Mac wasn’t happy that I’d left. I think. Or maybe he was happy. Now he didn’t have to deal with cutting me loose.
I stood where he’d left me in the hallway, processing what he’d said. I leaned against the wall and pressed my fingers to my temple. His smell lingered behind, filling the passage with memories of our night together.
I tried to breathe through my mouth.
I had no idea what to make of Mac. His face had been set neutral, almost completely unreadable. I say almost because I could tell one thing for sure: He was bracing himself.
But for what I wasn’t certain. Was he happy with my answer? Was I happy with my answer?
Yes. I was. I had to be. Because it was abundantly clear that even after a summer of abstinence, I was falling back into my old habits. I was, once again, reading far too much into a man who’d told me who he was at every turn. I needed to trust him.
I would not create Mac Walsh in a false image. I would not let him break my heart.
“What was that about?” Kylie muttered to me as I rejoined her at the table where I had been helping her fold the last of the placement cards.
“Nothing,” I said, shaking my head. “Seriously don’t worry about it.”
I hoped Mac was able to sneak out this morning without running into any of the girls in the suite. None of them had mentioned anything though, and even Jules wasn’t giving me shit about disappearing last night. I was grateful. I didn’t know if I could handle disapproving stares.
“Where’d Margot go?” I asked, noticing the blonde was no longer with us.
“She had some stuff to do,” Beck said, joining us at our table.
“Which is more than I can say,” Kylie announced, putting a crease down the last of the cards. “All done. What next?”
I shrugged and looked at Beck, who mirrored my gesture to Mariana. The wedding planner opened her binder and ran a finger down the list.
“Fittings. Check. Set up. Check. Everything was shipped and is waiting for the staff to unload and begin. All the odds and ends… Check.” She enunciated the last ‘check’ by making a large mark with her pen. “Looks like all that’s left is to get ready for the rehearsal later.”
“No,” I said. “There has to be something else. What about decorating the hall?”
Mariana laughed. “The resort will handle that. And I’ll be on hand to make sure it’s in line with the bride’s vision. In fact…” She checked her watch. “I should go talk to the Director of Events and see what the timeline looks like. As for the rest of you, I’d suggest something relaxing. Tonight and tomorrow will be very busy!”
She left. And suddenly, again, I was adrift.
“We’re gonna hit the pool then,” Jules announced immediately. She dragged Keegan out of the room before any of us could say anything.
“There has to be something else we can do,” Sarah said.
Beck shook her head. “You girls have done plenty. Go enjoy the last afternoon. Get a massage or something.”
It didn’t take too much convincing to get Kylie and Sarah off. I was a different story.
“Come on, Alice,” Beck insisted. “There has to be something you haven’t done yet that you wanted to do.”
I shrugged. Screwing Mac had been on the top of the list and now that it was done and he was out of my system (officially and completely), nothing really sprung to mind. “Not really. What are you going to do?”
She bit back a grimace. “I think I need to go greet the guests.”
“I’m pretty positive you need me there for that,” I said. “We don’t want you getting trampled less than twenty-four hours before the big moment.”
“It won’t be a lot of fun.”
I rolled my eyes. “Come on, Beck. You know I hate fun. Let’s do it.”
We lasted about forty minutes, which was about twice as long as I would have lasted if I’d been on my own. We fled back to the banquet hall and, seeing it occupied, further into the industrial kitchen where we weren’t in the way of Mariana and the resort workers.
“Well that sucked,” I said, saying what was on both our minds.
“I don’t know any of these people,” Beck moaned into her hands. She sat on the gleaming floor, her back against an industrial refrigerator.
“I got that impression,” I said from where I sat perched on a prep table. “Who are they? I don’t recognize any of them either.”
She shrugged and stared at the floor. “Most of them are people Sam knows through work. He felt obligated to invite people whose weddings he attended and then that snowballed into half of Manhattan’s real estate sector.” She started to say something, but then swallowed it.
“What was that?” I asked.
“Nothing.”
“Come on, Beck. Get it out.”
Beck shook her head. “Honestly, most of them probably just came for a free vacation or to schmooze to Sam.”
“When are your aunts and uncle getting here?” I asked.
“I honestly have no idea. They could already be here. Even with them, I know they only came because Sam’s footing the bill for all of it. I don’t really know them that well.”
“What about your foundation friends?” I asked.
She shrugged. “They’re nice enough. But they’re coworkers more than anything.” She chewed her lip. “Do you want a big wedding?” she asked suddenly.
I frowned at the question. I supposed most girls, at one point or another, considered a wedding to some degree. What was it that I wanted? I tried to picture a guest list and a venue, but all that really came to mind was a black tux and the man inside it. His face wasn’t quite as blurry as it had been in the past, coming into focus around green eyes and a cocky grin. I banished the traitorous thought.
“Yeah, why not?” I said, just to say something. I redirected the conversation off me. “Look Beck. Tomorrow is going to be one of the best days of your life. The resort is perfect and everything we’ve done for it is perfect. Okay, so Sam had to invite all his business friends and they’re a little unbearable.” I slid down so that I was sitting on the floor next to her. “Beck, you get to marry the love of your life tomorrow. It’s going to be fantastic.”
Her eyes lifted from the floor and she gave me a slight smile. “I’m just glad you could be here,” she said.
“I’m glad I could too,” I said, grabbing her hand and squeezing it. She rested her head against my shoulder and we sat there together for a while, listening to the sounds of the perfect wedding being handcrafted on the other side of the wall.
Beck was having those last-minute jitters; it happened to everyone. Or I’d read that at least. She’d be fine. My quiet friend just disliked being the center of attention. Once she was staring at Sam at the altar on the beach, everything would be all right.
As for me, I just needed to keep my vision tunneled on the wedding. Everything would be all right for me too.
Once I was on the plane back to New York.
The rehearsal (and the wedding tomorrow) was held in a gazebo on a quiet stretch of beach far from the noise of the resort. Tomorrow, the guests would be driven in a fleet of limos out to where the crystal waves crashed against a white-sand beach. The wedding would be in the early afternoon, but the rehearsal was done in the evening and the sky behind where Beck and Sam were instructed to stand was a painter’s canvas of blues, pinks, reds, and purples.