Tentatively, Tessa reached for his hand and Andy didn’t expect the little jolt that traveled up his arm and settled somewhere in the center of his chest. Just from the way her fingers curled over his.
She fit. He couldn’t put any more to it than that. The last year had been filled with nothing but uncertainty while he struck out on his own. He hadn’t felt this way about anything or anyone in a long time; not that he wanted to jump into bed or that it was time to move in together and have babies. Just that he didn’t have to question his every move with Tessa.
It felt natural to hold her hand. Liked she belonged there, right up until he saw the glint of the engagement ring on her finger.
Off-limits, man. Beautiful and funny and yeah, perhaps a little crazy, but off-limits. Wasn’t that just the way of things?
“Where are we going?” Tessa gave his hand a little tug.
They hadn’t strayed far from the picnic bench, just a little ways out into the field of grass. He stopped and turned around, letting her hand slip out of his grasp while that diamond gave him one last taunting wink. That fiancé of hers had to make bank to get her a ring like that. Ha, the joke’s on you, the diamond sneered.
It made no sense to compare sizes, of paychecks or cocks, with a guy he’d never met, but that was testosterone for you.
“Ever heard of doing a primal scream?” He took two steps backwards. “You shout, top of your lungs, as loud as you can. Just let it all out.”
“Let all what out?”
“All your pent-up rage.” He demonstrated with a growl, complete with Hulk hands and snarly teeth.
She stood there in her wedding dress, regarding him with a skeptical look. “I’m not really enraged.”
“What, now you’re shy all of a sudden? Try it. You might like it.”
That was about as effective as telling a four-year-old to try lima beans. Tessa scrunched up her face at him, but she looked like she needed some cheering up right about then and maybe this would do it.
“We used to do this in college during finals week,” he explained. “It’s invigorating.”
She rolled her eyes. “Because college frat boys are completely sensible people.”
“I was never a frat boy.”
“This is stupid.”
“Come on.”
Tessa let out a mock yell that was really quite pathetic.
“That was sad.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “Shut up, Andy.”
“Hey, much better! Now funnel all that anger into a scream. I’ll do it with you. Come on, on three. One . . .”
Tessa shook her head.
“Two . . .”
Now she was outright glaring. This wasn’t working, but he was committed.
“Three!”
He sucked in a deep breath. At first he meant to just give a good Tarzan yell for laughs, but something about the moment got to him. Something about Tessa standing there, white stockings in the long grass with her blue toenails showing through. Something about the way her dark hair whipped about her face and the slightly amused, yet highly irritated look she was giving him.
Something about the pounding inside his chest as the little devil on his shoulder kept yelling, her you stupid idiot, her!
And his heart was saying maybe. Maybe.
Damn it, he’d just told himself to stop listening to his family and start trusting his own instincts when it came to his life. Then his instincts had to start firing off so wrong. So he let out the loudest, most primal yell he had inside him. Shouting with everything he had at the frustration of always playing second fiddle, of once again being a buck short and a day late.
At first, Tessa’s thin, high-pitched scream accompanied him, but she stopped short to blink in wonder at his caveman war-cry.
“Wow,” she remarked when he finished. “That was some rage there.”
He was breathing hard, caught flat-footed and supremely grateful that women generally didn’t speak caveman.
“That’s it?” he taunted as soon as he found his voice. “That’s the best you can do?”
Smooth. He was that awkward kid with a crush again, not knowing what to do other than tease the object of his interest.
Tessa blushed, the color rising up her neck. “You can’t make fun of someone’s primal yell. I did the best I could.”
“Maybe that’s the problem. You just can’t let go, can you? Look around Tess.”
“Tessa,” she corrected, scowling. “We’re not even close to cute-nickname territory here.”
He went on, unfazed. “There’s no one around. No one can hear you. So just go for it.”
“Just drop it, Andy.” She started back toward the picnic table.
“What, you’re just going to give up?”
“I’m not giving anything up. This is a pointless exercise.”
She had her hands bunched in her skirt to drag it up as she tromped through the grass.
