He disappeared into the kitchen and a few minutes later a classic rock station came blaring into life. I smiled. Just what I would have picked.
We set to work taping the doorways and the lines around the ceiling, floor, and the booths that ran the length of one wall. I gave a silent prayer of thanks that the designer of this restaurant was into minimalism—there wasn’t much in the way of trim or fixtures in here; it was basically just four large, empty walls. That should make things easier. When we had finished we pulled the furniture into the center of the room and laid the tarp down around the edges of the floor.
Matt poured out the primer and handed me a roller. “You ready for this?” he asked.
I sighed. “As ready as I’ll ever be.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
We worked for several hours without stopping. The room was pretty big and it took awhile to get the primer up. Luckily, by the time we were finished with the fourth wall, the first was just about dry. At least we wouldn’t have to wait long in between coats.
We went into the kitchen, where we had stashed our food, and snacked on chips and cookies while we drank beer. Matt told me about the first painting job he had ever had. It was right after his injury had ended his playing career, and he figured he better find a way to make some money now that hockey wasn’t going to happen.
“I hope this doesn’t sound rude, but weren’t you in college?” I asked.
“I majored in business,” he said, cracking open another beer. “I didn’t know what I wanted to do, only that I wanted to be my own boss. When I couldn’t play anymore, I felt so stir crazy, I think I would have gone nuts if I tried to get a job in an office. I needed something where I was working with my hands. A buddy was on a painting crew, and it went from there.”
“I’ve always wanted to own my own business,” I told him, finishing off my beer. “Someday I’ll have my own little firm and I’ll be able to hoist all this grunt work off on my underlings.”
Matt laughed and then sighed. “We should probably get back to it.”
Matt didn’t try to keep up a stream of conversation while we put up the first coat, which I appreciated. It felt strangely comfortable with the two of us working together in silence, occasionally singing along to a good song on the radio.
When we had finished all four walls, we stepped into the center of the room to examine it. “Shit,” Matt murmured. The red was still clearly visible through the cream paint. It did look a little more like pink, but it was much too dark. “I guess we’ll have to do another coat.”
I looked down at my watch. It was already midnight and we had been working for more than four hours straight. I walked over to the first wall we had done. “Still wet,” I told him. “I guess the paint dries slower than the primer.”
Matt peered over my shoulder. “Fuck it, let’s get a pizza,” he said.
I laughed. “Sounds perfect.”
Matt ordered while I went into the bathroom to try to wash some of the paint off my hands. When I came back, Matt was clearing a space in the center of the floor for us and laying down the last fresh tarp. “I tried to move one of the tables out, but they’re all too close together. I couldn’t move one without moving them all.”
“Not worth it,” I agreed. “A picnic is fine by me.”
We sat cross-legged on the floor, splitting a large with everything and finishing off the beer. “God, I could sleep for a week,” I muttered, closing my eyes.
Matt looked concerned. “Why don’t I drive you home,” he said. “I could come back first thing in the morning and do the last coat.”
“You have work,” I pointed out. He shrugged. “You’re not missing work so you can do my job,” I said firmly. “Besides, load-in for the party starts at ten. There’s no way the walls would be dry in time.”
“So you were lying when you told Kiki you could sleep in tomorrow.” It was a statement, not a question. I merely shrugged.
“Well, that wall should be good enough by now,” Matt said, wiping his hands on his paint-splattered jeans. “Normally I would let a coat dry for a few hours…”
“But tonight, who the hell cares,” I finished for him.
Matt smiled. “Exactly. We’re not really shooting for perfection here.”
The last coat took a bit longer. We were both exhausted and soreness was settling into our arms and shoulders. When we finished, I was extremely relieved to see the red had completely disappeared below the cream.
“Thank God,” I muttered, sinking down to the floor. “I think I would have started pulling hair out if we had to do that again.”
