Did Garrett really still love her? And if so, what did it mean?
All she could process at the moment was that her world was toppling over like a tower of blocks, and she had no idea how to stop it.
Nana Ruby’s eyes narrowed as she glanced up at her grandson. “What are you doing here? Where’s Garrett?”
Neil slid next to Blair. When he spoke, his voice was tight. “He’s in the house. Where he belongs.” He wrapped an arm around Blair’s waist and pulled her hip against hers. “I’m here to open presents with my bride.” He leaned over and kissed her again, setting off a round of oohs and awws from the gathered audience. Blair just stood next to him, still in shock. He was showing more public displays of affection than usual, which was throwing her off almost as much as everything else that was going awry in her life.
“Garrett’s here somewhere,” Debra said, trying to untangle herself from a purse handle.
“I know,” he said coolly as his hand dug tighter into her hip. It was meant to show her that he was still there—seething but still there. She found it suffocating.
“Garrett’s in the house drinking a beer with Noah,” Josh said, walking up behind Neil. “Not to worry. He’s still here.”
Blair shot him a look, surprised by his confrontational tone.
“Debbie Sue,” Nana barked. “Sit down before you fall into the pool.”
Debra began to giggle, and Dena gave her a strange look before turning her attention to her restless children.
Clearly determined to single-handedly defuse the situation, Megan walked over and grabbed Blair’s wrist. “Present time,” she said, pulling Blair away from Neil and leading her over to the chair she’d set out.
When Neil started to drag a chair over to her, Megan held up her hand.
“Oh, no. You get to sit with all the other women.”
Josh dragged over two chairs and pointed to one of them. “Here you go, buddy.”
“But they’re my presents too. Don’t I get to help open them?” He flashed a charming smile to the gathered women.
“That’s not how showers work,” Josh said, pushing Neil into the chair. “It’s all about the woman. You wouldn’t want to steal Blair’s limelight, would you? You want her to be happy, don’t you?” The questions were barbed enough to surprise Neil into compliance. He sat down; Josh sat next to him.
“Isn’t that sweet?” one of Blair’s former high school classmates asked. She couldn’t even remember the woman’s name. Why had she been invited? Then again, this was Knickers’s party, not hers, so it made sense that Megan’s mother had invited the most perfect, and perfectly coiffed, people she knew—excluding Neil’s family, of course. Ordinarily, Blair would stand at the periphery and laugh at a spectacle like this, but she was stuck firmly in the middle of it, along with her confusion over Garrett and how to handle Neil, and she wasn’t laughing at all. Her brain was currently too stunned to process anything.
She was completely out of her perfectly organized comfort zone.
What was perhaps most startling of all was Megan’s behavior. While Blair had always been the natural leader of the trio, Megan was the take-charge girl in a crisis, and she was clearly in disaster recovery mode at the moment. What had Noah said to make her take control? Had her . . . indiscretion with Garrett been so obvious that everyone could tell? She was about to die of embarrassment, an emotion she found strangling.
She looked up at Megan with pleading eyes. “I don’t think I can do this, Megs,” she whispered. The quiver in her own voice frightened her.
Megan squatted a few inches. “You can. And you will. If we cancel the party, it’s going to raise red flags. We’ll get through it as quickly as possible, and then we’ll figure everything out. Okay?” The understanding and love in her friend’s eyes was probably the only thing that could have soothed her. She found herself nodding like a puppet whose strings had been pulled. The thought of being weak and malleable provided a spark of anger. She was familiar with anger. Anger was an old friend who’d kept her company more than half her life. Anger she could use. She grabbed hold and held tight before it slipped under the current of her other emotions.
Megan watched her face, then slowly shook her head and whispered, “Don’t you dare lash out at people, Blair. You’ll only make things worse. Libby and I are going to get you through the next hour—then when we’re alone, you can call the two of us every nasty name you have tucked in a file in your brain.” She smiled. “Trust me. Okay?”
Placing her trust in another person felt unnatural to her, and she could honestly say she never had. Not even with Garrett all those years ago. But she was drowning, and Megan was offering her a lifeline. Megan and Libby had been her best friends since kindergarten. They loved her and would do everything in their power to help her.
As if sensing her thoughts—and her need—Libby came out the back door, her face a study in determination. She’d gone into defense mode too. Yes, it was time to rely on her friends. After all, if she couldn’t trust her two best friends, who could she trust?
“Okay.”
Megan’s eyes softened. “Thank you.” Then she grabbed a gift bag off the table and handed it to Blair. “Mom, do you want to keep the list of gifts?”
Megan’s mother glanced around, looking even more flustered when she realized the party-goers were watching Blair in silent curiosity. “But I need to get the board to make her bow bouquet.”