Alex grabs my hand under the table. “Caroline’s having an affair with Gentry Randolph. We caught them in the act this afternoon in Manny’s room.”
“You can’t be serious,” Jack says, his face scrunching up like he’s about to throw up.
“I am,” Alex says, nodding across the pool. “I don’t want to talk about it for the rest of the night. Let’s concentrate on Seb and Sophie. In fact, it looks like the wedding’s about to start.”
Seb and Sophie have left their love den and made it to the microphone that’s set up across the pool from us.
Seb picks it up and taps it a few times. “Can I have your attention? I just wanted to let you know that there’s not going to be a wedding tonight.”
A few people gasp in the crowd. Seb takes a long pause.
“I had no idea he was such a drama queen,” I whisper to Alex.
“Oh, he is,” Alex laughs. “Believe me.”
“There’s not going to be a wedding because Sophie and I got married over All Star break in Michigan. We’ve been married for almost three months.”
Sophie buries her head into his chest as guests start clapping and whistling.
Seb waves them quiet and then continues, “I met Sophie a little more than a year ago. After talking to her for only a couple of minutes, I already knew I wanted to marry her. I could barely wait until July much less until today. We had a small, private wedding at my family’s lake house. It was perfect, but we did want to celebrate it with all of you tonight. Thank you for being with us this weekend. Now, let’s get back to the party.”
He leans over and kisses Sophie softly to more cheers from the crowd, and then leads her by the hand back to their private table. Seriously, I couldn’t have imagined a more perfect fake wedding for her.
Alex’s teammates try not to talk about Manny and Caroline during dinner, but by dessert time, the beer and whiskey have fully kicked in and they can’t resist any longer.
“Come on,” Alex says, pulling me up. “We’re not spending our last night talking about this bullshit. Grab your cake.”
He picks up our drinks and guides me down to the beach chairs we sat on the first night.
“Do you remember the first night we got here?” he says, smiling. “We were sitting right here when you told me that you got awkward when hot guys started showing you attention. We’ve come so far in a couple of days.”
“That seems like so long ago, doesn’t it?” I say, feeding him a bite of my cake.
“Yeah, like ages ago. Maybe we can hide down here from the world for the rest of the night—or for weeks, days, years—”
“Done,” I say, laying my head on his shoulder. “Let’s stay here forever.”
* * *