But, like, a really fancy forest. Not a regular forest. This forest probably has lots of cozy little cottages and peaceful babbling brooks in it, not abandoned hunting shacks, old fridges, and rusted-out cars.
I don’t necessarily think that dropping half a million dollars on a wedding is a good thing — how many kids could you send to college for that much? Start a scholarship instead, seriously — but since I’m already here, I may as well enjoy it.
A few minutes of aimless wandering later, I find myself in front of the place card table, half-empty glass of champagne in hand. Or rather, in front of the tables, plural, because three hundred and sixty-whatever names don’t fit on one table.
I grab my own place card, even though I don’t really need to. They’re simple and classy, thick paper folded into a tent shape. The front is calligraphied Delilah Radcliffe, and the back says Table Two.
I stick it into my pocket and take another sip of champagne, feeling slightly aimless during the first unstructured moment I’ve had since six this morning.
The champagne gives me an idea, and I oh-so-casually walk to the middle name table. I casually take the last sip from the glass, and I casually stand there, perusing the names on the neatly laid out cards.
Hanson, Hemsfield, nope. Johnson. Closer. Klein.
I step sideways, eyes running down the neat column.
Lee, Lewis, Long —
“You’re not dancing?” he says, suddenly behind me.
This time when I turn, I don’t break anything.
“You do know it’s impolite to sneak up on someone, don’t you?” I ask, even though my heart thuds.
“I said your name twice,” Seth says, leaning over and grabbing his table place card from the column, quickly glancing at the table number on the back. “Maybe trumpets and a town crier next time?”
He’s got a whiskey glass in his hand, and now he raises it to his lips, watching me with that cool, slightly sarcastic expression that he always seems to have.
“It’s the married people dance,” I explain, tilting my head in the general direction of the dance floor. “You didn’t come over here to pick a fight this time, did you?”
Seth glances over in the direction of the dance floor, through a forest of evergreen and white and even in that easy, casual gesture is something that makes me ache. Maybe it’s just the way he’s standing, tall and confident, looking for all the world like not only is he exactly where he’s supposed to be, he’s in charge.
Maybe it’s the suit. Seth would look good wearing a burlap sack — even cargo shorts —but Seth Loveless in a suit is devastating.
The last time I saw him in a suit, it was after one of his brothers’ weddings — Daniel, I think, though I wouldn’t swear to it — and I was doing some light internet research. He looked good in the photo.
He looks better in person, because photos don’t ever capture the way he moves, or the way he looks at you, or the sheer force of magnetism that is Seth Elwood Loveless.
“I didn’t,” he says, and now he’s looking back at me, and I wish this glass were full again. “I just came over to see if you wanted to dance.”
“Your date won’t mind?” I ask, too quickly.
The smallest, slyest smile tugs at his lips.
“Should she?” he asks.
“I can’t speak for her,” I say. “I have no idea what other women tolerate from you.”
“Would you mind?”
“Would I mind dancing with you?”
“If you were my date, would you mind me dancing with you?”
I tilt my head to one side, cock my hip, and examine Seth through narrowed eyes. I don’t think I’m usually this sassy with my body language, but I also haven’t usually just downed half a bottle of champagne all by my lonesome.
“Am I me in this hypothetical scenario, or am I your date?” I ask.
“Yes,” Seth says, and takes another sip of his whiskey. It’s getting pretty low.
“You can’t answer an either-or question with —”
“If you,” he says, pointing at me, “Were my date, would it upset you if I danced with you?”
“You can say it as loudly and slowly as you want, it still doesn’t make sense,” I tell him. “Am I me as in me, or have I transmogrified into your date and am, from afar, judging whether or not you —" I point at him somewhat obnoxiously, like he did to me — “should be dancing with me, Delilah.”
I point at myself from overhead, pointer finger waving a big circle in the air. Seth takes another sip from his drink, and he’s obviously trying not to laugh.
“Let’s say transmogrified,” he says. “If you were some other girl —”
“Excuse me, do you mind if we —"
“Sorry,” I say, and move away from the table as a middle-aged woman starts looking for her table card. The song is still playing, couples still swaying on the dance floor, and I glance over at Seth and start strolling toward the bar.
“If I were some other girl I’d probably light you on fire if I saw you look at someone else,” I tell him. “But then again, if I were your date to a wedding, I’d probably be the kind of girl who’s chill enough that nothing bothers her. Or maybe I’d just be dumb, I don’t know.”
Seth gives a low whistle at this revelation, and I’ve barely stopped talking before I regret that whole light you on fire thing I just said.
“And what if you were you and you were my date?” he asks, right as we step into the short line at the bar.
“Then we’re in a parallel universe where something’s already gone horribly wrong,” I deadpan.
“Ouch,” he says, into his whiskey.
Oops.
“You know what I mean.”
“That bad, huh?”
The line moves forward, and I give Seth a look because I have no desire to bring up yesterday’s dumb fight, but also, how is not remembering that slightly more than twenty-four hours ago, we got into it over sand?
I will always have hurt him, and he will always have hurt me, and it sure feels like those wounds are a chasm that we can’t bridge.
“Really?” I finally ask, and I think he gets the message because he glances away.
“You still haven’t answered my question,” he says, and I sigh.
“Are you going to let this go?”
“Probably not.”
“Any chance your date is going to come whisk you away and rescue me?”
“It’s not looking good for that either. Come on, Delilah. If you were my date, would you be mad if I danced with you?”
“Well —"
“But a different you. Not you you.”
“My evil twin?”
“Sure.”
I tilt the empty champagne glass into my mouth and get the last remaining drops out, just to give myself that much more fortitude and buy that much more time.
“You sure are dead set on this answer.”
“I sure am.”
I watch the guy behind the bar shake something in a silver cocktail shaker, take the top off, pour through a strainer and into a glass.
I don’t know why Seth is being like this, all of a sudden, two years after he claimed he never wanted to see me again. I don’t know why he’s picking fights and then apologizing for them, showing up at my sister’s wedding, haranguing me with dumb questions.