Dallas and Robyn kiss again on the photographer’s command and I have to look away.
I can’t explain it, but it hurts to see such blatant displays of affection when I’m consumed with this longing for a man who keeps his heart so closely guarded from me in particular. A man who is so close I can inhale him, smell him, and practically taste him. The heat radiates from his body and warms mine. If I leaned back a few inches I would be resting on his chest, a tempting thought that makes me hate myself. But I need the . . . contact.
I clench my hands around the neck of the bouquet and focus on smiling. On breathing. On keeping myself still where I stand and not dragging Gavin into a back room to force him to give me what I need.
Answers. Explanations. Himself.
“Okay, I think we’re good for now,” Jacqueline, the photographer calls out, finally allowing me to relax a few fractions of an inch. “We’ll get a few more at the reception and some as you leave for the honeymoon.”
So much for relaxing. I haven’t had time to mentally prepare myself for the reception. Dancing. Touching. Other women. Single women who will want to take their turn on the dance floor with Gavin so they can slip him their numbers while I watch.
I am better than this. I am not this girl anymore.
No one else has ever had this effect on me and it infuriates me that he does. Still.
It also doesn’t bode well for my ability to play music on the road with a single Gavin Garrison whom I bear no claim to. I nod and force a smile for Robyn and my brother before heading around behind the chapel and into the sprawling backyard, where guests are already mingling at the reception.
Robyn’s mom waves from the middle of a group of ladies about her age and I wave back, but I keep walking. What I need is in the back corner of the barn in Jag’s pants.
Once I reach the table where he’s sitting with his dad and his dad’s girlfriend, Gina, I set my flowers down and hold out my hand. With an eye roll I ignore, he hands over the shiny, silver flask.
“Pace yourself, crazy girl,” he warns low under his breath as I take my first swallow of gloriously burning liquid fire.
“Pacing is for sissies,” I mutter back before taking another drink. My heart pounds hard in my chest but the sweet burn distracts me from my oncoming anxiety attack.
“I’m guessing pictures went well?” Jag retrieves the flask of what I’m pretty sure is Jack Daniel’s from my reluctant hands.
“Fabulous.”
“The ceremony was beautiful,” Gina says softly. I recognize the way she’s looking at Jag’s dad. She’s wondering if they’ll ever have a ceremony like this one. I know the feeling. Maybe this is why so many people have sex at weddings—it makes you slightly desperate and strangely turned on.
“It was,” I say, because saying thank you feels like taking credit for something I didn’t really have much to do with. I didn’t actually pay much attention to the décor because I was busy keeping my shit together, but I did see tears in Dallas’s eyes when Robyn promised to make his dreams as important as her own.
Watching those two be so deeply in love is probably going to kill me. Particularly since I’m just a few strays away from becoming a lonely old cat lady at the ripe young age of twenty.
Or a groupie of a member of my own band.
Fuck.
Levi’s band launches into a song called “Love You Like That,” by Canaan Smith, and Gina drags Jag’s dad off to the dance floor.
“Don’t be stingy, McKinley,” I practically growl once our company is gone.
“Don’t get wasted, Lark,” he answers while handing the flask to me once again. “I’m serious. Your brother will be pissed and nothing good will come of you getting hammered and making decisions you’ll regret.” Jaggerd’s eyes drift over my shoulder and I follow his gaze.