Total pages in book: 62
Estimated words: 61953 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 310(@200wpm)___ 248(@250wpm)___ 207(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 61953 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 310(@200wpm)___ 248(@250wpm)___ 207(@300wpm)
I found a corner away from the rest of the crowd and let the open bar fill up. I took a slug of liquid courage from my flask and leaned back against the wood slats, pulling my phone out of my pocket.
I scrolled the texts from Ashleigh. There was more than a dozen, all getting increasingly more insane. She’d dated Julian Wright for two years, and after things had gone sour—thanks to her self-sabotage—she hated the Wrights even more than I did. Which was a feat.
I shot her a text back.
It was fine. Just waiting at the reception now.
A string of texts followed.
What is her dress like? Did you get a picture?
* * *
Is Julian there with anyone?
* * *
Does he look good?
* * *
I don’t care. Never mind. Tell me about the vineyard. How is it done? Do you know who did the flowers?
I rolled my eyes and turned the vibrate off on my phone. I didn’t need any more of that tonight. Today was hard enough without having to give her a play-by-play of it all while it happened. I had no doubt she’d show up at my house tomorrow and demand all the information she could get. Not sure why she bothered.
I sulked in the corner, watching the mingling. Normally, I was a social butterfly, but today was different. The temperature in the room had escalated, the longer we waited. Eyes glancing my way. Whispers passed in my direction. I felt like the pariah of a Jane Austen film.
A hush finally went over the crowd as the barn doors opened, revealing the bridal party.
My eyes skipped to the entrance as bridesmaids and groomsmen danced into the barn, and then I sighed, “Fuck it.”
I walked away from the festivities and toward the now-empty bar line. I couldn’t get drunk tonight. Not when I’d decided to drive here. It would have been smarter to call a cab or something, but I hadn’t thought that I’d need more than the liquid courage of my flask. Turned out, I was wrong. I could use at least one drink to get through this dance, give Annie my well wishes—even if I didn’t feel them—and then book it out of there. She probably didn’t expect more than that from me anyway.
Just as I stepped up to the bar, Harley appeared in a flurry of black lace. My eyes slipped down her tall, lithe body. The figure of a dancer. My mind fell down a dirty hole, wondering if she was as flexible as a dancer. If she could move like one as easily as she had slipped into place in front of me for her drink. If that black lace dress hid black lace underneath.
I closed my eyes for a moment to try to eradicate that thought. She was a relative stranger and young.
That much I knew.
She was definitely young.
Yet she ordered a glass of red wine right in front of me, deliberating its merits with the bartender like a connoisseur. I’d guessed early twenties, but maybe mid-twenties with that attitude. I hadn’t met many women who could discuss the merits of a fine wine at twenty-one. Only the old-money girls I’d met at Yale who’d suckled at the teat of wealth and overindulgence since childhood.
Harley didn’t seem the type.
She turned around then. Her glass was half full of red wine, and she gasped as she nearly stumbled directly into me. The wine sloshed in the glass. On instinct, I reached out and slipped my hand around her wrist. It was narrow, the bones delicate under my grasp. It steadied her enough so that only one tiny drop fell onto the wooden flooring.
“I got you,” I told her.
“My God,” she muttered. “I didn’t see you there.”
I snatched a tiny white napkin with Annie’s and Jordan’s initials embossed in black and then bent a knee before her and swiped the red wine, like a smear of blood obscuring the letters. I glanced up at her from below, her eyes trained on me, and smirked. This was the view of a lifetime.
“No harm done.”
“I suppose so. What are you drinking? I’ll buy,” she said with a wicked grin.
“It’s an open bar.”
“Exactly.”
I laughed. A real one. Not the one that came with my forced smile. “All right. It’s on you.”
She eyed me curiously for a second before saying, “You seem like a Malbec person.”
I startled. That was specific. “How’d you know?”
“You give off the vibe.”
“What sort of vibe is that?”
“Mysterious,” she said. “Dark fruit, smoky finish.” She turned to the bartender and ordered a glass of wine for me.
I raised my eyebrows. “And you? What are you drinking?”
“Pinot noir, of course.”
“Of course.”
“Silky, enticing, but structured,” she said, holding the glass aloft for me to look at.
But my eyes were all for her. The words coming out of her mouth sent me into that same tailspin spiral.