These are the same flutters I felt for Crosby when he was my older brother’s best friend in high school.
You’re older now.
You’re not the sophomore to his senior.
You’re not the girl watching the prom king go to the dance with another girl.
I straighten my shoulders, letting all those old memories fall away. I don’t have crushes. No matter how good the crushee smells.
At the end of the meal, my brother stands, taps his glass, and clears his throat. “Here we go,” Crosby whispers in my ear, and I rein in the shiver.
“Thank you all for coming,” Eric says, smiling as he surveys the table. “It means the world to me to see so many of our friends and family here. I look around this room and know that I’m a man who wants for nothing.” He takes a beat though, licking his lips. “The only thing I’m missing is my dad.”
Eric’s voice cracks. I’m right on time, twenty seconds in, but I’m not enjoying victory. Too many hard emotions swell in me too.
My heart clenches, and grief tightens my throat. I cover my mouth, and Crosby reaches for my free hand under the table, squeezing it.
He’s quiet, but that squeeze speaks volumes. I know this is hard. I know you all miss him. I know you all wanted him to be here.
Eric goes on, and when he’s done, I turn to my seatmate and coconspirator, and say, “Thank you. And don’t worry about the bet. I’m not planning to collect.”
“You better,” he says with a sharp stare.
I shake my head. “I can’t. And you didn’t win, so it’s my call. Don’t try to negotiate with me.” I keep my tone soft but firm.
“Fine, then you’ll have to let me take you out to dinner sometime,” he says.
“Sounds like a deal.”
But not a date. Not between us. It can’t be.
As we make our way out of the rehearsal dinner, Crosby collects my jacket at the coat check then slides it onto my arms. “I’m picking up that corsage tomorrow, Nadia,” he says. “You’re going to look like a prom queen.”
I laugh. Laughter is safer than all these other feelings. “And you’ll look like the prom king you were.”
He shoots me that cocky grin that charms his fans. That charms me. “And together we’ll be wedding buddies.”
Yes.
Buddies.
That’s what we are. My teenage crush was just that, long forgotten.
Friendship is fine. Better than fine because friendship is all I have room for in my life, and I like having room for Crosby.
5
Nadia
Those tissues I tuck into my purse for a girls’ night out? That’s nothing compared to what I pack for a wedding.
Weddings make me cry.
Okay, fine. Blubber is more like it.
I can replenish vanishing seas at wedding ceremonies.
I cry when the music begins, when the groom sees the bride’s face, when the vows are exchanged.
That is not entirely surprising, considering I cry over dog food commercials. One of the Hawks’ biggest sponsors is an organic dog food company, and every time I see that sweet collie patiently wagging his tail while waiting to be adopted by his forever person, we’re talking buckets of tears.
That’s why I grab an extra packet the next day, snagging it from a drawer in the bathroom of my new penthouse in Cow Hollow, on top of a hill with a gorgeous view of the Golden Gate Bridge, the San Francisco Bay, and the glittering Pacific Ocean.
I’ve been here for a week now, and I’m fully moved in. I’ve been working hard, running back and forth to meetings with the city, interviewing general manager candidates.
This weekend, I’m off, focused solely on Eric’s nuptials.
Wearing a sapphire-blue dress too, my sister, Brooke, reads Percy Jackson to her eight-year-old daughter, Audrey, who’s convinced she wants to attend Camp Half-Blood, like the characters. They’re smushed into the corner of my new dove-gray couch, surrounded by purple pillows.
After Brooke finishes a chapter and closes the book, she waggles a well-manicured finger in my direction. “I saw that you only packed two packets of tissues, Nadia. That’s not going to be enough for you. Don’t forget you needed a towel at my wedding.”
Her daughter snickers. “A towel? Why did you need a towel?”
Brooke nuzzles her daughter. “Your Aunt Nadia cries at every single event. She cried at my high school graduation. I was soooo embarrassed,” she says.
I sneer at my big sister. “Thank you for teasing me for caring about your rite of passage.”
Brooke flings me an evil grin. She’s particularly good at boomeranging those in my direction. “That was nothing compared to how much you cried at my wedding,” she says.
“I was sixteen! I was hyperemotional. My big sister was getting married. Plus, you met your husband in China, and he moved to the US to be with you. That’s amazing,” I say, then arch a haughty brow. “Or maybe I was happy you were finally moving out of the house.”
“Ouch,” Brooke says, wincing in over-the-top pain. “I see you still have the zinger spirit, Nadia.”
“And I see you still have the crushing spirit of an older sister,” I tease.
My mom clicks across the floor, setting a hand on Brooke’s shoulder, ever the peacemaker. “And I see you both have the spirit of totally loving each other.”
I point at Brooke. “Yes, but I have a heart made of sponge cake and hers is carved from ice.”
Brooke launches a saucy look at me. “Just call me Elsa.”
Audrey and Brooke break into the famous song from Frozen, then they both laugh. “You know I love you. And all your cakey heart sponginess,” Brooke says.
Audrey bounces up from the couch, her sleek black hair, thanks to her dad’s genes, braided down her back. “I’m ready to see Mariana in her princess dress and then to eat all the cake.”
“Me too,” I say, offering a hand for high-fiving to my niece. She smacks back. “Cake is the best part of weddings. But vanilla wedding cake,
