How to Ruin a Wedding(86)

“Excuse me?” A deep voice joins us. “Have either of you seen Valerie?”

Jennifer’s eyes widen in recognition first. Then, since I’ve never met him in person, only saw photos from his Instagram that haven’t been updated in a decade, I recognize him, sort of. His blond hair has gray streaks throughout it, and a gathering of wrinkles pulls at the sides of his thin lips.

“Nick?” I can’t help but ask. Taina found his home address and info, but he’s supposed to be twenty-eight, and he doesn’t look old but he looks older.

He blinks. “You know me?”

“What the hell are you doing here?” Bethany shouts, storming over. She grabs the bouquet of flowers in his hands, slaps his face with them, then tosses them to the side.

Valerie hesitates behind her aunt, her eyes wide, her body moving like weights hold down every muscle.

“Valerie—” He tries to approach, but Bethany blocks his path.

“What the hell are you doing in my house?”

He looks Bethany up and down in a way that makes me inch closer to them. “I was invited.”

“The hell you were,” Bethany says.

Valerie finally moves at a normal speed, grabbing Bethany and pushing her to the side. Her expression is unreadable as she looks up at him. “You brought flowers,” she points out. “I’m getting married soon. This is my Jack and Jill. What are you trying to do here?”

“I want you back,” he says. “I don’t care that you’re getting married. I don’t care about the age difference. I don’t care what your family thinks. We should have never broken up.”

A hush settles in the room as every single person stops what they’re doing to watch.

I cannot help but insert myself. “How old are you?”

He glares at me, probably wondering who the hell I am and why I would ask that during his confession, then brings his attention back to Valerie.

Jennifer whispers beside me. “He’s pushing fifty.”

“Fifty.” I’ve lost all sense of control. “Isn’t he in his twenties?”

Jennifer frowns at me. “Do you mean his son? They have the same name. Are you confused?”

There’s a sudden pounding behind my eyes. A hammering of different bundles of information bouncing around in my head, trying to make sense of things, but the nails loosen as soon as they are pounded into a board. Taina is so thorough when checking someone’s info; I’m not sure how she could have messed this up.

She must have seen the younger Nick and assumed that was Valerie’s ex. Not the man who could have been her father. Daddy issues or not, that age gap is something I’m not entirely sure I can get behind.

This is who Valerie keeps thinking about?

“Get out”—Valerie shoves him—“and don’t ever show your face here again.”

Olive, who apparently has a sixth sense for too-adult conversations, appears dragging something behind her. When she tries to pass Valerie, I see she’s holding a bat.

“Jesus.” I hurry over and snatch it before she takes one of us out.

“Yeah, you’re stronger,” Olive notes. “You hit him.”

I pry the bat from her and toss it away from anyone’s reach. “I think we all need to regroup here.”

Nick steps forward. “How are you going to invite me, then take it back now that I’m here?”

“I didn’t invite you,” Valerie snaps, looking back at Bethany with wide eyes. “I swear I didn’t!”

Nick snatches his phone from his pocket and holds out the screen, showing the messages Taina and I sent back and forth with him. My cheeks burn. This is not at all how I envisioned this happening. This was supposed to be a warm reunion between two age-appropriate adults who were meant to find their way back to each other.

Valerie jerks back. “That is not me.”

“What?” he stammers, then he types into the phone and holds it to his ear.

I take a step back, ready to leave. I’m too slow to realize before it’s too late. Before Olive pulls my phone from her pocket, the screen lit up with Nick’s phone call.

“Olive?” Valerie shouts.

“It’s not my phone.” She drops it from her hand like it shocked her.

I hurriedly bend for it, snatch it, and back away. All eyes are on me now. More importantly, Valerie’s are. I see it on her face, the rapid calculating, trying to understand what’s happening. Sorting through bits and pieces of information that don’t make sense, no matter where they’re placed.

“Lucy?” she says my name like a question, like it’s the only one she can think of at the moment.

I haven’t had a chance to figure out what to do, what to say, when this moment happened, if it happened, and I’d really hoped it wouldn’t. My first scenario is that I would simply go back to New York, and everyone I met here would be a memory. Then, after Anders, after our promises, I thought I could have Valerie end the wedding herself, and there wouldn’t be any fingers pointing my way, and anger, or questions at all.

I was foolishly wrong.

Bethany manages a full question. “Why is Nick calling you?”

Olive looks up at me with wide eyes. “What’s going on, Lucy?”

I want to shrink myself into a size so insignificant that I can hide between one of the cracks of the floorboards. At least until I can formulate a response that will explain myself while managing to keep Anders’s family from hating me, while not throwing Anders under the bus, but also explaining my reasoning for all I’ve done.