Matt started to clean up and I rose to help him, but he held out a hand. “Stay right where you are, I’ve got this.”
For once I decided not to argue. I stretched out on our picnic tarp and closed my eyes, thinking of all the things I had to do before the party tomorrow. Less than a week, I told myself. Then you’ll be free.
“Here,” Matt said, and I opened my eyes. He was standing over me with a bottle of whiskey.
“Where’d you get that?”
“From the bar. Mr. Barker can spare it, I’m sure.”
I knew I shouldn’t. I was already so tired and I had so much to do the next day. On the other hand, maybe the drink would help me get a few hours of sleep.
“Oh, what the hell,” I said, sitting up and taking the bottle from him. The whiskey burned as it went down but it left me with such a lovely warm feeling that I took another pull before passing it over to Matt, who had joined me on the tarp.
“That’s good whiskey,” he muttered, wiping his mouth.
We sat in silence for a moment, passing the bottle back and forth.
“Is your dad still a painter?” Matt asked eventually.
“Yeah,” I said and my stomach dipped a bit, as it always did when I thought of my dad. We hadn’t spoken in a few weeks and I felt guilty. He knew how busy I was and I had a feeling he was purposefully trying not to distract me. I should have called him.
“Does he live around here?”
“Chicago,” I said quietly.
“Oh, that’s right, Kiki mentioned you lived there.” He left the statement dangling, not asking any question but giving me the space to tell him more if I wanted. And suddenly, I wanted to.
“I went there for college so I could be close to him,” I explained. “He was going through a rough patch and he was alone out there.”
“How’s he doing now?” Matt asked. There was concern in his voice, and maybe a touch of curiosity because I hadn’t fully explained about the rough patch. But I knew he wouldn’t press me.
“He’s okay,” I told him softly. “Six years sober, actually.”
I met his eyes, daring him to judge or make a comment. He merely nodded.
“That’s a great accomplishment.”
“It is,” I agreed. “There was a time…lots of times really, when I thought he wouldn’t make it.”
“It was pretty bad, huh?”
I shivered, thinking about those years. “He always drank too much,” I said finally. “Mom didn’t work when I was young; she wanted to stay home with me. But his drinking got worse and there was never any money.”
I didn’t know why I was telling him all this. The only people I had ever shared these things with were Annie and Ginny. But there was something about Matt that made me trust him. I knew he genuinely cared about what I was telling him; he wasn’t interested in the gossip or the scandal. But he would let me talk, he would listen, if I wanted him to.
“She left him when I was twelve,” I whispered. “She had to, I guess. He was never violent with us, but he just couldn’t stop drinking. There was never any money, we were constantly getting evicted…even after she went back to work. He ended up in the hospital a couple times…it was scary. We thought it was just a matter of time before he died.” My words trailed off as I thought of those horrible nights, the phone calls that had woken us up. “She tried to get him into treatment but…Anyhow,
she decided she’d had enough and we moved out.”
Matt was silent for a moment. “That must have been pretty hard for you, to leave him when he was sick. To not know what was happening when you were already so worried.”
I nodded, my throat feeling tight.
“She had to work so hard once we were on our own,” I said quietly. “Taking care of me, putting herself through school. We lived in this shitty little apartment in the city and I was alone so much while she was at work or school. It was scary.”
I looked up at him, expecting to see pity in his eyes and dreading it. Instead, the gaze that met mine was even. “I don’t know why I’m telling you all of this,” I said. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry,” he said, holding up the bottle. “Deep shit is exactly what you should talk about when you’re sharing a fifth of whiskey.”
I smiled, so grateful for him in that moment that I wished I could lean over and kiss him.
“Did things get better for you and your mom?” he asked.
“Yeah. She got her real estate license and got a good job where she met my stepdad. Eventually we were able to move from the city to Royal Oak. It was a much nicer place to grow up. She still worked like crazy, but by then I had met Annie and Ginny so…” I shrugged, smiling. “What else did I need?”
