“I don’t have time to small talk with you. I need to socialize.” Yet she didn’t move from her spot. Not that he was surprised. She had always hated this kind of thing.
“This doesn’t seem like you, Blair. A wedding shower? We used to make fun of this shit,” he teased.
She released a long sigh. “I tried to get out of it, but Knickers is relentless.”
He laughed. “Knickers?”
“Nicole. Megan’s mom. We nicknamed her Knickers back when we were kids.” She glared at him. “But she doesn’t know, so don’t you dare call her that.”
He grinned. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”
“Good.” She scanned the twenty people covering the patio. “We’re grown-ups now, and apparently this sort of thing goes with the territory.”
“And your wedding? It’s not at a courthouse like you always said you wanted. Nana said it’s going to be in a big fancy church.”
“You should have gotten an invitation with all the details,” Blair said. “Debra insisted on inviting everyone she knew to the wedding of her doctor son and his lawyer fiancée.”
He cringed. “I saw Neil’s name on the invite and tossed it into the trash before reading anything else. Including your name.” He worried about delving into dangerous water, but nothing risked, nothing gained. “You really didn’t realize it was me when you sent it out?”
“I didn’t address them. My now-absentee wedding planner did. Debra sent her a very long list, which I didn’t really inspect.”
“So a big, fancy wedding, huh?”
She stiffened slightly. “The partners expect it.”
To anyone else, it might have gone unnoticed, but to him that statement filled in a missing puzzle piece.
“Blair!” a young woman called out as she came through the back door carrying a small pink box topped with a large white ribbon. “I haven’t seen you in ages.”
Blair smiled, but Garrett could see it was forced. “Ashley. I think it was our five-year reunion.”
Ashley gave Garrett a thorough once-over and beamed. “It looks like you’ve done very well for yourself. You two make a striking couple. I wholeheartedly approve.”
“What?” Blair asked in confusion that quickly turned to alarm. “Oh, no. This is Garrett Lowry. The cousin of the groom. Neil isn’t here.”
“Oh, that’s unusual.” Ashley’s mouth twisted. “And unfortunate. Unless the groom is even better looking.” She winked.
Blair glanced down at her friends. “Libby and Megan are over there. You should go say hi.”
Garrett leaned into her ear and whispered, “She thinks we look good together.”
Blair turned her head to look up at him, her mouth closer to his than seemed appropriate. Conflict raged in her eyes before they hardened. “A relationship needs to be based on far more than looks.”
God, it was hard to be this close to her without touching her, but he was sure she’d bolt if he did, not to mention the whole issue of this being her wedding shower for her marriage to another man. “I agree. But I think there’s more to it than compatibility.”
“You mean sex?” she asked. It was obvious she was trying to sound disgusted, but her words came out breathless at the end.
Jesus, from the way her eyes dilated, he could tell she was thinking about them in bed. He had to steer the conversation in a different direction soon, or he’d embarrass himself. He shifted his weight slightly. “Well, yeah, amazing sex is a given, right?”
“Not necessarily.”
He was tempted to let her statement pass, but he just couldn’t. “I suppose that could be true for people who aren’t very sexual, but some people have a natural fire, don’t you think?” Then, before she could counter, he shifted the topic. “But I didn’t just mean sex, anyway. There are other important considerations in a relationship.”
“Like what?” she asked without sarcasm.
He forced himself to rein in his hope. “The two people should know each other’s hopes and dreams. The little things that make each other happy. They should share inside jokes and secrets. And love.” He tacked it onto the end, making it sound like an afterthought.
“Love,” she scoffed.
“Of course love.” He kept his tone light. “Love is the foundation on which the entire relationship is built. A relationship is nothing without love.”
Sadness flooded her eyes, and she looked close to crying for a moment. Then her body stiffened. “I think we need ice.” And with that, she bolted for the back door.
He considered letting her go. He’d clearly struck a nerve, and he didn’t want to agitate her too much at a party that was being held in her honor. But time was running out, and now that he’d peeled back a section of her protective layer, he needed to keep digging if he hoped to get through to her.
He went through the back door and found her in front of the sink holding onto the counter, panic in her eyes.
“What do you know about love, Garrett Lowry?” she said, looking at the side yard through the window. “You found our love so disposable you were willing to toss it aside to sleep with someone the very next night.”
He gave up all pretense of playing it cool and spanned the room in four footsteps to stand at her side. “I didn’t sleep with her, Blair. I swear to God. I was an idiot the night I walked out and an even bigger idiot when I got so drunk with my buddy that I couldn’t drive. I let Jody take me home.”