“Bow bouquet?” Blair asked in alarm.
“No bow bouquet,” Megan said, picking up a pad of paper and a pen from the gift table. “Start writing.”
Blair went out of her way to avoid showers of any kind, but it didn’t take a fool to realize the present opening was proceeding at a much faster clip than it did at most parties. She knew she had her friends to thank for that. As soon as Blair opened the last gift—a twenty-dollar Target gift card from the high school friend she couldn’t remember—Knickers looked up at the group and beamed.
“Time for games!”
Shoot me now.
Chapter Fifteen
Garrett watched in shock as Blair walked out the door and returned to her wedding shower, leaving him standing there.
“We need to chat,” Libby said, grabbing his arm and dragging him to the breakfast table.
He resisted her tug. “No. I need to get out there.”
“Hey, Libs. I’ve got this.” Noah clapped a hand on Garrett’s shoulder. “Why don’t we go outside for a minute?”
“I don’t think so,” he said through gritted teeth and took a step toward the back door. He had to put a stop to this.
Noah blocked his path. “Trust me, dude. If you want the girl, you don’t want to do this right now.”
Garrett blinked in surprise.
Noah smirked. “It’s not that obvious to anyone else . . . yet. But if you go over there now, everyone in the whole damn party will know. And that’s not how you want this to play out. And I know that’s not how Blair wants it to play out.” He grabbed two beer bottles out of the refrigerator, then motioned to the door to the living room. “Come on.”
Garrett studied both of them, unsure of their motives, but his mind was spinning too fast for him to think clearly.
“Do you still care about her?” Libby demanded, hands on her hips.
“What?” He blinked. So much was happening at once, he wasn’t sure he should answer. He felt like any hope of getting Blair back had just been yanked out from under him.
Josh, who’d been standing at the periphery of the room for most of the last five minutes, stared out one of the back windows, his jaw tight. “I don’t trust that prick, and I don’t want him out there with my wife.” Then he stomped out the door.
Garrett could only presume the prick was Neil, which eased some of the tension from his shoulders.
Without warning, Libby snatched Garrett’s right hand and pulled it closer, her thumb brushing his fingers open.
He considered pulling free until he remembered her earlier demand to read his palm.
Her index finger traced his hand, following lines for several seconds until she looked up into his face. “When you love, you love for keeps. Is she the one?”
Noah chuckled as his brother disappeared out the door. “Libby, just look at him and you’ve got your answer. Let me handle this.”
She studied him for another second before dropping his hand. “Okay.”
With a grin, Noah handed one of the beer bottles to Garrett. “Libs, go out and keep an eye on things—Josh included. This might take a little bit, but come get me if you need me.”
Libby gave them both a once-over, then pointed a finger in Noah’s face. “You better not screw this up.”
He laughed, completely unthreatened, then clapped an arm around Garrett’s shoulders and led him through the living room and out the front door.
“This some elaborate ploy to kick me out?” Garrett asked, half-joking.
“Nah. Josh and I could have easily kicked your ass out the door. We wouldn’t need a ploy.” He settled onto the top step and opened his bottle, then took a long drag.
Garrett sat next to him, putting his hands behind his head. He wasn’t sure what Noah’s purpose actually was. He had one, Garrett was sure of that, but he wasn’t about to let down his guard. Now that Blair had kissed him with that same fiery passion he remembered, he wasn’t backing down. Not a chance in hell.
Noah leaned his elbows on his knees and tilted his head to look at him. “So you love her, huh?”
Was it so obvious? “Yeah.”
“Do you think she loves you?”
Garrett didn’t answer, sorting through his thoughts. From the way she’d kissed him back, he thought there was a definite possibility. But she’d walked out on him no more than a couple of minutes later. “I don’t know. This morning I would have said no. I broke her heart five years ago. I definitely don’t deserve her. But now . . .”
“Hey, who does deserve the love of a good woman?” Noah asked, but it sounded self-deprecating. “But it doesn’t mean you should give up. Otherwise hardly anyone would get married. So what are you going to do about it?”
Garrett sighed and ran a hand over his head. “My sister told me to show her I’m not an ass anymore, but I’m under a tight deadline here. That plan might work if I had a month or two. So I tried to apologize to her in the kitchen . . .” He wasn’t sure he should confess that she kissed him first. He knew her, and he suspected she was in agony over the thought that she’d just cheated on Neil. “I know she still feels something for me.”
“You need to step up your game, dude.”
Garrett took a long sip of his beer and lowered the bottle. “I think I may have just pushed her away.”
They sat in silence for a minute before Noah said, “I don’t know Blair very well, but I know she likes to act like a hard ass. From what Libby says, she resists letting anyone get close to her.”