So she’d feigned the flu and then told herself that it was just the remnants of a silly teenage crush. She pretended that she was more hurt by Audrey not telling her they were even dating. Their friendship had fizzled somewhere after high school and college. Somewhere along the line, Audrey and Brick had become strangers to her with their own lives apart from hers.
She watched Brick, sleeves rolled up as he traded an empty chafing dish for one full of pulled pork, her father’s favorite.
He was a caretaker, a protector by nature. He wasn’t open to the wild tumble of life, the flow of picking up and moving on. He was a monument. Cast in stone and planted in permanence. And sooner or later, he was going to break her heart again.
Only this time, it would be worse.
How would she survive? How would she look at him across the table in her parents’ dining room and not remember the filthy promises he’d whispered in her ear as his body had taken hers to new heights?
This couldn’t work out. It was destined to end horribly. Maybe that’s why he’d fought the attraction so valiantly. Maybe Brick always understood the potential damage while she was only beginning to realize the truth.
Kyle was staring at his phone, thumbs flying across the screen, as his wife danced with Ken. Hadley and Ian were working their way through their parents’ abandoned slices of cake.
A soul could wither up and die in that kind of life, Remi realized. Even if he wanted her to stay. Even if she gave it her all, there was no guarantee they wouldn’t find themselves in a similar position. And when it ended, everything would be different.
“You look like you could use this,” Darius said, appearing at her side with a frothy orange drink.
“Me?”
“Yes, Ms. Paler Than a Snowman. What’s wrong? Is it your asthma?”
“It’s not my asthma.” It was her stupid freaking heart trying to break itself to pieces over the same man for a third time. “When are people going to stop treating me like an invalid?”
“Maybe when you stop looking so Disney princess-eyed and fragile?”
“Eww. Shut up.”
He nudged her shoulder. “What are we wasting our time bickering for when there’s a dance floor begging for us to wow it?”
Remi drained her drink and did what she did best, blocked out everything but the present moment. “Let’s show ’em what we’ve got.”
After a few energetic laps around the dance floor, Darius deposited her in her brother-in-law’s arms and headed back to the bar.
“Hey,” Remi said.
“Hey yourself.” Kyle Olson’s nickname when Kimber met him was Pretty Boy. It still fit. He had neatly coiffed blond hair, wore dark suits with skinny ties, and flashed a charming smile that disarmed juries and—at one time—her own sister.
Brick walked past them and leveled her with a heated glare that made her feel like her dress was on fire.
“How’s your friend’s novel going?”
Remi missed a beat and stepped on Kyle’s foot.
“My what? Oh! It’s good. Good.”
“You had me worried that you were in some kind of trouble.” Kyle was a trial lawyer. He had a bullshit meter that was more sensitive than most.
“Speaking of worried,” she said, dodging his unasked question, “what is going on with you and my sister?”
His jaw tightened. “I wish I knew.”
“You’re going to work this out,” she said firmly. They had been so in love once. The idea that it could all just disappear was heartbreaking.
“I would if I knew what the problem was. Every time I ask her, she shuts down.”
“Do you ask her like her super cute husband who cares about her and wants her to be happy, or do you ask her like she’s a hostile witness under cross-examination?”
His smile didn’t quite reach his eyes. “There’s a difference?”
“Ha. But seriously.”
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Kimber said into a microphone borrowed from the DJ booth. “It’s time for a walk down memory lane.”
Darlene perched on Gil’s lap, each with a glass of champagne, and gestured for Remi to sit next to them.
“Get over here, Brick,” Darlene said, waving him over. “Join the family.”
Remi’s body tingled as he took the chair behind her.
When the lights dimmed, Brick tugged her chair backward until she was caged in between his long legs. His warm, rough palm cupped the back of her neck possessively, and she relaxed. His touch was a drug that could soothe and arouse.
Prince’s song “Kiss” blared from the speakers, producing a fine mist of yellows and oranges before Remi’s eyes. The colors of happiness.
The crowd “awed” over the earliest pictures of Darlene and Gil’s relationship. ’80s hair. Ripped denim. Hair spray. They were so young and full of hope.
Young Darlene looked at the skinny, gawky Gilbert like he’d hung the stars in the night sky.
The photos tracked a timeline of love and laughter. An entire lifetime of happiness, Remi realized. Sure, it was a highlight reel. There had been fights and frustrations. There had been late nights with vomiting children and long talks about discipline. There had been bills to pay and parents to mourn. There had been rough patches and uncertainty. But they’d made a commitment to each other to grow and change together.
Tears filled her eyes as the happy couple stared down at fresh-to-the-world baby Kimber, sleeping peacefully as her parents gazed at her with awe. A family now.
There was Darlene, pregnant, working the dispatch desk at the station. Gilbert with his bushy mustache and plaid corduroys. Brick’s hold on her tightened almost imperceptibly at the next picture. A tiny, red-faced, red-haired baby frozen mid-scream.
They’d made room for her. Loving her as fiercely as she’d loved them. Even though she’d been different. Even though she’d been too much and not enough.
Was a life like this possible? Could she build one?
She reached behind her and put a hand on Brick’s rock hard thigh, reassuring herself that he was still there.
The song changed to Kool and the Gang’s “Cherish,” and the colors she saw shifted accordingly to purples and blues.
With care, Brick laced his fingers through hers and squeezed her hand, connecting them despite his unexplained anger, despite her confusion and fears. It was real and binding.
What he hadn’t shared with her created a valley between them. But what they’d shared together, the intimacy, the vulnerability, bridged it.
She was electrified sitting there with him in the dark. As if her entire being was plugged into his. As if those broad shoulders and wide chest were the home she’d sought. As if he was a beacon in the dark, a lighthouse.
The craving to have his hands on her, even now, even among family and friends, was overpowering. Handholding had never been erotic before. It had never signified anything more than a flirtation. But in this moment it took on the weight of this secret between them, the weight of the secrets he carried. She felt the steady strength in his grip and knew that her body belonged to him even if her heart and mind couldn’t trust it.