“Then tell me why it’s so hard for you? Are you afraid of looking stupid? Heck, I look stupid.”
“Couldn’t agree more.”
Tessa had reached the picnic table and by then he was feeling pretty much like an asshole, but this was the first real emotion he’d seen from her and he’d already committed by yelling his face off. He couldn’t turn back now.
“You know what they say, Tessa. If you’re afraid of doing something, then you need to take a good hard look at yourself and figure out what you’re really trying to avoid.”
“God, I hate this crap!” She snatched the cake server from the table and swung back around. “I said drop it.”
Taking a page from Mama Ottavio’s book, Tessa reared back her arm and chucked the utensil at him full force. The metal server glanced off of Andy’s arm as he ducked, but she wasn’t nearly done.
A great white blur with dark curls came flying through the air, knocking him flat on his back. Tessa loomed over him, straddling his hips, but he was too stunned to enjoy a few innuendos at her expense. Tessa fisted her hands into the front of his jacket.
“I don’t need your bullshit right now!”
He tried to throw up his hands in surrender. “Okay, I’m sorry.”
“So stop—” She jabbed him between the ribs with her thumb.
“Ow!”
“—pushing me around.” Another jab.
“Hey!”
Twisting his hips, he unseated Tessa and wrestled her onto the grass. Within moments, the tables had turned and Andy found himself looking down at her with his hands pinned over her shoulders.
Tessa was breathing hard, her cheeks flushed and her lips pink. With a sharp puff, she blew a stray curl away from her eyes as she looked to be plotting his demise. It was the most wonderfully ridiculous moment he’d experienced, ever.
So he kissed her.
His mouth descended over hers before he could talk himself out of it. Her lips were soft, warm, and so damn good, which meant he was officially going to hell for enjoying it. But at least Tessa was kissing him back.
Andy lifted his hands from her shoulders to circle them around her waist. He could feel the smooth satin against his fingertips, sense the catch in her breath as he angled his head to deepen the kiss. Then there was nothing else to do but let it happen.
***
Andy was a good kisser. He knew all the right ways to move and adjust so that they fit together perfectly and the kiss took over. No more thinking. Just this kiss.
But then it was over.
He dragged himself up. “I’m so sorry,” he said in a rush, his voice thick.
“Me, too.”
Each second stretched long as they regarded one another. She could see the rise and fall of the knot at his throat as he swallowed.
“I’m not really sorry,” he amended.
“Me, neither.”
The tail end of her reply was cut off as his mouth came down again. A really, really good kisser. When they pulled apart again, Tessa could barely catch her breath.
“It must be the uniform,” she tried to explain.
Andy glanced downward. “It’s a chef’s jacket.”
“I like it.”
Her fingers strayed upward to trace the line of the white buttons down the center, which made her think of undoing the buttons. Which was an awful thought to have considering just hours ago she was planning to say I do.
“I like your hair,” he replied.
“Really? I hate my hair. It gets everywhere.”
He curled a lock around his index finger. “I like the rest, too,” he admitted.
Andy sounded a bit out of breath himself, which made her insides melt. Tessa closed her eyes and let herself enjoy the moment, just this one slice of time with the sun on her face and Andy holding on to her.
She listened to the breeze and imagined time passing in the rustle of the grass, first in one direction and then the other. Tomorrow this would be done with. She wouldn’t be married. She wouldn’t be on her honeymoon. She would just have to figure out what she was.
Andy’s voice eventually cut through the orange haze. “I could really be anyone, couldn’t I?”
Her eyes flew open. “No, of course not.”
“It’s okay.” He untangled himself from her and they settled beside each other, sitting up in the grass. “I know nothing can come of this.”
He didn’t sound angry, just a little resigned.
“I . . . I guess not,” she stammered.
What did she mean, “I guess not”? Of course not. She was still wearing her wedding dress. She plucked at the skirt where a few spears of grass had gotten stuck.
“Hey, sucky timing right?” he said, trying to sound light and failing.
“Yeah.” She laughed a little; the worst-sounding laugh in the world. “Actually, you have great timing. If you hadn’t gotten there late, you wouldn’t have been there to be my getaway car.”
