Page 5 of A Pack for the Wedding
His expression softens, a gentle understanding passing over his features. Then he gestures with his glass toward the venue behind us. "For what it's worth, the flowers you did tonight are incredible."
A smile finds its way to my lips before I even realize it’s there. I hold his gaze for a beat, unexpectedly touched by the compliment, before drifting back to the moonlit water. For a few seconds we just... stay there.
Until I hear my name from somewhere across the lawn.
Faint at first. Then again, louder. Urgent.
I look over and see a figure cutting across the grass toward us. Fast.
Luna.
She reaches us flushed and breathing hard, one hand pressed to her side.
"Luna?" My chest tightens. "What's wrong? Are you okay?"
She holds up a finger, catches her breath, then straightens.
"Beth," she says. "I need to talk to you."
***
I rush past Luna and rush back inside, my heart already pounding.
The audacity. Thenerve.
The party is at its peak, but all of that falls away the second a vague iron scent hits me. It cuts through the champagne like a blade, making my skin crawl.
Then, I hear a voice soar over the ambient noise, and I see him.
Grant.
He's standing near the center of the venue, holding court like he's headlining his own talk show. Tanned. Fit. Not a single strand of his perfectly styled ash-blonde hair out of place. Glass of scotch in hand, gesturing with the easy confidence of someone who has never once questioned whether they belong somewhere.
Six months. I haven't seen his face in six months.
The last time was at our kitchen table, on a Tuesday morning. I remember because I'd just come back from the flower market with two buckets of ranunculus and a pretty good mood, and he was sitting there with his hands folded over a glass of soy milk.
He told me he needed space. That he felt "disconnected from who he really was", that he wanted to go somewhere new. Reset. Find himself... and that he was calling off our wedding.
I sat there with my coffee going cold, ears ringing, while the man I'd uprooted my entire life for tried to dump me gently.
And then came the kicker. The part where he leaned forward, dropped his voice into that low, earnest register he always used right before suggesting something completely unhinged, and proposed that we could still see each other. Occasionally. For emotional and "physical" support.
I grabbed the first thing within reach, turns out it was his glass of soy milk, and threw it at his face.
It was clumsy and most of it ended up on his shirt, but enough caught his face that it dripped down his chin.
I remember he had the audacity to lookoffended. Sat there for a full three seconds with soy milk dripping onto his shirt, mouth open, likeIwas the unreasonable one. Then he wiped his face with the back of his hand, stood up, and walked out without another word.
I heard he took a plane abroad the next day.
And now here he is. Standing in the middle ofmybest friend's engagement party like the last six months never happened.
I know he was invited before everything fell apart, but I didn't think he'd come. He knew I'd be here.
"I literally just landed three hours ago," he says, shaking his head with a charming, weary smile. "Running on fumes, honestly. But I told myself, I couldn't miss Ben and Harper's engagement party. Had to push through."
Oh,please.
