I returned his smile. He held out his elbow for my mom, and Charlotte and Avalee followed them, Charlotte’s train billowing behind her as the photographer checked his watch, cursed, and rushed after them. So much for the family photo; I guessed showing up for the actual wedding was more of a priority. Ford’s family and the rest of the wedding party dashed after everyone else. It was a beautiful sight, everyone in their formal wear running across the expansive green lawn toward a line of sparkling white limos. It would have made a perfect picture if the photographer had stayed around long enough to see it.
One figure lingered on the lawn, watching Boone and me with the same grimace I’d grown used to as kids. Ford lumbered forward a few steps, clucking his tongue. “Bad choice, Clara Bella. Such a bad one.” Ford motioned at me in Boone’s hold like I was a chick caught in the talons of a raptor.
“Ford—”
“I tried to help you. I went out of my way to help you.” Ford thrust his arms in my direction. “And look at all the good it did. You’re right back where you started. In the arms of a nobody who knocked you up and waved good-bye. When it happens again, don’t come crying to me. My sympathy’s run its course with you.”
Boone’s arms tightened around me, his jaw going rigid. I was just about to snap something back when Boone let me go and angled toward Ford.
“You know, you bringing that up reminds me that I owe you something,” he said, stopping a couple feet back from Ford.
Ford fired off a disgruntled huff, crossing his arms. “What the hell could you possibly owe me?”
At the same time Boone’s mouth opened, his arm wound back. “This,” he snapped a moment before his fist connected with Ford’s face.
I was alone again. Sprawled out in a chair at a wide empty table, watching from the sidelines as a bunch of people had a grand time.
Avalee was tearing it up with her fiancé on the gleaming teak dance floor; Charlotte and Ford were in the middle of the floor, swaying together in slow circles to a fast-paced song; and my mom was playing the indelible, tireless hostess.
But me? I was alone.
For the first time in a while, it was out of choice.
After dancing and talking and singing and having what constituted one hell of a time, my feet were throbbing, my skin was sticky with sweat, and my body was spent. I needed a moment alone if for no other reason than to wipe my armpits with a couple of napkins and massage a few knots out of my feet.
Leaning back in my chair, I realized this was the first minute I’d had to myself to relax and attempt to take in everything that had happened throughout the day. Besides my sister marrying my ex-boyfriend, who my present one had given an impressive black eye to an hour before the ceremony, I’d managed to come to some sort of understanding with my family. The Abbotts, not exactly your typical American family on the surface, but beneath all of that, we struggled through the same rivalries, good intentions going off course, resentment, and misunderstanding, and finally—or at least where I’d wound up—understanding and acceptance.
I’d dreaded this week for a dozen different reasons. I’d come up with just as many excuses not to come. This week hadn’t just been a pivotal one in Charlotte’s life, but in mine as well. To miss it would have meant spending the next however-many-years of my life perpetually avoiding my family and my memories of Boone.
To have lived this week made all the difference.
My “plus one” had disappeared after not letting me leave the dance floor for fifteen songs, and yes, I had been counting. When a woman was stuffed into a sausage-casing type dress (alterations and everything, the dress was still tight) and shoes that could only be described as the root of evil, one started counting songs after the first three.
Boone. He was in my life again. Maybe he’d never really left it, but he wouldn’t continue to be a ghost haunting it. Instead, I’d have the real living, breathing, grinning-like-there-was-always-some-secret Boone Cavanaugh. How would it work? I didn’t know. How long would it work? I didn’t know. How often would we see each other, and would that be enough, and where would this journey take us? I came up empty in the answer department there as well.
All I knew was that those were just details. Bullet points in the grand scheme. We’d let enough details muddy the waters between us; I wouldn’t make that mistake again. As Boone had said, the places we’d been broken before reminded us of what we needed to be careful to protect.
I would protect our weak spots. I would protect the strong ones too.
I was just slipping out of my other shoe to massage my other foot, which had grown its own heartbeat and was throbbing in pain, when I noticed someone whisk up to the center of the long bridal party table and crouch down to rustle through her clutch. Charlotte’s train had been gathered so she could dance, and her veil had been removed from the delicate tiara combed into her hair. Her skin was flushed from the heat and what I guessed was happiness, and her eyes gave away just how excited she was, despite her face holding an expression of mild amusement carefully in place.