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“Satisfied?” Finn asked when I had taken in every aspect of the room.
“Not even close,” I shot back without thinking. “Not ever.”
He stepped close to me. I stared at the hollow at the base of his neck as my pulse pounded in my ears. He smelled like soap, warm skin, and the clean clothes he was wearing.
He raised his hands and cupped my jaw. His fingers were gentle, his palms warm. One thumb moved over my cheekbone. I blinked hard, held my breath, and didn’t raise my eyes.
“Juliet,” he said in that whiskey voice, low enough just for me. “I look at you and I wonder what’s going on…” He lifted one hand and trailed his thumb in a line down my forehead, lightly tracing the skin. “Here. I can see so much happening. You think so fucking hard.” He paused, tracing my temple. “One day, you’ll tell me some of it. You’ll trust me that much.”
We were silent, breathing each other in. I could feel the heat of him, hear the hush of his quiet exhale. I watched the beat of his pulse in his neck and remembered how my hands had moved over his stomach of their own volition, how my fingers had slid half an inch behind his belt, unable to let go. As if Finn Wiley was something to hold on to. And now he was touching me as if he wanted to hold on, too.
Slowly, he dropped his hands. Cool air pressed against my flushed skin. Time started moving again.
“We should go,” he said, his voice almost a whisper.
“Yeah,” I said. “We should go.”
NINE
Finn
“Be quiet, everyone. Be quiet,” Josie Barstow said, standing and waving her arms. “I have something to say.”
In my chair beside Alistair, I slid down and felt my shoulders relax. Everyone had turned to look at Vicki and Juliet’s mother, and for the first time, no one was looking at me.
We were in the back room of an Italian restaurant, which had been rented out for a dinner for the wedding party. There were twenty people here, and even though this was an informal social occasion, I’d taken selfies and signed autographs for at least half of them. The only drag was Hayley’s drunk husband, who had treated me to the insufferably smug look that men sometimes gave me. It said, You thought you were a big deal, but now you know what failure’s like, don’t you? You’re no better than me. When introduced, he’d made a point of saying that he was a “million-dollar investor.” Even as a man, I could admit that sometimes my own gender’s dick-measuring was exhausting.
“This is a very special weekend,” Josie was saying now that everyone had quieted down to pay attention. She looked at Vicki, her eyes misty. “It’s a very special occasion. The best occasion.”
Vicki didn’t look much like Juliet, except for the eyes. She had chestnut-brown hair that she wore long below her shoulders, the locks twisted carefully with a curling iron. She wore a tidy navy blue sleeveless top and stylish high-waisted pants. When she returned her mother’s misty look and clapped, her diamond ring and her expensive bracelet flashed under the lights.
My gaze moved from Vicki and cut to Juliet, sitting two chairs away. In this small room, it was easy to look at Juliet, so I did it often. And every time I did, my heart ached.
Juliet was sitting with her back straight, her palms pressed together and squeezed between her knees. After checking in at the hotel, she had changed into a blue-and-white plaid blouse that she had tucked into her jeans and matched with a black belt. Her jeans were seventies-style, narrow in the hips and flared at the bottom, and she wore black boots. Her blond hair was brushed and tied half-up with a small elastic, and she had left off most makeup except for lining her eyes with black.
I knew, with the same depth of knowledge as if I’d packed her bag myself, that this was what Juliet considered her best outfit, her tamest clothes. The blouse was buttoned to the second button and carefully pressed. The jeans were clean with no holes. She wore no jewellery, and she sat so carefully still that I knew she was on her best behavior. And still, in this room with these people, she looked like another species, a stranger who didn’t belong.
Juliet was trying. She was fucking trying. And not only was no one acknowledging it, no one was talking to her at all.
It wasn’t outright rudeness. Vicki had given Juliet a hug, as had Josie. They had both talked to her for five minutes—and then they’d drifted away to talk to the other people in the room, as if Juliet was an acquaintance at a cocktail party. I wanted to walk over and sit next to her myself, but she was telegraphing that she didn’t want me to. Besides, no one had left me the fuck alone.
“My baby is getting married,” Josie said, even though Juliet was the younger daughter of the two. “And all of you came for this weekend, and you’re coming for the wedding, and this is so special I can’t even tell you.”
Next to me, Alistair elbowed me. “Josie is on her third glass of wine,” he explained, a little apologetically.
“My grandchildren are going to remember this forever.” Josie’s gaze was misty again. Vicki and Alistair’s kids were with a sitter for a few hours while the family had dinner. I had seen Alistair check his phone at least three times, clocking how long he had until he went home. He was in charge of going home to the kids tonight, leaving Vicki free to stay later with her friends. I didn’t mind, because the sooner this painful gathering was over, the better.
Josie talked a little more, then Hayley got up to say something. It seemed that there would be impromptu speeches tonight. I thought I was the only one tuned out but pretending to listen, but Alistair said quietly, “It was nice of you to give Juliet a ride from Portland.”
“It was no problem,” I said, taking the excuse to look at Juliet again. Petra—Vicki’s college roommate—had pulled up the chair next to her and was saying something politely.
“You pulled through,” Alistair said. “You got her to come for the whole weekend.”
I shrugged, intending to brush that off, but then I said, “It isn’t easy for her to do this.”
“I know. We’re asking a lot of her. You’re going to be paired with her most of the time. Can you help her?”
“She doesn’t want my help,” I said, which was skirting the question, because of course I was going to help her. I just didn’t want to telegraph Juliet’s anxiety to her entire family. Petra was sitting quietly next to Juliet now, clapping when Hayley paused for applause. I pulled out my phone and typed a quick text.
