Page 28

Rhys

T hat fucking kiss.

Every time I take my dick in my hand, every time I make myself come in the shower—muscles rigid, eyes slammed shut, hand slapped against the wall to keep myself upright—I feel like a complete hypocrite, because I said no and I want, want, want yes .

I want her in every possible way—next to me at a quilt show, curled up against me in bed, under me while I pound my frustration out in her.

I want to eat Doritos with her and tell her about my childhood, I want to hear more about her grandmother’s mean love, I want to see her in every pair of those cheap panties, I want to buy her the expensive versions and tear them off her.

I can’t stop thinking about her.

Over the next few days, my grandfather’s legacy continues. I go back to my temporary job as a wedding planner. I dive into rescuing Leah and Penelope’s disassembled wedding. Leah and I stay on top of the vendors to make sure nothing else goes awry, and the event comes off without a hitch.

I begin the process of unwinding the Eden-wedding disaster.

I sit down with Hanna and update her on as much of the story as I can.

I tell her about the drive, the car trouble, the rental-car issues, the walk along the side of the road, Eden’s sore feet, the flight.

I leave out the quilt show, the pretty underwear, the kiss, the way her round ass felt against my swollen cock.

For obvious reasons.

Even so, I think Hanna sees through my sketchy version of events. She gives me a long, curious look before saying, “I take it she wants to cancel the rescheduled wedding.”

“Yeah.”

It was one of the last questions I asked Eden before we left Sioux Falls. Do you want me to cancel the wedding?

I held my breath while she bit her lip, but finally she gave a short, tight nod.

I raised my eyebrows. You can leave it a few days longer if you want to—just in case.

She shook her head, and I felt a wild, stirred-up mixture of relief and the same hopelessness that had followed me around since I’d first met Eden in New York.

I hang my head, and Hanna sighs. “What’s going to happen?”

“We’re going to beg Weggers for mercy; that’s what’s going to happen. And if that doesn’t work, I’m going to figure out what our legal recourse is. In the meantime, maybe we leave things the way they are. Just till we know what all our options are.”

She nods.

A few days pass before Weggers deigns to make time for Hanna and me to come to his office to discuss “the situation.”

Neither of us knows what to expect. Weggers hasn’t distinguished himself as flexible in the past. On the other hand, none of us has failed quite this dramatically yet, so we don’t have any experience with the begging-for-mercy route.

Weggers sits behind his desk with his eyebrows arched like a short, bald, self-important supervillain while I confess my sins.

I give him a slightly more redacted version of the last few days than I gave Hanna—but it contains essentially the same information.

And it makes me remember all the things I’m not saying.

The moments between the moments—Doritos and Indian takeout and Eden’s shy delight when I retrieved the laundry.

(More evidence that she’s only been with assholes.)

The feel of her hair between my fingers, her mouth hot under mine.

I shove down how much I miss her, because it’s a fact that doesn’t—can’t—matter.

“I did everything I could,” I tell him. “I followed her to Sioux Falls so she could try to reconcile with him?—”

This is not an exact rendering of my motives, but give me a break; this is Weggers we’re talking about.

“Remember when we talked about this, in the beginning. You said if the wedding got canceled for reasons that had nothing to do with me, you’d take it under advisement.”

He makes a Hmmm sound.

“Please,” I say. “Don’t punish Hanna because this marriage wasn’t meant to happen. I tried.”

Weggers lets me suffer while he hems and haws, wrings his hands, then rises and paces.

Hanna starts to speak, and I can tell she’s filled with righteous rage, so I give her a pleading look and she shuts the fuck up, thankfully.

Hanna is not a Weggers whisperer. She’s not an anyone whisperer, although she does seem to know how to handle brides.

More pacing. A lot of throat-clearing and sighing. He consults a thick book on his bookshelf, which turns out to be the dictionary.

Then he says, “I will take it under advisement.”

“Meaning we’re off the hook for this one?”

“Meaning I’ll investigate further and inform you of my decision.”

A shudder passes through Hanna, and I give her another Please don’t make this worse look.

“Thank you,” I say.

As soon as we’re out of his office, she lights into me.

“You let him— How can you let him be such an uptight little pretentious self?—”

“He’s impossible,” I agree. “But getting into it with him is only going to make this worse for all of us.”

“What if…?”

Her expression is anguished.

“I won’t let you lose Hott Springs Eternal. I promise.”

“You can’t promise that. You don’t know.”

“I fucking know,” I say.

What I mean is I will fight for you with the last bone in my body . She’s right. I can’t actually know that I’ll win. But I’ll go down swinging.

“I’ll talk to Matias,” I tell her.

“Matias—”

“My high school friend who’s a lawyer in Bend now. Family and estate. If anyone knows Oregon estate and probate law, it’s him. Between us, we’ll come up with something. I won’t let you down.”

“What about when it’s Tucker’s turn?” she asks. “What if he doesn’t—you know, come through?”

I know why she’s worried. Tucker hasn’t exactly been easy to pin down recently. And he’s the only brother who hasn’t gotten a letter from our grandfather, which means he’s definitely up next. My grandfather had a fairness kink, so there’s zero chance he’d let Tucker off the hook.

“He’ll come through,” I say.

Like my previous promise, it’s not something I actually have the ability to commit to, but I’ll do everything in my power to make it so. And no matter how miserable Tucker is, I can’t imagine him letting us down. I can’t imagine him letting Hanna down.