He smiled back. “And your dad got help?”
I nodded. “My senior year. He went away to rehab for six months then moved in with a friend in Chicago. He was still struggling, but sober. He’s managed to hold on all this time.”
I took a large gulp of the whiskey. “Okay, enough of my sob story. What heavy shit do you want to share?”
Matt chuckled softly and took another swig. “Let’s see, you already know my big dark secret about going to private school.”
I laughed. “And it scarred me for life, let me tell you. I’ll never look at you the same way again.” I heard a flirtatious tone in my voice but I ignored it. The whiskey had definitely gone to my head. I was feeling warm and fuzzy and not caring very much about how much he could hurt me.
“Kiki told me you’d had a rough time with girls,” I said suddenly, feeling brave. “Is there a story there?”
He squinted his eyes at me for a moment and I was sure he wasn’t going to tell me. But then he took a large pull from the bottle, wiped his mouth and said, “I was engaged once. In college. I had dated her for three years and I was sure she was the one.” Matt spoke quickly, staring at the ground. “We were planning a huge wedding for the spring, all the bells and whistles, when I got hurt in a minor league game. It wasn’t too long after they told me my career was over that she left.”
I gasped. I couldn’t help it. Who the hell could do something like that?
Matt smiled bitterly. “Turns out, it wasn’t me that she loved. She thought she was bagging herself a professional athlete. When it was clear I wouldn’t be one, she called the whole thing off.”
I wanted to hug him, to tell him how terrible I felt. But he hadn’t done that for me. He hadn’t made me feel worse by pitying me. He had just listened and accepted my story for what it was.
“That’s a really shitty thing to have happened to you,” I said simply, taking the bottle from him and taking a sip. I handed it back. “It must have sucked.”
Matt looked up at me and my breath caught in my throat at the look in his eyes. He looked vulnerable, sad, and so grateful.
“I guess that’s why I get kind of pissy about this wedding,” he said.
I laughed. “Kind of?”
He smiled ruefully. “Okay, really pissy—happy now? It’s just easy to remember how little all of this crap matters when it really comes down to it. Emily and I had all of this—the engagement party, the fancy venues. And in the end, it counted for nothing.”
I nodded. “There is a difference, though,” I told him. “Kiki and Eric are the right ones for each other. That bitch obviously wasn’t the one for you.”
He smiled at me and I again wished I could kiss him. Maybe it was just the alcohol talking…crap. The alcohol. I looked down at the bottle, which was now more than half empty. “Um, how the hell are we supposed to drive home now?”
Matt’s wide eyes met mine, and I knew he couldn’t drive either. The urge to curl up on the tarp and fall asleep was almost overpowering, but I knew I would regret it in the morning. Deep conversations over whiskey were one thing, but waking up next to Matt the morning after was not a scenario I felt I could face.
“I’ll call Eric,” Matt said finally. “He can come and get us.”
I was relieved. After the hours we had just spent trying to make his fiancée happy, I didn’t even feel bad for disturbing Eric. As Matt made the phone call, I started gathering up our things and then went to use the bathroom.
I met Matt back in the lobby, where he was turning off the lights. “Hey, Matt?” I asked. He stopped what he was doing and peered at me in the darkness. “Thank you,” I said softly. “For helping me tonight and for…well, for everything.”
Slowly, as if waiting for me to stop him, he lifted his hand and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. “You have paint in your hair,” he said softly.
“Mmmhmm,” I said, my breathing shallow from the nearness of him, from the feel of his fingers trailing lightly down my neck.
“You’re welcome, Jen,” he said, taking a small step toward me. I felt my heart rate increase. Please, please let him kiss me again.
A beeping horn sounded from the parking lot, pulling me from the dreamy haze of the moment. It was Eric, and sitting next to him in the SUV, waving way too energetically for three a.m., was Kiki.