“Long walk to the bottom of the hill,” he agreed. “You would have had to hitchhike.”
“Or I might have chickened out and just gone through with the wedding,” she admitted quietly.
They were sitting so close that all he had to do was stretch out his hand and they were almost touching. He left the decision to her. With a deep breath, she hooked her fingers onto his, just by the fingertips.
There was a connection there. It was new and tenuous and she didn’t know what to do with it, but it was there.
“There’s something I need to confess as well,” he began.
“You’re married,” she guessed.
“Smart-ass. And no. What I meant to say is that we’re not lost.”
“What do you mean?”
“I know exactly where we are. I drove in circles trying to get to Briarwood in the first place, but right now I can drive us out of here at any time.”
She frowned at him. “Why did you act as if you didn’t know?”
“It’s a wedding. Emotions are high. I just figured you might need a little time to cool off and then you might decide getting married today was the right thing to do. Then I’d just turn around and take you back.”
His admission sank in deeper than the kiss. Even when Andy barely knew her, he was trying to look out for her. It was just the type of guy he was in his bones. The white knight.
“I suspected Graham was having an affair.” Her breath rushed out of her as she said it. Time to rip off the bandage all at once. “A month before the wedding. He said he was on a business trip that weekend, but something was off.”
Andy swore.
“Yeah,” she agreed.
And that was about as much eloquence as the situation demanded. Tessa stared at her sapphire-blue toes. She’d had so many chances to confide in her friends, her mother, she’d come so close last night while bonding with Renata, but she’d held back. They would all probably tell her it was nothing, but what if they didn’t and she was faced with an awful decision. But today she’d found herself facing that same decision anyway. And she’d run. But she couldn’t run away from her problems any longer.
“I confronted Graham. Well, I wouldn’t exactly say I confronted him. I brought it up a couple of weeks ago and even then I knew I was being wishy-washy about it. It was all, ‘You know that weekend? It seemed like you weren’t quite straight with me about where you were, and pardon me for asking, but you wouldn’t be cheating on me like a month before we’re supposed to be married, would you?’”
“What did he say?” he asked quite seriously.
“He pushed it off. Made jokes. He said I was just jittery and overreacting like all brides did, which wasn’t fair to me or all of bridedom. And I never overreact. Well, except for today.”
Tessa looked out over the lake, fidgeting in her wedding gown. Suddenly the weightless satin felt like it was a hundred pounds and her skin itched to be free of it. She waited for Andy to condemn her for her stupidity, but he didn’t.
“That was the thing about Graham, he could be so charming,” she confided. “He didn’t put my fears to rest when we talked. He just made me feel silly for even having them.”
“But in your gut, you knew.”
“There were credit card receipts. I found them one morning after he’d stayed over. And there was a strange number on the back of one of his cards. On top of that, the way he was acting was just . . . dodgy. You develop this special radar being a teacher. You know when the boys at the back of the class are being dodgy, thinking they’re acting cool and getting away with something when they’re not.”
“You mean we’re not as smooth as we think we are?” Andy asked in mock dismay.
“Not in high school and not afterward either,” she said with a thin laugh. Then she sighed. “I guess I didn’t really want to know the ugly truth. I wanted to be talked out of it. So I let him.”
“Tessa—”
“You have to know that it wasn’t all bad. Graham wasn’t some evil douche bag. I was busy, too, for nine months out of the year with school. At those times when we got to see each other, it was good—”
“Tessa.” Andy repeated her name louder this time, cutting through the monologue. “It’s okay,” he said once he had her attention. “You don’t have to justify it.”
She had been trying for too long to reason things away. It was time to stop fighting this battle within herself, one that could never be won. Exhaling slowly, she turned to him. “Can I use your phone?”
Andy handed it over without a word and even moved away to give her some space. He stopped just out of earshot, looking at the surrounding hills as if standing guard.
Her heart thudded as she keyed in Graham’s number.
“Hello?”
Graham’s voice sounded both familiar and alien to her and a sick pit formed in her stomach. She knew she waited too long before replying.