“Does anyone know what’s up with Tucker?” she asks.

“He won’t talk about it,” I say.

“Have you tried? Like, really tried?”

I sigh. “The last time I tried was six months or so ago. I can give it another shot?”

“I think you should.”

“I will.”

“And in the meantime, you’ll talk to Matias?”

“Yup.”

I drop in on Matias, and we sit down in his office in Bend, which is in a white Victorian on the corner of two streets near downtown. His office furniture matches the Victorian vibe, which I bet the small-town clientele loves.

Matias shakes my hand, then pulls me into a hug. When I step away, he says, “I thought you were never coming back to Rush Creek.”

“Yeah, me, too.”

Matias and I have been in touch since we each found out the other had gone to law school. Every once in a while, he reaches out to me with questions, always ribbing me about how since I’m the “baddest-ass lawyer in New York City,” he can trust I know my shit.

I spin out the whole story of the will and Eden’s woes for Matias—the amended version, of course, and he listens carefully and takes notes.

“I’m not sure yet we want to go ahead with anything legal,” I caution. “But I want to know what our options are.”

“I know you know this, but since you didn’t contest in the first four months, this is going to be way more of a long shot.”

“I have some ideas,” I say. “For one thing, we didn’t get all the terms up front.” I explain exactly how my grandfather has trickled the letters out via Weggers on a mysterious time frame.

“Interesting,” he says. “That might be a possible loophole argument.”

We talk more about the vulnerabilities of the will—and of Weggers’s execution of it—and Matias tells me he’ll start preparing and let me know what he finds.

“You said you rescheduled the wedding for a month out. Have you canceled that yet?”

“Not yet, but we need to.”

He nods. “Definitely call off all the wedding guests, return presents, all that jazz. But if I were you, I’d keep the vendors in place for now.

Can’t hurt, might help. I’m looking at this language here.

” He points. “ All of them must actually culminate with the planned ceremony. It’s vague.

Let me do some thinking. I’ll work both angles—how to contest the will when we’re outside the four-month window and whether there’s room for interpretation in the wording of the stipulations. ”

“I can’t fail my sibs,” I tell him.

He gives me a sympathetic look. “Yeah,” he says. “I know.” He sighs. “Your best bet may still be kneeling and groveling for Weggers.”

“You have no idea how shitty that sounds.”

“Shittier than losing the land and your sister’s business?”

My turn to sigh. “Fuck no.”

“Well. Let’s see how this plays out, but be prepared to try that route if I can’t see a clear path out of this that won’t cost you a fortune and lose you the land anyway.”

I sigh again. “Will do.” I run a hand through my hair. “How are things with you?”

“Fucking great,” he says. “I love Bend, and the practice is kicking ass. We decided to shift the focus. Kind of the opposite of the way you went,” he says, sounding faintly apologetic.

“We were all burning out on hostile divorces, so we’re only doing collaborative divorce now, and we’re doing a lot of pro bono work advocating for kids who are getting screwed by the system.

” He eyes me. “We’re looking for another partner.

” His voice is casual. “You wouldn’t happen to know of anyone who’s interested in leaving a big-city practice for a more peaceful existence, would you? ”

“You mean me?” I ask, startled.

He shrugs one shoulder. “I mean, yeah, that would be the dream—someone like you. But I don’t expect you to leave behind big-city money and glory for this.

Just because I love it here doesn’t mean you would, especially not if you’re happy doing what you’re doing there.

That article in MANhattan sure made it sound like you are. ”

“Yeah, I am,” I say without thinking, but then I remember the conversation with Eden. Her suggestion that I do nicey-nice divorces .

Matias grins. “My mom, she says divorce is a sacrament. Like marriage. Sacrament coming in, sacrament going out. Like baptism and death.”

I laugh. “I take it she’s divorced.”

“Three times,” he says. “The next time, she says she’s going the collaborative route.”

“Things bad with husband number four?”

He shakes his head. “Nah. Things are good. But she says everything has a shelf life.”

I chuckle. “Shelf life. Yeah.”

“She and her husband come over to my house for dinner every Sunday night. You should join us sometime. And feel free to bring a plus-one.”

My mind jumps to Eden, to her scent and the drag of her fingers through my hair, before I push the image away. “Not seeing anyone,” I say.

He shrugs. “I can hook you up with a friend of a friend-with-bennies if you want. And Bend Tinder is not half bad.”

I snort. “Thanks. I think I’m good.”

“Well, text me if you want in on the Sunday-night festivities. And definitely let me know if you hear of any kickass lawyers with an eye on family practice partnership in Central Oregon.”

I nod. “Will do.”

On my drive back through town, my eye snags on In Stitches, Eden’s store. The door opens and someone comes out, a form so familiar that my throat closes. Eden. She crosses the street toward Rush to Read Books and disappears inside.

I almost park my car and follow her. Every cell in my body wants to be in her presence again, to talk to her. To share a bag of junk food or split a samosa, to be headed somewhere with her in the seat next to mine.

I have to make myself put my foot back on the gas, because if I’m not careful, I’m going to be telling Matias I know a guy who wants that job.

Matias’s mom has the right idea. Everything has an expiration date. And trying to hold on to something that’s past its date just lands you with a whole lot of grief and a bad case of food poisoning.