“Clara, sweetheart, hold up a minute!”
Boone slowed to match my pace right before we both came to a stop. He looked at me staring at my family waving us back, and he sighed. “It’s like they know. Every single time. I swear they’ve got built-in radar when it comes to you and me trying to sneak away.”
“I’m surprised you’re only just figuring this out.” I winked at him and gave his hand a tug back toward the reception.
As we drew closer, I saw why I’d been called back. The photographer had managed to round up all of the Abbotts, along with Ford, to get the family photo he’d been trying to get earlier. This one though would be more fitting than the picture-perfect, all-white smiles and perfect posture one would have been.
This one would be an accurate depiction of the Abbotts. Me in my ripped dress, which was ugly as sin but my sister had forced me to wear as a bridesmaid. Ford with his glaring black eye, earned from being a regular dick and all-around asshole. My dad with his bow tie a little cock-eyed, half-drunk tumbler of scotch in hand. Even my mom . . . she’d kicked off her heels and was padding around the grass in her sheer pantyhose.
“Come on, honey. We’ve got to get a family photo to remember the day.” My dad motioned me over as everyone else clustered up in a way that was not wedding-photographer approved based on the way the photographer was gaping at the scene forming in front of him.
I started their way, Boone following me until he stopped beside the photographer. He couldn’t stifle his smile as he inspected the group before him.
The photographer was just getting into position to snap the photo, when my dad lifted held up his hand. “What are you doing over there, Boone?” He waved him over. “You better squeeze your way into this circus too.”
My head twisted toward my dad.
Boone’s brows touched his hairline. “I thought it was a family photo.”
My dad circled his finger around all of us and shrugged. “It is.” He gave Boone another wave. “Now get the hell over here.”
Boone didn’t pause to think that over. Jogging to my side, he squeezed in between my dad and me, cinching his arms around me. His mouth lowered to my ear as the photographer fired off a series of sighs before returning to his camera.
“Thanks for asking me to be your plus one.”
I looked back at him. He was looking at me. “Thanks for being my date.”
The photographer snapped the photo.
Frozen in time. Moments could be seen through the shutter of a camera, but eventually we all had to move on from the past. Willingly or forced.
For the first time in years, I was marching forward of my own doing, content to leave the past exactly where it belonged. It was a revelation. One that set me free at the same time it grounded me.
Another two hours had gone by, my family refusing to let Boone and me sneak away like we’d attempted earlier. Well, they let me sneak away for a few minutes, but it was only to change out of The Ruined Thing into something more comfortable. After a few more rounds of photos, a few more spins on the dance floor, and the three Abbott sisters taking the stage to serenade the guests as they slowly made their way back to their cars, we finally got our moment.
He didn’t say a word. He just took my hand and led me across the lawn toward where his truck was parked out in the field. The night was more morning than evening by that point, almost silent but for the sounds of the night coming to an end and the sounds of morning not quite ready to come alive. It was the time when a person could almost be made to believe in magic. The time of the night when a person could almost be swayed into believing in foolish notions and fairy-tale endings.
“Are you sure you don’t want to stay?” Boone asked as we came around the side of his truck.
I brushed his stomach as he swung the door open for me, and I stepped inside the truck. “Let’s see. I like all of my family right now. They all like me. I’m not going to press my luck.”
“Sounds like a solid policy,” he said before closing the door.
As he loped around the front of the truck, I settled my number eighteen angel into my lap, nestling her between my legs so she wouldn’t bounce to the floor and break again when we hit a pothole.
After launching himself inside the truck, he fired it up, put his hands on the steering wheel, studied the empty space in front of us and the quiet road behind us, then glanced my way. “Well? Where are we heading?”
“I don’t know. How long of a journey did you have in mind?”
“As long of a journey as you plan on taking, that’s how long.” Boone punched the truck into reverse, sending a spray of dust and gravel around us before he fired his old truck down the road. Down the road that led west. The direction I had in mind.