Role Playing(70)

CHAPTER 29


BEAUTIFUL ALL ALONG


Aiden was wearing a suit he hadn’t worn since he lived on the west side, a black suit with a snow-white shirt and pale-blue tie. He looked like a funeral director, but a classy one. According to Malcolm, who had forced him to buy it, it was his “power” suit.

If he had ever needed a boost of confidence, it was now.

The wedding wasn’t for another hour, but people were getting together already. He was at the bar, debating whether he should drink or not. So far, he’d settled on a very light gin and tonic. He generally didn’t drink his troubles away—he didn’t often indulge in liquid courage, and he didn’t like feeling out of control.

Maggie’s coming. Or at least he hoped so, looking at his watch. She said she’d try, anyway.

Maybe she wouldn’t make it.

He’d put up a token resistance when she’d volunteered, but as she’d pointed out, resistance was futile. He hoped that she was driving okay from Fool’s Falls. He wasn’t sure what she’d turn up looking like . . . hell, for all he knew, she’d wear her usual jeans and baggy sweater, her hair a wild nimbus around her head.

He wouldn’t care.

I just want to see her. Because things were better when Maggie was around.

“Why the hell didn’t you just take Deb?” Riley asked by his side. He’d shown up that morning, not having been invited to the rehearsal dinner. He was the one who had suggested the bar in the first place once he’d realized that Aiden was stag.

“She’s got feelings for me.”

“Sounds like a ‘her’ problem, not a ‘you’ problem,” Riley said with a shrug. “I guess that’s why you couldn’t go with that Bogwitch, either, huh? She’s hot for you too?”

The thought made Aiden’s neck flush. Not with embarrassment, exactly. With interest.

Would Maggie be interested in him? She was so guarded, so deliberately grumpy. And he wasn’t sure about her past, other than her really bad divorce.

“Did you friend zone her too?” Riley continued, oblivious to Aiden’s pensiveness. “Because . . . shit. People are talking; your mom was right on that front. They’ve only ever seen you with Sheryl—you know, as in dating or whatever—and she’s married to your brother. And you haven’t been with anyone since, and nobody knows what the hell went wrong. So they’re talking up a storm. It’s like a Reddit board out there.”

“Yeah, well,” Aiden said, which he knew was a poor comeback, but he wasn’t sure what else to say.

Riley was trying: he’d give him that. He frowned, assessing the increasing crowd of wedding-goers who were filling the bar and flooding into the lobby beyond. “You could pick up somebody,” Riley said, even though his tone was dubious. “One of the bridesmaids is single, and a bunch of Hailey’s cousins and friends. Well, maybe not a bunch. At least four, though. And one or two of them are seriously cute.”

“I’ve got it covered,” Aiden said, glancing at the dressy watch he rarely wore. It had been his father’s.

Riley made an impatient noise, almost splashing him with his own whiskey sour as he gesticulated vehemently. “Do you? You need to find somebody hot and give people something else to talk about. Otherwise . . .”

“Did it ever occur to you that I don’t give a shit?”

Riley stared, and Aiden realized he’d made the statement out loud, drenched in exhausted irritation.

“Still think you should get laid, though,” Riley muttered, scoping the crowd like a lion in the savanna.

Aiden sighed, considering a second gin and tonic. It was going to be, as Maggie would say, a long fucking day.

He was facing the bar, still contemplating a refill, when he saw Riley’s expression out of the corner of his eye. Riley had been leaning against the bar, but now stood up straight, like he’d been goosed, and his eyes widened with surprise. No—disbelief.

God, he hoped Sheryl wasn’t behind him. He started to gesture for the bartender. If it was Sheryl, he was going to need at least a double.

He felt the delicate hand on his shoulder, tapping him, and he turned, feeling warmth and comfort and relief. She was here, she’d gotten there safely, and he’d . . .

Then he got a look at her, and his brain went completely offline.

It was the closest thing he could compare it to. Initially, he didn’t know who he was looking at. Rather than her usual tangle of hair, she had an absolute riot of dark curls tumbling down her shoulders. In place of her baggy clothes, she wore a very simple, formfitting black dress. Even some long dangling silver earrings and a silver cuff bracelet. She had sheer black stockings and black heels. Her dark walnut eyes were lined in black and dramatically done up, and her lips pouted full and dusky. She studied him intently.

He didn’t know how long he stared at her. He could feel his mouth going dry and his heart beating harder in his chest than it had since he’d run practice in high school football. He felt hot, then cold, then hot again.

Maggie.

Riley, on the other hand, was grinning like an idiot. “Hi, sweetheart,” he said, in his worst, cheese-tastic, utterly Joey Tribbiani impression. “Here for the wedding?”

She turned to Riley briefly, and her sneer could’ve frozen Puget Sound. Then she pointedly ignored him, turning back.