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I do catch a glimpse of different brightness, and it’s wild that the one and only other person I ever let slip through my fingers approaches.
Marc.
One of my two best friends in Cornwall pushes through the undergrowth, heading straight towards me. Or at least, that’s what my eyes tell me when I see a flash of auburn, only this man wearing a smart suit isn’t an actual redhead. He’s only burnished by light filtered through copper beech leaves, and that warm glow haloes a complete stranger—a wedding guest, given that suit perhaps, whose dark eyes widen as soon as I call out, “She ran that way.”
“Who ran what way?”
Huh.
Even though I can see this isn’t Marc, I hear his London accent. He also shares another Marc characteristic—his eyes dance with silent laughter the same way Marc’s do whenever Stefan shares a joke meant only for his husband.
I’m suddenly self-conscious.
Ducking my head like I used to when I was the last player left on the bench doesn’t help—the shiny blade of my bramble cutter reflects a reason for this guy’s amusement.
There isn’t only bird shit in my hair and on my shoulders. There are sticky burrs in my beard that will be the devil to get out later. I’m scruffy and look stupid. Maybe that’s why I focus on the snagged veil instead of on him. “You’re here for a wedding, right?” I ask gruffly.
“Well…”
I don’t know how it’s possible to hear humour in a single word or to see more of that laughter when I glance at him again.
All I know is that heislaughing even while silent. I see it in his head tilt and in the way he looks me up and down. Hear it too when he says, “I’m not against whirlwind romances, but I can’tsay I was planning on tying the knot today. Ask me again when we know each other better.”
“Ask you again… What?” I’m flustered. “No. I just meant that, if you’re here for the wedding, your bride ran that way.”
“My bride? Nah, mate.” He doesn’t laugh exactly, but that’s what I hear again when his voice lowers and he gets busy doing what my thick and shaking fingers can’t manage. He makes short work of untangling the veil from brambles, and even shorter work of joking after he folds that fabric and gives it to me. “But if Iwasin the marriage market, I’m more likely to be interested in someone with?—”
He glances at my tool belt, and yeah, he can smile even without his mouth moving. His eyes rise, amusement clear, before dropping to my belt again, and this time my gaze drops with his.
It lands on my axe, and my brain ends that sentence for him.
With a great big chopper.
I’m almost surprised into laughing.
That urge dies the moment he asks, “So what’s the plan with the veil?” He reaches an equally fast conclusion. One I already came to. “Probably not a good idea to run after her to give it back.” He eyes my axe again, that dark gaze rising. It lands on my bramble cutter, and now he’s devoid of humour. “Wait. You didn’t already chase her, did you?”
“I. No. Well, yes, but only because?—”
He isn’t as tall as me.
He doesn’t have my goalkeeper’s wingspan or my huge hands either.
His own still curl, and I take a step back as he advances, and yeah, visually he’s nothing like Marc from this close up, but he’s the only other person I know who gets this protective. Marc gets that way about his little brother, Noah. This stranger mentions a different sibling.
“If you tried chasing my sister through these woods, I’d—” His gaze drops to my bramble cutter again, and I have zero trouble translating his abrupt slicing motion across his throat.
I nod quickly. “Me too. Got a sister.Sisters, I mean.” Three of them, all younger, all relying on me to fund their fast fashion and pop concert habits, and all three of them my reason for hauling myself upright after football crushed me. “Listen, all I saw was a bride running.”
I wince because I can’t avoid that my chainsaw is probably the reason. Its roar more than likely shattered a wedding ceremony, and my hold on that veil tightens, crumpling it between fingers that can hardly feel the lace between them. “I’ll take this back to the chapel.” The thought of doing that leaves me even gruffer. “Let her family know which way she was headed.”
That raises another question, my turn to step forward and for him to step back like we’re dancing. “Wait, if you aren’t here for the wedding, why are you in these woods?” Here’s what being a big brother also makes instinctive. I’m instantly suspicious, a hand dropping to my belt. “Only people with special clearance around kids are allowed here.” Yeah, the students aren’t back yet, but some of the live-in staff have kids. I picture little Adam, and this anger is instant. “If you aren’t invited to the wedding, you need to leave. Now. I’ll show you the way out.”
“Oh, I’ve got clearance, and I’m invited,” he insists before backing off, those dark eyes dancing again. “Only not to a wedding, which is a shame.”
He’s gone, swallowed up by these woods like that bride was.
Or almost.
