singing telegram, pizza, and dog biscuits, I’ve gotten thirty sets of tickets to Thrusters games—including a few at other arenas, and those came with hotel vouchers and plane tickets—and when I switched on the radio the other day on my drive into work, the DJ kept announcing that every song that morning was dedicated to Kami, from the dum-dum-head who forgot her birthday.
“Oh, he does want you back, doesn’t he?” Sarah says.
Someone at the next table shushes her. Caroline is walking down the aisle, which is really just Caroline walking through the door from the tunnel.
“Did he send flowers?” Sean asks.
“And…then some,” I reply.
“He knows he fucked up?” Sarah brightens. “Oh, honey, you have a chance. You really have a chance. Plus, you’d get way more in alimony than I am if it ever goes south.”
“Would you all be quiet?” someone in front of us hisses.
Sarah flips him off. “Father of the bride,” she murmurs to me. Louder, she replies, “If you didn’t want us here, you shouldn’t have invited us.”
“Mom,” a young woman in pink hisses three tables to our left.
Sarah shrugs. “Sorry, honey. You know your father’s a dickweed.”
“Getting what he deserves,” Josh adds.
And three minutes later, we’re all being shuffled out the door.
“You guys want to go get some drinks at Chester Green’s?” Josh asks.
“And we’ll steal Kami’s phone and call Murphy to see what it’ll take to get his game back on,” Sean agrees.
I shake my head. The last time I was at Chester Green’s didn’t end so well, and I don’t care that the team’s supposed to be boarding a flight to Canada this evening and Nick definitely won’t be there, because other people there still know me.