Wright Kind of Trouble, page 2
Still, I plastered a smile on my face as they hurried down the aisle. I’d never seen Annie so happy before. As if all of her dreams had come true.
I wanted that for her.
I wanted the joy on her face.
I wanted everyone cheering for her.
But I could be sad, even briefly, for what could have been. It wouldn’t have worked out. I knew that now. But there had been a point in my life when I was sure it would be her. Instead, we were here.
She walked past me down the aisle without even a glance in my direction. Jordan Wright didn’t even need to shoot me a smug look or anything. He’d won long ago. Not that it had been a competition. Her heart was her own. And it was easier to have this closure. She was married. Officially. Time to move on.
The rest of the party filed out after them. More Wrights. More of their dates. All happy as could be.
Then, it was my turn. I stepped into the aisle, and there she was.
I stopped abruptly in my tracks at the sight of the blonde who had been seated in the aisle across from me. I’d caught her looking at me when we first sat down, but I’d been too focused on what was happening in front of me to get more than a glance in her direction. And now…I couldn’t stop looking.
Her black dress swished around her pale, toned thighs. A dress that was more in line with…a funeral than a wedding. A fact that felt oddly appropriate at the moment. But it fit her like a glove with tight boning around her narrow waist and a full skirt and billowy sleeves. Her hair was lighter than mine by only a few degrees, and it hung down past her shoulders in light waves. Her lips were pillowy with a little divot in the middle that made me want to sink my teeth into it. Her face was round and youthful with rosy cheeks, framed by the threads of her honey hair. Then, I landed on her eyes, and my entire world stalled out.
They weren’t the blue of an ocean. But the ice of a glacier right before the boat collided and sank into the depths. Blue and gray and threads of silver that felt like they wrapped around my poor, bruised heart and forced it back to beating.
“Hi,” I said before I could stop myself.
Her cheeks flushed a rosy pink that went straight to my balls. God, I wanted to make her blush again.
I wanted.
I just…wanted.
“Hey,” she said with a quirk of her mouth.
We moved into step together, walking down the wedding aisle, almost touching shoulder to shoulder. The walk was only a few mere feet, and yet it felt like we were walking in slow motion. As if each step were a small eternity and I never wanted to wake up from whatever dream I’d just stumbled into.
“I like your dress.”
Her smile widened. “Thanks. My brother said it looks like it’s for a funeral.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
She liked that. I could see it in the way her eyes lit, and she listed sideways toward me. Our shoulders brushed, and electricity passed in the contact. A soft whoosh of air was sucked between those lush, succulent lips, and I felt my world leaning into that breath. As if she were uttering a siren call that wrapped me in her magic.
“So, you think it looks like a funeral dress?” she asked.
“You don’t?”
“It’s celebratory.” She fluffed the skirt around her thighs. “See? Perfect for dancing.”
“Maybe I’ll find out later.”
She grinned. “If you’re lucky.”
I was not.
Time had proven again and again that the Wrights had siphoned off all of my luck. Their Midas touch had only turned me to tin.
But for her, I’d pray to the god of luck.
“Chase,” I offered, holding my hand out.
She slipped her dainty hand into mine. “Harley.”
“Pleasure.”
“All mine.”
“Harley,” a voice called behind us.
And then we were at the end of the aisle. Our universe expanded back to its original state. So much bigger than the microcosm we’d entered on our brief walk. I might as well have leprosy in this crowd. While our magnetism lingered in the air, something snapped.
“I’ll catch you later,” she said.
I wasn’t sure if it was a promise or not, but I hoped to make her keep it.
She winked at me as she headed toward the person who had called for her. I didn’t recognize them, but I hadn’t been around this crowd much in the last year. They looked like Wrights. Tall, dark hair, broad shoulders. Jordan and Julian could easily pass as their brothers.
Was she dating a Wright? That would be just my luck.
I watched her walk away for another couple seconds before falling into the line of people headed into the Wright Vineyard barn. The room was decorated to the nines. Flowers and candles and some elaborate sheets overhead made the rustic barn look modern and festive. Whoever had designed the thing had a knack for it. I’d gone to my fair share of New England weddings for Yale friends, and even they could hardly compare to the thought put into this. Of course, only the best for the Wrights.
Maybe one day, I wouldn’t look at the whole town they ran with the spite of a conquered people.
I found a corner away from the rest of the crowd and let the open bar fill up. I took a slug of liquid courage from my flask and leaned back against the wood slats, pulling my phone out of my pocket.
I scrolled the texts from Ashleigh. There was more than a dozen, all getting increasingly more insane. She’d dated Julian Wright for two years, and after things had gone sour—thanks to her self-sabotage—she hated the Wrights even more than I did. Which was a feat.
I shot her a text back.
It was fine. Just waiting at the reception now.
A string of texts followed.
What is her dress like? Did you get a picture?
* * *
Is Julian there with anyone?
* * *
Does he look good?
* * *
I don’t care. Never mind. Tell me about the vineyard. How is it done? Do you know who did the flowers?