“Hi. It’s me.”
“Tessa.”
She deserved his coldness. “I didn’t mean for it to happen this way.”
“Yeah? Because this is pretty fucked up, Tessa.”
He said it too calmly. She could imagine him in his tuxedo, hair perfectly slicked back. This was Graham, in control, trying to turn the situation to his advantage.
“I’m so sorry.” She thought she saw Andy perk up at her apology. “I should have said something sooner.”
“Do you know how bad this looks? What were you thinking?”
He sounded muted, as if he wasn’t alone and needed to control the volume, but even smooth-talking Graham couldn’t keep the rising anger from his voice.
She felt like a jerk for doing this over the phone instead of in person, but perhaps it was fitting. Their relationship had always seemed one step removed in so many ways between their jobs, the constant exchange of e-mails and voice messages. When she’d seen the signs of a possible affair, she wanted to believe the best about Graham, not the worst. Tessa had brushed the problem away as being her own demons inside that she would just have to deal with on her own.
Whenever they were together, Graham made her happy, didn’t he? But for all his smooth-talking, Graham hadn’t been able to completely convince her.
Andy was right. Even though she didn’t show her disappointment, it remained there inside of her. She had put a flimsy Band-Aid over the cut, patching over her suspicions about Graham in hopes they would somehow disappear. But all this time the wound was festering.
For a long moment, Tessa just held the phone to her ear, listening to the sound of Graham breathing on the other line. Someone in the background was asking him if it was her.
She could handle angry teenagers and irate parents. Even senior administrators and egotistical colleagues trying to intimidate her. Why was this so much harder?
“Well, Tessa?” her ex-fiancé prompted.
This was harder because she wasn’t advocating on behalf of her students. She had to stand up for herself.
“Graham, did you cheat on me a month ago?”
“Fuck—”
She heard him exhale sharply, agitated. She felt sick and hollow inside, but this was it. No more hiding.
In the pause, she found her strength. This time she would not be coaxed or charmed. “Graham?”
“What did that bastard say to you?”
Her stomach plummeted. This wasn’t denial like before. She had definitely hit on something.
A chilling calm came over her. “What bastard would that be?”
“I told Blake to mind his own business. That I’d take care of it.”
“Blake.”
She let that single name sink in while her grip tightened on Andy’s phone. Blake was Graham’s best man and best friend.
“So Blake knows.”
“Tessa, can we not talk about this over the phone?”
“You screwed up, Graham.” She fought hard not to cry. The truth still hurt. “Were you ever going to say anything? Or were you happy thinking that you had gotten away with it?”
“Look, that bitch doesn’t mean anything—”
Tessa hit the button to end the call. She had heard all she needed to hear.
That bitch. There was a woman. Someone very real and very present. Blake was a bastard and the woman he’d cheated on her with was a bitch. Tessa knew what would come next. Graham would start working things around, making up reasons. He had the answers for everything, nothing was ever his fault and even if it was, wasn’t he so good to her that it didn’t matter?
Graham didn’t have to be right, he just made it so he was never wrong. Why had she never seen that about him? He was a moving target. She would ask him a question and instead of answering, he would just argue the validity of the question. How she phrased it wrong or how the context wasn’t right or how it depended on too many different factors.
Bullshit. She didn’t need to explain herself to him, and hell, he didn’t have to explain anything to her anymore. Tessa sat there feeling hollow and betrayed and stupid for letting it go on, but at last she was certain she’d made the right choice.
Several minutes passed before Andy approached. He stood beside her as she stared at the phone in her lap.
“You okay?”
For the last month, that same question had put her on the defensive and now she knew why.
“I’m okay. I really am.”
This time, she meant it.
He gave her shoulder a squeeze. “Good.”
When she looked up at him, he wasn’t pitying or worried. He didn’t look uncomfortable for being stuck in this situation or anxious as he struggled for the right thing to say. He was just Andy; the right guy at the right time when she needed a friend.
She smiled at him. “Let’s get out of here, okay?”
“Okay.”