Page 87 of Take Me Home

“We’ll find your seats in a moment. For now, wait over here.” She nudged them toward a string quartet already crammed into the corner and ducked back out to the foyer, leaving them standing in strange silence.

Hazel whispered, “Wait, is this a surprise party?”

Ash took her elbow. “Listen, I think—”

Someone shushed him.

“I could be wrong, but—” He tugged her farther into the corner, eyes darting about the room.

She laughed, an uneasy itch spidering up her spine. “What’s wrong with you?”

Someone shushed them again. Greetings were volleyed in the foyer, heels clicking on the tile. Then, the big doors opened, and even though Hazel had figured it out, she still jumped when the entire room chorused, “Surprise!”

Right away, the hostess whisked her father, Val, Lucy, and Raf to a table across the room with the largest centerpiece and red sashes draped on each of the chairs.Not red, cranberry, she thought. Only then did Hazel notice a banner that announcedCongratulations and Best Wishesand blown-up prints of her father and Val, some with Val’s kids, propped on stands around the room.

When the hostess offered them flutes of champagne anda toast, acknowledging their desire for a small wedding but insisting on the people’s right to celebrate, Hazel’s father made his own impromptu toast back to the room. He credited his colleagues for bringing out the best in him on-air, making him appear “decent enough” that Val overlooked how stilted and awkward his side of the conversation was when they’d met at some charity event. He could be stiff one-on-one—exactly what he was alluding to—but in a room full of people, something clicked on, carried over from his on-camera persona. Everyone laughed warmly at his self-deprecating speech.

“This is weird.” Hazel bumped into a cello and apologized to the stony-faced woman holding it.

“Do you want to leave?” Ash asked.

“We can’t leave.”

“We can, actually.”

“And say what?”

“Bye,” he deadpanned. “Or nothing. Just slip out. Who cares?”

“A Hazel getaway.”

“What?”

“That’s what Sylvia calls it. Like an Irish goodbye?” He didn’t crack a smile. “My dad will notice.”

She didn’t miss the flash of doubt that passed across his face before he said, “That woman didn’t even know who you were.”

“She’s never met me.”

“There should be pictures of you. And I only see four chairs at that table. Didn’t they know you were coming?”

Hazel’s cheeks flared hot with embarrassment. “I don’t know, Asher. I didn’t see the guest list.”

He squeezed her hip, frustrated, she guessed, by her deflection, or sorry for calling attention to the slight against her. But she couldn’t think too hard about it right now, not in front of all these people, not when she was so close—just the wedding andChristmas the day after to get through—to escaping this week mostly unscathed. Not after last night in the kitchen with her father, when it had finally seemed like…

Best not to hope, not even in the safety of her own mind.

Right now, her father was making his way across the room toward her, pausing periodically to greet and thank people. “I had no idea about this,” he said when he got to them. “We’ll get an extra chair—two chairs. And another table. I added your name to the list, but they obviously had a whole other plan here. They didn’t make the connection.”

“They didn’t connect the last names?” Ash asked.

Hazel pushed in front of Ash, gesturing back the way her father had come. “It’s fine. They’ll add a table. No big deal.”

“Hazel, hold on,” Ash said.

She marched after her father.

The situation wasn’t really anyone’s fault. Hazel’s father hadn’t expected assigned seating, especially not a table of honor for his family. If not for the surprise, a simple, overall head count would have sufficed, so he hadn’t called attention to Hazel’s late RSVP. It was all very understandable. No one had intentionally left her out. Besides, who could really be blamed when Hazel was neveraround? Unlike Lucy and Raf, who probably got dragged to these kinds of events, Hazel was always across the state, living her own life.