I rolled my eyes and turned the vibrate off on my phone. I didn’t need any more of that tonight. Today was hard enough without having to give her a play-by-play of it all while it happened. I had no doubt she’d show up at my house tomorrow and demand all the information she could get. Not sure why she bothered.
I sulked in the corner, watching the mingling. Normally, I was a social butterfly, but today was different. The temperature in the room had escalated, the longer we waited. Eyes glancing my way. Whispers passed in my direction. I felt like the pariah of a Jane Austen film.
A hush finally went over the crowd as the barn doors opened, revealing the bridal party.
My eyes skipped to the entrance as bridesmaids and groomsmen danced into the barn, and then I sighed, “Fuck it.”
I walked away from the festivities and toward the now-empty bar line. I couldn’t get drunk tonight. Not when I’d decided to drive here. It would have been smarter to call a cab or something, but I hadn’t thought that I’d need more than the liquid courage of my flask. Turned out, I was wrong. I could use at least one drink to get through this dance, give Annie my well wishes—even if I didn’t feel them—and then book it out of there. She probably didn’t expect more than that from me anyway.
Just as I stepped up to the bar, Harley appeared in a flurry of black lace. My eyes slipped down her tall, lithe body. The figure of a dancer. My mind fell down a dirty hole, wondering if she was as flexible as a dancer. If she could move like one as easily as she had slipped into place in front of me for her drink. If that black lace dress hid black lace underneath.
I closed my eyes for a moment to try to eradicate that thought. She was a relative stranger and young.
That much I knew.
She was definitely young.
Yet she ordered a glass of red wine right in front of me, deliberating its merits with the bartender like a connoisseur. I’d guessed early twenties, but maybe mid-twenties with that attitude. I hadn’t met many women who could discuss the merits of a fine wine at twenty-one. Only the old-money girls I’d met at Yale who’d suckled at the teat of wealth and overindulgence since childhood.
Harley didn’t seem the type.
She turned around then. Her glass was half full of red wine, and she gasped as she nearly stumbled directly into me. The wine sloshed in the glass. On instinct, I reached out and slipped my hand around her wrist. It was narrow, the bones delicate under my grasp. It steadied her enough so that only one tiny drop fell onto the wooden flooring.
“I got you,” I told her.
“My God,” she muttered. “I didn’t see you there.”
I snatched a tiny white napkin with Annie’s and Jordan’s initials embossed in black and then bent a knee before her and swiped the red wine, like a smear of blood obscuring the letters. I glanced up at her from below, her eyes trained on me, and smirked. This was the view of a lifetime.
“No harm done.”
“I suppose so. What are you drinking? I’ll buy,” she said with a wicked grin.
“It’s an open bar.”
“Exactly.”
I laughed. A real one. Not the one that came with my forced smile. “All right. It’s on you.”
She eyed me curiously for a second before saying, “You seem like a Malbec person.”
I startled. That was specific. “How’d you know?”
“You give off the vibe.”
“What sort of vibe is that?”
“Mysterious,” she said. “Dark fruit, smoky finish.” She turned to the bartender and ordered a glass of wine for me.
I raised my eyebrows. “And you? What are you drinking?”
“Pinot noir, of course.”
“Of course.”
“Silky, enticing, but structured,” she said, holding the glass aloft for me to look at.
But my eyes were all for her. The words coming out of her mouth sent me into that same tailspin spiral.
“I like a good pinot.”
She laughed. “You like whiskey.”
“I do,” I agreed. “How do you know so much about wine?”
“My mom’s Italian,” she quipped, as if that explained everything. And maybe it did.
I took my Malbec from the bartender, dropping a twenty into the tip jar, and moved off to the side with Harley.
“So, how do you know the bride?” she asked after taking a sip of her wine.
I’d completely forgotten where we were.
I didn’t know how she’d managed to make me forget. It was Annie’s wedding day. I’d been dreading it for months. Yet here I was, at the start of something new. I found that I didn’t want to tell Harley. I didn’t want the pity to cross her face when she found out.
“Old friends,” I said instead of the whole truth that had been on the tip of my tongue. “We went to high school together.”
“Nice. Annie seems really sweet.”
“And you?” I asked before we fell too far down that road. “How do you know the groom?”
She shrugged one shoulder. “He’s my brother.”
I wavered in place at that answer. Jordan Wright was…Harley’s brother. Which made her…Harley Wright.
The little sister of my enemy.
I should walk away right now. Walk away and never look back. Because Jordan would kill me if he knew I was into his sister. And yet I couldn’t find it in me to care.
A slow smile came to my face.
I shouldn’t.
But oh, I was going to do it anyway.
3
Harley
“That right?” he said.
“Yeah, it’s a long story.”
I opened my mouth, prepared to give the long, sordid story of my father’s duplicity, when a cheer went up in the crowd.