Matt sighed. “I guess that’s our ride,” he muttered.
I felt flustered and hot. What the hell was I doing? Tomorrow was a huge day and I had work to do. Matt had made it perfectly clear the last time that he wasn’t interested. It was stupid to let myself believe he might feel the same way I did.
I picked up my purse and smiled at him brightly, feeling fake. “I guess we should go then.” I turned and walked through the front door to where Kiki and Eric were waiting, leaving Matt behind me in the darkness.
Chapter Twenty-Four
‘The rehearsal dinner is a very important aspect of your wedding. It’s your chance to make sure that all of your hard work and planning has paid off, to set your mind at ease that every little detail will be perfect for your ceremony. If any of those details have yet to be accounted for, now is the time to address the problem.’—The Bride’s Guide to a Fabulous Wedding!
Tuesday morning found me sitting at the kitchen table in my bathrobe, furiously trying to fire off a round of emails to vendors before I was due to meet Kiki for her hair appointment. She had met with the stylist several times already, but today was the final run-through for her wedding hairdo, veil and all, and she wanted me there to approve it.
The welcome party the night before had gone smoothly. Matt and I had not done a perfect job with the walls, but by the time the linens, lighting and flowers were brought in, you could barely tell. Kiki seemed very happy, surrounded by her family, and several people had stopped to compliment me on the gift baskets they had found in their rooms upon check-in.
“Well, look who’s actually here during daylight hours,” Annie said, standing in the doorway to the kitchen with raised eyebrows.
“Hey,” I said, turning back to my laptop.
“Well, I’m glad to see you. We only have a few days left and I want to nail down some of the details with you.”
“Mmmhmm,” I murmured, concentrating on the email before me. I think Annie said something else, but I didn’t hear her.
“Jen, are you listening to me at all?” Annie sounded pissed, and I pulled my eyes away from the computer monitor to focus on her.
“Sorry, Ann. What were you saying?”
“I said, what time are we supposed to pick up the flowers? Or are you having them delivered.”
“Oh…flowers…um, let me see.” Mentally, I tri
ed to switch gears. Ginny’s wedding, Ginny’s wedding. Not Kiki, Ginny. I pulled up the excel spreadsheet on my computer and found the notation for flowers. “Okay, flowers…they’ll be delivered to the house at eleven a.m. Then we’ll just bring them with us to the restaurant.”
“Fine. Thank you,” she said, somewhat sarcastically. I sighed. I knew I was pissing Annie off, but what did she expect of me? I was doing my best.
“Whatcha guys talking about?” Ginny asked, appearing in the doorway of the dining room, Josh right behind her holding Danny.
“Just going over some details,” Annie said. “Flowers and stuff.”
“God, can you believe it’s finally here?” Ginny asked, shaking her head.
“I can’t,” Annie agreed, smiling at her. “But its gonna be awesome. Perfect.”
“Mmmhmm,” I agreed, turning my attention back to my computer. “Next week is gonna be perfect.”
“This week,” Josh corrected.
I barely heard him. But then…slowly it dawned on me, what he had said.
“Wait, what?”
“You said next week,” he explained. “You meant this Friday.”
I stared at him blankly. “What did you say?”
“The wedding is this Friday. The twenty-third.”
It was one of those moments where the world seemed to freeze around you. I could see, in minute detail, the creases in Josh’s shirt, the smudges in Ginny’s fingernail polish.
“Jen, you okay? Your face is really pale,” Ginny said, looking at me with concern.
“This Friday,” I murmured. “Your wedding is this Friday.”
“Yeah,” she said, looking confused. “Friday the twenty-third.”
“Oh my God,” I whispered, panic rising in my chest. “Oh my God.”
Annie was looking at me with narrowed eyes. “Don’t tell me,” she muttered. “Jennifer Campbell, don’t you dare tell me…”
“What’s going on?” Josh asked sharply.
Three Girls And A Wedding Page 16
