Page 20 of One-Star Romance

“Screw it,” Gabby said, and plopped down into the water.

And in that moment, as the guests gasped, as Gabby resurfaced with her mouth open in laughter, as Angus ran down to the pond, whooping, to help Gabby out, Natalie knew: her best friend was not rushing into marriage simply to check a box. Strange and inconceivable as it seemed, Gabriella Alvarez wanted to marry Angus Stoat the Third.

And in a gown bejeweled with algae, she did.

10

The vows had been made, the hors d’oeuvres passed, and Rob Kapinsky was hiding in a corridor, practicing his speech one final time.

Rob had not, for one moment, entertained the thought of saying no when Angus asked him to be best man. He could stand up straight in a suit, plan a bachelor trip, and handle any last-minute crises without collapsing under pressure. He understood that to be a best man was to put the groom’s needs before your own, so he would not be annoyed if he was taken away from the party to run errands. (In fact, his introverted heart might enjoy the momentary break from socialization.)

But one part of being best man had caused him significant anxiety ever since the wedding planning began: giving the toast.

One might think that an aspiring academic would relish an opportunity for public speaking. But Rob’s ultimate career goal involved research and seminars over lecturing to packed auditoriums. He’d chosen his specialty carefully: students were not lining up around the block for Linguistics 101.

The way that people could hold a microphone with ease seemed entirely foreign to him. Were they not always worried that it was too close to their mouth, creating an unpleasant plosive sound that caused the listeners auditory discomfort? That or too far away so that no one in the audience could quite hear, and everyone wanted to say, Bring it closer! but did not because of the social awkwardness that interrupting would entail?

But for Angus, Rob was determined to give a speech that meant something. He’d signed up for an online public speaking course and taken notes through the lectures. He’d practiced in his bathroom mirror. He’d scoured various websites for wedding toast advice. Then he’d written three drafts, performing it once for his roommate to get feedback, even though he hated asking for favors. The resulting toast was a tight four minutes and twenty seconds when Rob read it straight through, enough time built in for laughter and other delays so that it would stay under the requested five-minute limit.

In the privacy of the hallway, he recited it under his breath, pacing, tugging at his collar. The back of his neck itched from the way his shirt had dried, stiff and crusted, after his unplanned swim. His fingers landed on a fragment of leaf that had gotten stuck right above his shoulder blade, and he pulled it out, placing it in his pocket when he didn’t see a trash can readily available.

Despite what Natalie probably believed, he had considered talking Angus out of the zip-line plan, going so far as to bring it up at the bachelor party earlier that week. But the moment that Rob said the word “zip-line,” Angus had lit up.

“It’s perfect, isn’t it? Gabby’s nervous about walking down the aisle. Can you imagine being that beautiful and yet not liking it when people look at you?” Angus shook his head in disbelief. “I can’t.” Then he stared off into the middle distance, smiling dopily as if seeing Gabby there.

“And how does zip-lining play into this?” Rob prompted.

“Ah, right! If I come in that way, it takes the pressure off! It’ll loosen people up, make it so that Gabby doesn’t have to get all in her head about her walk down the aisle.”

After that, Rob didn’t have the heart to pour cold water on the plan. Angus knew his relationship with Gabby better than Rob did. Better than Natalie did too, though clearly she thought otherwise—

The door to the bathroom opened, and Natalie emerged, stopping short at the sight of Rob. She also held a piece of paper in her hands, and her eyes flitted down to his.

“Practicing your toast?” she asked. “Me too.”

He cleared his throat. “Just want to do well for Angus and Gabby.”

“Of course. It’s not a competition,” she said in that irritating voice she’d been using with him all day, honeyed and insincere, a voice that didn’t seem like her at all. But then again, he didn’t really know her. The past couple of weeks had made that all too clear.

Beyond the toast, another part of being best man had begun to cause him anxiety in the time leading up to the wedding. This anxiety was different, though. Anticipatory. Almost pleasant. The anxiety of seeing Natalie again. Sometimes, without meaning to, he’d think of the way her big smile turned her face…well, the only word that seemed to fit was “luminous.”

Angus kept Rob apprised of the latest in Natalie’s life, though Rob had never asked outright for information. Angus was a gossip, in the nicest sense of the word. He spread not secrets or judgment but updates. The people he knew, even barely, were fascinating to him, and he wanted to broadcast their achievements to all. Someday, he’d be the kind of father who knew exactly what was going on in the lives of all his children’s school friends. Rob and Natalie had met one time; therefore, in Angus’s mind, Rob would surely appreciate any pertinent updates in her life until he was on his deathbed. Even after that, perhaps, Angus would come visit his gravestone bearing flowers and an update on how Natalie had won last week’s bingo night at the nursing home.

So Angus told Rob all about Natalie’s book deal, beaming with pride as if he’d written the book himself. He had not written it, nor in fact read it. Angus’s literary tastes veered more toward business books and Dune. But Rob liked literature of all kinds. Or he had. In recent years, his PhD program had sucked the joy out of reading for pleasure. He read for research. Oh, how much he read for research. He walked out of the library and stood motionless in the sun for five minutes and then went back down and read for research some more. And when the research was done, he had no energy left for complicated text. (He unwound with nature documentaries instead.)

But he’d taken note of Natalie’s release date, then bought the book as soon as it was available at his local bookstore. She had actually done it—what she’d said she was going to do.

And as he’d begun the book, for the first time in a long time, reading had not felt like work. Natalie had a clever, engaging voice. Perhaps it was more cynical than he’d expected from how she’d talked about the magic of writing when they’d met, perhaps he could feel the writing striving to impress, but still, he’d read eagerly about the travails of a twentysomething woman in New York City. Then he’d reached page 28.

“Right,” he said to her now, staring down at the speech in her hand. “Not a competition.” He turned and walked back into the dining room, determined to win.

He had time for one more sip of his whiskey and a bite of salad before the DJ called his name. Steeling himself, he approached the microphone stand, an unpleasant ticking in his ears—his heartbeat.

Looking over the assembled guests, his eyes fell upon his parents. Angus had invited them—after all, he’d spent many afternoons at their house, gone on family vacations with them, listened to Rob’s father regale them all. Now, Professor Kapinsky held court at table seven, telling some anecdote to Angus’s second cousins, Rob’s mother fading into the background beside him. This was how it always was. His mother deferred—well, except during that strange, chaotic three-month period when Rob was young that they never talked about, that had been erased so fully from their family history that Rob sometimes wondered if it had all been an exceptionally vivid dream.

His parents’ dynamic had been set up from the beginning of their relationship, when his mother secured a highly sought-after position as his father’s graduate student. Only a few months after starting in his office, she became pregnant with Rob, an event that broke up his father’s first marriage and instilled a lifelong enmity in Rob’s two older half siblings, who were determined to hate this invading baby forever. Who hates a baby? Rob sometimes wanted to ask them whenever awkward family functions forced them together, but it was a lost cause.

Rob’s father was brilliant. Rob’s father was a cliché.

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