Page 87 of 4 Weddings and a Feud

A tall groomsman stood in front of her. She could hide behind him, shake off the server who still manacled her wrist, and then slink back to the kitchen. No, Cierra had spotted her. She had to face the music. Not literally, since it was only Alex, and he’d pointedly told her at karaoke night that he didn’t sing.

Pulling her arm away from the server, she straightened her shoulders and stepped to the front of the crowd below the stage. Her stomach churning, she said, “Here I am.”

“Mary,” he said into the microphone. His eyes crinkled. Was that pity? Or…remorse? She couldn’t identify the unfamiliar expression. “Thank you for coming.”

She narrowed her eyes, partly in disbelief and partly to examine his strange appearance. His top half was impeccable as always, his light linen suit jacket looking especially crisp, his shirt extra white, and his tie…his tie? She’d only seen him wear a tie at funerals. This one was a bright, cheerful floral.

But his bottom half was even stranger. Instead of linen suit pants to match his jacket, he wore a pair of cheap-looking black slacks, shiny with polyester, like what the caterers wore.

None of it mattered to her pattering heart. His face was familiar and beloved and gorgeous despite the shadows the spotlight made under his eyes.

“You’re thankingmefor coming?” she said. “This is my job. I’m supposed to be here. You’re not.”

He chuckled, and so did those guests close enough to hear her. “I deserve that.” Then his voice turned serious and deep and so, so loud through the speakers. “Mary, I’m sorry for doubting you. For being afraid to trust you. That was my failure, not yours. I should have let you do your job, which you do so well. Isn’t this a great wedding, everyone?”

There were a few claps.

“Hey!” Cierra shouted. “This is a great wedding!”

A few more guests obliged her by clapping.

“Tough crowd,” Alex said. “Though maybe that’s my fault. I’m making it weird. But after publicly humiliating you, I had to make my apology just as public.”

“You really didn’t,” Mary said, glancing around at the guests.

“Didn’t I?” His brown eyes sparkled in the spotlight. “Someone wise told me I had to let go and be vulnerable to truly love. Mary, I love you, and this is me being vulnerable to prove it to you.”

He nodded to the guitar player, who strummed out a quick rhythm.

Alex raised the microphone to his lips and warbled the first words to “If I Could Turn Back Time.”

Mary gasped. Alex was singing? To her?

And…it was terrible. His voice cracked and wobbled. The man standing beside her groaned. Even the guitarist winced.

But Alex? His eyes didn’t leave Mary’s as he put his breath, his heart, into the song, note after painful note. Voices like Alex’s were why they’d invented Auto-Tune. And he’d forgotten everything they’d learned in the children’s church choir about breathing. When he ran out of breath, he sucked in, loud, sometimes missing a word or two.

Was he nervous?

Mary stared up at him. The apples of his cheeks were bright pink, and his posture wasn’t as straight as usual. Yet he kept singing despite the tremble of his fingers on the microphone stand.

Her heart cracked just a bit.

When the drummer joined in with a riff and drowned out the vocals, Alex sounded a little better.

He paused his singing to say, “Come on, folks. Help me out here.”

And even though it was an old song and none of the younger wedding guests would be caught dead listening to an adult contemporary radio station that played Cher, this was Vegas, and everyone knew her songs.

The tall groomsman beside her belted out the words, and so did Cierra’s parents, and soon every person on that dance floor, from the bride and groom to their grandparents, was helping Alex express his regret and pleading for Mary’s forgiveness.

And by the time Alex and the rest of the guests belted out the last line of the final chorus, the crack in her heart had grown so wide that it split open. But unlike the first time Alex had broken her heart, when she sat alone in her sparkly dress on prom night and her heart shattered like crystal, this time it cracked open like a seed, allowing her love to push out of it, vigorous and vibrant. Her love bloomed, colorful and beautiful as his tie, watered and nourished by the proof of his love.

“Mary?” he said over the buzz of the guests. “I know I can trust you. With my secrets, with my business, and with my heart. I promise I won’t shut you out again.” His gaze caressed her face. “I love you. Can you love me back?”

Her heart opened like a sunflower. “I do.”

“Hey, that’s my line!” Cierra called, laughing.

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