How to Ruin a Wedding(7)

He blinks, his mouth opening and shutting as he thinks about what to say.

I shake my head. “If you are, I can’t anyway. Not right now.” Wow, the alcohol has effectively removed the little filter I have. “I’m too sensitive. I’ll either fall in love with you on the spot or instantly burst into tears. Maybe another time.”

He gives me a small, not quite happy, smile, maybe a little sympathetic. “You’re going through a hard time,” he says softly. “I’m not busy, so I thought I’d keep you company.”

I’d tilt my head if it wasn’t so heavy. “Not to be a pessimist, but people usually do things for reasons other than just being a good person.”

“That is absolutely being a pessimist,” he says, then sighs. “Maybe I have an ulterior motive.”

“So you want to sleep with me?”

He gives me a smile. “Your honesty is attractive enough for that to be a future endeavor.”

My body warms, particularly between my thighs. I cross them. “But that’s not it,” I say, not too drunk to miss that.

He nods. “I’m here for a wedding.”

I raise my brow. “Is attending such a miserable experience that you’d rather keep the company of a woman you found beneath a bush?”

“You say it like it’s a bad thing,” he jokes, then adds, lightly on the tails of it, “It’s my first love’s wedding.” I choke on my fry. “First and only, actually.”

I hand him my refill as soon as the bartender places it by the fries.

“Thanks,” he says, downing it in one single gulp. He drops the glass on the counter. “Have I earned the reason you were hiding beneath a bush?”

“What’s your first love’s name?”

“Anna.”

Not Eliza, so I don’t have to lie too much about why I’m here. But I wonder if Anders would enjoy me wrecking his first love’s wedding.

Then, a thought clicks. “Wait, you went to check out that plot of land with your first love’s fiancé?”

He nods. “Lucas is my best friend.”

“Your best friend is marrying your first love?” I shout, a burst of energy sliding through me. I grip his face in my hands. “Why are you here? Why would you subject yourself to this kind of agony? Are you a masochist?”

He places a hand over mine. For a moment, I think he means to remove it, but instead, he presses my palm closer to his cheek. Does the caress of a stranger offer comfort he couldn’t admit he needed? “It’s complicated.”

“Life really sucks sometimes, huh?”

He takes a deep breath, closes his eyes, and I have the urge to press my lips against their lids. “Yeah,” he whispers.

I just learned his name minutes ago, but I feel such a magnetic pull toward him. I need to, at this very moment, smooth out the wrinkle between his brows. It doesn’t seem like he wants to try to uncomplicate his situation for me, and I can’t really blame him. He’s already extended himself to be here, attending a wedding he doesn’t seem to want to go to, confiding in an almost-complete stranger.

He’s done two solids for me already and has this disarming charm that’s effectively removed the pit of anxiety I can’t ever snuff out when left alone with a man I don’t know. Maybe it’s the liquor stealing that security measure from me, but I felt fine with him when we were alone before.

Maybe the universe decided to place two miserable souls together, however briefly, to give them some respite from all the damage done to them.

“Okay, Anders, let’s be sad together.”

His smile returns and warmth sparks in my chest, like a reward for bringing it back out of him, though something tells me nobody has to work too hard to do so. “Do you think a pity party will help?”

“Yeah,” I say, still holding his face. “Party is right there in the phrase. Let’s suck out the sadness like venom from a snake bite. Once it’s gone, we’ll feel better.” I use my chin to gesture to the other side of the room. “And then, we’ll drink some more, play some darts, and make bad decisions.”

He shows a set of perfect white teeth, his canines a little sharper and longer than the rest, which widens his smile. “Okay. Let’s.”

I pull away to think, but his hand reaches around my stool and pulls the chair closer to him, so my thighs are between his. I shake off the attraction that runs through me. I have to remind myself as I think of what to say: I’m going to comfort him, not sleep with him.

“Okay,” I begin, “I have a really sad life, so mine might be long.”

He slides a finger over my cheek and pulls a stray hair behind my ear. “I’m here however long you need.”

Lucy, do not fall in love with a man who shows you a simple act of kindness.

“Okay, so from the beginning. I have never had anything that has been only mine,” I tell him. “My parents died when I was a teenager, and I spent most of my life trying to take care of my little sister.”

His gaze travels around my face, then focuses on my eyes, like a camera lens finding its subject.

“Growing up, I spent recesses in a corner alone, studying to get perfect grades to make my parents proud, so friends were nonexistent for a while. My parents died in a car crash on the way to the hospital because my mom was sick, cancer, and as much as I love an ironic twist, that messed me up for a bit. After that, raising Taina on my own was a whole other kind of hard—balancing grief and responsibility was confusing for a girl who didn’t even know how taxes worked.