Page 76 of Hang the Moon
The other woman smiled. “Friends. Ten years ago I was just friends with that guy over there”—she jerked her chin in the direction of a man standing and talking to the groom—“but then one thing led to another and we had three of those”—she pointed at the group of kids playing near the edge of the lake—“and now we’re expecting another.”
She rested her hand on her bump.
Annie laughed. “Congratulations?”
“Life comes at you fast.” The woman beamed at her. “You don’t look like ‘just friends.’”
Was she really having this conversation? With a stranger? Of course she was. Awkward conversations with strangers were par for the course at weddings. “It’s a long story.”
“The best ones usually are.” The woman laughed. “I’m just saying. I know that look. Thatwill we, won’t welook. Where he’s looking at you when you aren’t, and then you’re looking at him when he isn’t. When both of you are too scared to bite the bullet, so you dance around each other until finally...” She waggled her brows. “Boom.”
Annie dropped her elbow to the table and rested her chin on her hand. “Boom, huh? I guess I’m worried about the wrong sort ofboom, if you catch my drift. The painful kind that implodes in your face.”
She turned and Annie followed her gaze. Brendon stood at the front of the pavilion, watching Annie. He winked, both eyes shutting adorably.
“I doubt you have anything to worry about, because that guy?” The woman leaned in, whispering. “He looks at you like you hung the moon.”
***
Brendon had immediately been pulled into a conversation upon the conclusion of his speech, which had thankfully inspired as much laughter as it had tears. Problem was, as soon as he’d slipped away fromthatconversation, he’d been drawn into another and another, when all he wanted was to spend time with Annie.
“Hi.” Speak of the devil. Only, Annie looked more like an angel in her pink dress, her blond hair creating a soft halo around her face as she wrapped her hand around his arm, tucking her fingers into the crook of his elbow. “I hope you don’t mind if I steal my date.”
The older woman he’d been speaking to, a great-aunt of Katie’s, waved them off with a smile.
“Sorry it took me a minute to rescue you,” Annie said as they crossed the room, circling the dance floor. “Cake came first.”
“As it always should.” He smiled down at her.
The sun had slinked beneath the horizon, leaving behind a fiery strip of crimson and burnished bronze that bled upward into navy and indigo. Around the same time the desserts had been brought out, someone had flipped on the looping strands of fairy lights strung up around the pavilion. Their golden glow brought out the flecks of darker blue in Annie’s eyes.Breathtakingdidn’t do her beauty justice.
Throughout the ceremony, when he hadn’t been focused on Katie and Jian, he’d stolen glances at Annie from the corner of his eye, scarcely believing that she was here. That she’d agreed to come with him. His date. No pretenses, no excuses; he’d asked her because he wanted her here. Not because Darcy needed his help convincing Annie to move to Seattle. Not because of their bet, his determination to prove to her romance wasn’t dead. If he was lucky, witnessing two people vow to spend the rest of their lives together might help him do just that, but that wasn’t why he’d asked Annie.
There wasn’t a single person he’d have rather had with him.
“My speech wasn’t a total cluster, was it?” he asked.
“I loved it,” she said, sounding completely sincere.
“Yeah?” His brows rose.
She nodded. “It’s been a year or so since I’ve been to a wedding, but after a while, all the speeches and vows start to blur together. Yours, I’d remember.”
“Want to hear something wild?” Without asking, he led her over to the dance floor, just in time for the upbeat song to transition into something a little slower they could talk during while they swayed.
Annie rested her hands on his shoulders, their sizable height difference less disparate with her towering pumps. “Wild? Uh,duh. I’m not sure why you’d waste your breath asking.”
He smiled and rested his hands on her hips. His fingers brushed the skin left bare by the low back of her dress. The way she shivered and stepped closer was intensely gratifying. “All right. This is the fifth wedding I’ve been to this year.”
She jerked back, staring up at him with wide, horrified eyes. “Fifth?” She snickered. “Oh God, is this where you tell me you’ve been a groomsman twenty-seven times?”
He gripped her waist, not leading her in any particular set of steps as much as swaying softly to the music. They were near the edge of the dance floor, out of everyone’s way. “Hardly. Besides, three of those weddings were for people who met on OTP and sent me an invitation.”
She goggled at him. “Peopledothat? Send strangers invitations? I mean, I know people invite, like, Taylor Swift to things, but...” She scrunched her nose. “You’re not Taylor Swift. No offense.”
“None taken.”
“And you go?”
