How to Ruin a Wedding(38)
With their age gap, someone—i.e., me—might find it suspicious. The typical story of an older man taking advantage of a younger woman, watching her every move, frowning upon drunken nights with friends, attempting to keep her all to himself.
Does Anders know about this?
“Likewise,” he says, and I can’t tell if he’s stuffy or if his voice naturally has a nasally undertone. He holds out his hand, and I shake it.
Not too firm, a bit weak, and a teeny bit wet. My father always said you can tell a lot about someone by their handshake. I’m too drunk to figure John out, but I’m erring on the side of nervous.
We swap custody of Valerie, and she throws herself at him, mumbling something into his collared shirt. Whatever he mumbles back, he says it in an even quieter whisper, but his face pulls into a wrinkled frown.
He keeps both arms around her. “I wish we could talk properly, but I need to get this one home.”
“Come on,” Valerie shouts. “We’ll drop you off at Anders’s.”
“I’m okay,” I say. “It’s a beautiful night out.”
“It isn’t safe for a girl to be alone at night.” Valerie points to what I’m sure she thinks is me but is actually a set of swings.
“I know jujitsu,” I lie.
“I don’t know what that is,” Valerie says.
“Picture something incredibly badass and unbeatable.”
Her answer is a thumbs-down, so I add the lie, “Don’t worry, I texted Anders, he’s on the way.”
The thumbs-down becomes a thumbs-up, words already beyond her. I wave them off, then make myself comfortable on one of the swings. Each push and pull makes the evening air cooler as I gain momentum. The more I move, the better I feel—as if I’m following the tipsy world instead of waddling through it.
As the night continues, the air begins to bite, and I ease my swinging. My eyes close, and for a moment, the world softens, and out of nowhere, my mom’s voice floats through my mind—singing her favorite lullaby. One she learned from her mother, and one she made Taina and me memorize as soon as we could form words.
It’s not often I remember specific moments like this. Maybe it’s the silence. I’ve never been good with it. For so long, keeping busy was my armor. Work, school, caretaking, endless motion—it kept the grief locked away when I lost my parents. I had to be strong. Had to take care of Taina. No room for breaking down.
But now, with Taina grown and steady on her own, those quiet moments I once feared have more room to creep in. My life is still busy—new, but less frantic than when I was a young girl desperately trying to be an adult, less buzzing with constant motion. In these calmer spaces, the grief surfaces more often.
And, if I’m honest, the silence leaves too much room for self-reflection. A reminder of where I want to be and where I actually am. Still struggling, still single, still trying to find steady ground.
At least, filling these quiet moments with the soft echo of my mother’s lullaby feels better than letting my mind wander to all the things I haven’t fixed yet. At least here, wrapped in memory, the silence isn’t empty.
“Lucinda.” Anders’s voice cuts through the song. For a moment, it feels like a dream, so I smile when I meet his concerned gaze. Only when his hands grasp my face do I jolt to reality.
“What’s wrong? Are you hurt?”
“What are you doing here?”
His hand on me pulls me to a full stop, and the world shakes a bit like an aftershock. “Why are you here alone? It’s midnight. You should have called me if you felt uncomfortable riding with Valerie and John. By the way, Valerie says if you’re going to lie about asking me to get you, you could at least try to pretend to have been on the phone.”
More perceptive than I thought, the drunk nepo baby. “I wasn’t uncomfortable.”
He pauses, then cocks his head slightly. “Then why didn’t you come home?”
I’m going to need him to stay far away from referring to his place as my home. Trouble, this beautiful, unintentionally charming man is. Far too much of it. And I don’t have the emotional capacity for it when my life is such a mess I’m confusing basic human concern for romantic gestures.
“My God, I need to get laid.”
Anders blinks. Then blinks again. And again.
I shoot up, removing his hands from my face, nearly headbutting him. I step away, but it’s not enough space. I move again, trying to widen the gap, but the slide behind me hits the backs of my knees and nearly tips me over.
He snakes his arms around me, tightening until our bodies press together like the pages of a book slammed shut. His hands take up so much space on my back, their warmth somehow seeping through the fabric and burning like hot coals.
To break the tension, I move my lips to thank him, but we’re so close together I fear any movement will lead to our mouths pressing. And though my body begs for the touch, the warmth, for Anders in this moment—I fear if I start kissing him, I won’t stop.
And those are too-real desires for a fake-dating situation.
With effort, I sneak my hands between us, pressing against his chest. A gentle push doesn’t budge him.
His eyes flick between mine and my lips, like he’s measuring the distance too.
I know I’m attractive—I’m not naive enough to think Anders doesn’t find me so. Still, there are millions of attractive people in the world, and normal people can appreciate seeing one and keep it moving, they don’t do anything about it.