Page 5 of Bound By Words

“Wow,” I laughed. “You need to slow down, my friend.”

Emory looked up from Tal’s neck, winked at me, then placed his empty glass on the bar as he slid a hundred-dollar bill across the polished surface.

I threw down a few twenties to cover my tab and grabbed a mint from a bowl on the bar, popping it into my mouth as Emory offered his arm to Talia.

“You mean you’re not going to escort me in, too?” I batted my eyelashes, sighing dramatically as I followed behind them.

“He’s all yours,” Talia joked as she winked over her shoulder at me. “But just a warning, he likes to bite.”

“TMI, Tal, TMI.”

“Oh, please,” she rolled her eyes before she faced forward again. “It’s not like you haven’t seen it all before.”

She was right, in another lifetime I had been an observer of their more amorous activities, but there was a time and a place, and I was getting anxious for this wedding to start. While we’d spent the better part of the last four hours in the hotel bar after getting changed, my mind had drifted to a certain groom’s older sister more than I cared to admit. I was dying to see the dress that would cover that lingerie. Whatever it was, I knew she’d fill it out to perfection.

“You’ve got that look on your face again,” Tal teased as I scanned the hallway as we headed to the hotel atrium where the wedding was being held.

“Hate breaking it to you, Tal, but unfortunately, this is just my face.”

“Whatever, drama queen. I’ll get it out of you soon enough,” she warned. And I felt I’d be getting teased about having the hots for a particular bridesmaid for weeks to come. Not that it mattered because while we were in the same place this weekend, Kelly and I lived worlds apart. In more ways than one.

We found seats on the aisle, right in the middle of the bride’s side, behind an older woman unsuccessfully trying to wrangle a red-headed little pixie in a frilly pink dress. Her hair was a fiery halo, a pink satin bow haphazardly hanging from the end of one curl as she bounced up and down in the seat in front of me.

Objectively, I could appreciate that she was adorable, but I had absolutely zero desire to have one of those. Talia made faces at the little girl, cooing in her direction as Emory looked on with a gentle smile. It was only a matter of time until they, too, succumbed to societal conventions, declared a monogamous legal union, and started creating their own little hyperactive spawn.

That would never be in the cards for me—at least not the kids part—and I was perfectly fine with it. I was better at being an uncle anyway, where I could return the child at the end of a visit.

As the seats filled and Evan appeared with his groomsmen at the front of the aisle, a man with equally bright red hair scooped up the little girl and held her in the crook of his arm as he took his place at the front.

“She was so cute,” Talia smiled, sighing happily as she leaned back into Emory’s arm. “Did you see those dimples?”

“Don’t get any ideas,” he teased, but I knew he’d do whatever Talia wanted. For as much as he liked to maintain control, love had changed him. He wasn’t the same cynical man who didn’t believe in love who had once been my mentor.

The light music changed before I could get into one of my overthinking spirals, and people took their seats, clearing the aisle as the doors to the atrium opened.

The crowd stood, facing the double doors as a tall—heavily pregnant—blonde woman in a pink dress started her way down the aisle, followed by a pretty brunette with glasses in a matching dress and a man in a suit with a hot pink bow tie and hair color accented to match. And then there she was…

Kelly fidgeted with the flowers in her hand as she looked down at the red velvet aisle and then glanced back up at the crowd when it was her turn to join the procession. She looked gorgeous. Although that word somehow didn’t seem to encompass her appearance. Her long hair had been pulled into a sweeping braided bun, soft curls framing her face. Her eyes seemed brighter, the fresh-faced beauty from this morning accentuated by smokey eye makeup and bright red lips I was dying to bite.

I was fucked.

Talia was right; I did need to get out of my head for the weekend. Have a fling. Enjoy the company of a beautiful woman without worrying about all my baggage at home. But I wasn’t going to sleep with some random woman.

If anything happened, it’d be with the radiant goddess a few feet away from me, staring right at me with a light blush staining her high cheekbones before she looked down nervously and right back at me from underneath her long dark eyelashes.

I hoped my mouth wasn’t hanging open as she walked by my seat. As she floated near me in that clingy red dress, glancing briefly at me over her shoulder as she passed, I knew I’d seek her out before the night was over.

KELLY

Minneapolis

I should have known he’d fill out a suit impressively. I’d seen him in semi-casual dress clothes in New York, but Nathan in a fully tailored suit, with his hair combed back off his face and that jaw fully exposed, nearly made me face-plant in the middle of the aisle in front of all my relatives.

My job as the maid of (dis)honor had been a surprise, but I’d taken it on with excitement; I’d always wanted a sister. Chase had chosen her sister-in-law, Elle, editor Isobel, and her brother-in-law, Miguel, as her other bridesmaids/dude.

“How much you wanna bet they will try to sneak off?” Miguel whispered as we stood off to the side of the stained-glass windows in the lobby of the expensive hotel venue, watching Chase and Evan take about a thousand pictures.

“Who says they haven’t already?” I’d seen them disappear into a conference room for ten minutes after the ceremony before the photographer told us to meet at the front of the hotel. I wasn’t exactly sure what they did in there, but Evan came out with a dazed expression, and Chase had spent a solid five minutes in front of the bathroom mirror afterward fixing her makeup before the photographer had tracked her down.

---