Chase and I turned toward the barn doors, where Annie and Jordan appeared in all their glory. Her dress was resplendent—a princess cut that made her look like she’d stepped out of a storybook. Her long red tresses framing her face. Jordan was enraptured. His eyes only for his bride.
We clapped at their entrance. When I peeked a glance in Chase’s direction, I found his eyes on mine instead of the happy couple. My cheeks flushed again.
I wasn’t ready to walk away from him.
From whatever was happening right now.
Yet I had no other choice. Dinner was being served.
He just smiled at me. “Save me a dance, remember?”
“I said if you were lucky.”
His hand came to my wrist, and the contact sizzled. “Maybe luck is with me tonight.”
My heart stuttered in my chest as he headed to his seat. I followed him as he made his way across the room. I didn’t know what spell he’d cast over me, but it wove around me, knotting at the edges.
I found my seat, across the room from Chase, and listened with half an ear to my brothers and their dates. Nora and Eve sat on either side of West and Whitt and kept a happy rapport with the table. Dinner was slow and languid with a half-dozen toasts afterward. Everyone wanted to wish the couple the best.
Then came a series of wedding essentials. Nora plucked each off of a list and delivered them at the perfect moments—a first dance, cake cutting, bouquet toss.
Music shifted to something more up tempo, and I fell onto the dance floor with the rest of the girls. I’d purposely avoided it during the bouquet toss. No way was I going to be the next one married in this group. Screw that.
But the dancing was fun. It was my favorite part about going out on the weekends with my roommates. I’d hit a few frat parties first semester and promptly realized the only thing I liked about them was the dancing. The groping, drinking, and general aura of toxic masculinity were too much for me.
Still, I kept waiting for Chase to join us. But he’d disappeared at some point in the evening. I didn’t know where exactly he’d gone off to, but I couldn’t deny that I was disappointed.
The music slowed to a male pop ballad that had been all over the radio. Couples flooded the dance floor, and I slowly backed away with a sigh. No slow dancing for me.
A throat cleared. I jumped and whipped around to find Chase standing next to me.
He held his hand out like a prince in a romance novel. “I believe this dance is mine.”
My stomach flipped. “I believe it is.”
I put my hand into his and let him walk me back out onto the dance floor.
I slipped my hand up to his shoulder as my gaze moved to his. His smile grew as he wrapped his arm around my waist, splaying his large hand across the small of my back. Then, he tugged me in just a little closer, until our chests were nearly touching.
I inhaled sharply at the contact. Our eyes were still locked as we began to sway side to side. My vision tunneled to the two of us out on the dance floor, as if we were in a movie and the rest of the cast disappeared. Suddenly just us on the floor while I twirled in my Beetlejuice dress with a blond-headed prince who sent shivers down my entire body.
“Wasn’t sure you were actually going to dance,” I said.
“And miss this?”
“Obviously, it would have been a huge loss for you.”
He laughed softly. “I suppose it would have.”
He spun me around. I fumbled through the steps and laughed as I nearly crashed back into him.
“A little warning would have been nice.”
“Not when I get that smile,” he said and then did it again.
My smile was wide as he moved me effortlessly through the steps. I’d never ballroom danced in my life, but he clearly knew what he was doing, and his lead was easy to follow once I let myself relax.
“Where did you learn how to dance like this?” I asked once I was back in his arms again, swaying to the music, my arms around his neck.
“Ah, Junior League,” he said with a grimace. “My sister was a debutante, and I took lots of dance lessons.”
I could barely contain my laugh. “Junior League is absurd.”
He nodded. “Tell me about it. I was the one who suffered through it.”
“It puts the patriarchy on a pedestal. The entire reason they started was for a woman to enter society and, like, put their virginity on display.”
“I’m not defending them. My sister was super into it, but most people like them now to wear the fancy dress and hang out with their friends.”
I sighed. That sounded right. No one wanted to be uncomfortable and question why things were the way they were. It was easier to just fit into society than to buck against it. I’d learned that time and time again.
“I will say that the dancing comes in handy at times like this,” he said, putting the focus on the way his hand slid across my stomach as he twisted me in place.
He spun me back in and raised an eyebrow, as if to say, See?
I leaned into him, running one hand down the front of his immaculately cut suit. “I learned very different dance moves.” I waggled my eyebrows. “There were a lot more window and wall and a lot less appropriate distances.”
He actually snorted at that and tugged me in closer. “Is this better?”
My breath caught on the yes I wanted to utter.
But instead, I was struck by how handsome he was. I had to tilt my head back to admire his lush lips and the high peaks of his cheekbones and the little dimples that appeared in his cheeks. From here, I could see the flecks of gold in his irises and the scar above his eyebrow. A tiny imperfection on the otherwise perfect face. Somehow, it made me like him even more.
I reached up and brushed a finger against it. “How did you get this?”
His hand captured mine, lacing our fingers together. “I’ll trade you my secret for one of your own.”
I arched an eyebrow. “Oh, is it a secret?”
“Maybe.”
“What would you like in return?” I asked baldly, letting my eyes linger on his lips.
