It Takes Two

by Jenny Holiday

  I’d have Noah. Wendy didn’t hesitate. She wasn’t sure who answered the question, though. The girl standing alone under the disco ball in the school gym? The woman who’d run all around the globe, initially because she was trying to avoid the boy who’d broken her heart and later because it gave her the power she craved? Because it reassured her she always had the power to leave?

  What if she could really have him? Why had she never let herself even contemplate that possibility?

  She picked up her wine and drained the rest of it.

  “Jane is driving me to drink,” Gia said, clearly attuned to the fact that Wendy needed the conversation to move on, “because now she has this idea that at the rehearsal tomorrow, it would be really ‘fun’ if we handed out notecards and everyone wrote down their advice for the newlyweds. Which is fine. I have no problem with that. But I also have no advice. And she asked me to give a speech explaining this to everyone and kicking it off with my own advice.”

  Wendy snorted. The idea of Gia, of all people, expounding on the best practices of settled, monogamous life, was genuinely funny.

  “Right?” Gia refilled Wendy’s glass. “I tried to get her to ask Elise—or you.” Wendy started to protest, but Gia kept talking over her. “Don’t worry. She didn’t go for it. I think she thinks I feel left out. You’re the maid of honor, and Elise, with her designer’s eye, has been involved in choosing flowers and invitations and all that. I was trying to assure her that I didn’t feel left out, but…”

  “You can’t protest too much,” Wendy said.

  “Which is why I’m giving a speech tomorrow night about how to be good at marriage.” She snorted.

  Wendy lifted her glass. “Well, then, I’d say we’re both equally fucked.” It was her way of acknowledging she’d heard what Gia had said.

  She’d heard it. She just didn’t know what the hell she was going to do about it.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  ONE DAY BEFORE THE WEDDING

  Good morning!”

  Noah had barely opened his eyes and had only half emerged from his room when his freakishly chipper sister accosted him. At least she had coffee—which she shoved into his hand as she guided him to her kitchen table. His muscles were destroyed from yesterday’s exertions—and he didn’t just mean running.

  “Don’t yell at me, but I printed out some info I thought you might be interested in.”

  He groaned without even knowing what she meant by “some info.” In another life, Jane would have been a librarian—in one sense, Wendy had been right on with Gunnar the stripper librarian. Jane was always looking things up, printing things out, passing along links.

  He tried to focus his eyes on the first paper in the stack, but his mind was stuck on another version of this morning, one he had been turning over in his mind. One he was having trouble letting go of.

  It was an alternative reality, one in which he woke up in Wendy’s apartment.

  In Wendy’s bed.

  A reality in which he didn’t have to get up and slink out in dirty clothes. No, he’d have some clean clothes there—maybe she’d give him a drawer.

  Maybe he wouldn’t have to leave at all. They could make brunch together after a run. Then, later, if her feet were cold—

  Wait. What the hell was he doing? He wasn’t the sort of person who got caught up in romantic daydreams. And daydreams about rubbing a woman’s feet, for God’s sake?

  No, he was the opposite of that person. He was the one who was always bailing when these sorts of domestic fantasies became too real. The guy who couldn’t propose. Couldn’t move in with a woman.

  And anyway, for the thousandth time, Wendy didn’t want a relationship.

  “Hello? Earth to Noah?”

  “Sorry.” He shook his head to try to clear the image of a curtain of black hair fanned out over a white pillowcase. “So what’s this?” He started shuffling through the papers. They were blog posts and advice about how US-trained lawyers could qualify to practice in Canada. He rolled his eyes. “The US and Canada are different countries, Jane. They have different legal systems. Even if I wanted to, I can’t just decide to practice here.”

  “Just hear me out!” She held up a hand to forestall the additional protest she must have known was coming. “I know it’s not easy. But according to my research—”

  “Where is this coming from?” Jane had nagged him about a lot of things over the years, but moving home wasn’t one of them.

  “It’s coming from our conversation in Vegas, partly.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, like, I finally have my shit together.” Noah still felt terrible that he’d never realized that her shit wasn’t together. “And it sort of seems like Mom is starting to as well. She even has a boyfriend.”

  It was true. He’d been to his mom’s place twice since he’d been to town, and he’d been pleasantly surprised to find her bright-eyed and talkative. His mom had spent so long living under the shadow of her late husband—his erratic behavior while he was alive, and the deprivation his death left behind in their family—that Noah had assumed that was just the way she was now. He suddenly thought back to something Wendy had said yesterday, in the shower, about how some things happen that calcify you. That had certainly happened to his mom—or so he’d thought. But apparently not permanently, because at her house the other day, she’d been talking happily about a school she volunteered at and a guy she was dating.

  “Mom and I are less work now,” Jane said. He started to object, but she cut him off. “Don’t pretend you don’t know what I mean. My point is, I think it would be easier for us to…be a family now. We talked about you having some fun, and you said you didn’t know how. I was thinking I could, like, help you. You could move back, take some time off to study to qualify here, and, I don’t know…hang out.” Jane had grown sheepish, embarrassed. She wasn’t looking at him as she spoke. His heart twisted. “I know I’m being selfish, but I miss you.”

  “I miss you, too, Janie.” He got up, tugged her to her feet, and hugged her.

  After a moment, she pulled away and made a dismissive gesture. “Anyway, I know it’s crazy. You can say no after the wedding. For now, just humor me and tell me you’ll think about it.”

  There was no way he could just up and leave New York. His job. His entire life. But he wasn’t going to get into that with Jane the day before her wedding, so he just picked up his mug and said, “I can’t think about anything until I’ve had coffee.”

  * * *

  That afternoon, as Wendy was getting ready for the rehearsal dinner, she started to panic again about the fact that she and Noah had had unprotected sex.

  Not that the panic part was novel. She’d pretty much been in low-grade terror mode since her “chat” with Gia. She hadn’t been able to sleep last night. She’d been going over and over every moment between her and Noah, from the filthy to the flirty to the tender, asking herself what it would mean if Gia was right. She’d just been reflexively assuming that Noah wouldn’t want an actual relationship with her. He’d rejected her once before, so that was it, right?

  But did she really know that?

  What if she could have everything she wanted?

  The prospect was scary as hell.

  But then, as if her brain wasn’t satisfied panicking about one thing, it started snagging on everything else. She called her aunt in the rehab center twice to make sure everything was okay. She’d been visiting Mary every day, but because of wedding obligations today and tomorrow, she would be going two days without seeing her.

  She even started fretting about what to wear to the rehearsal, which wasn’t like her. She had a well-edited wardrobe full of clothes she liked and felt confident in. She should have been able to pull anything out, do some makeup, throw on her all-purpose black stilettos, and be good to go. That’s what she’d done in Vegas.

  But instead, she found herself transported into a teen movie where she tried on and discarded dress aft
er dress. To add to the effect, Gia eventually came in, plopped down on her bed, and started issuing pronouncements.

  “No,” she said about a loose, raw silk number in burnt orange. “Too avant-garde.” She grinned. “And by ‘avant-garde,’ I mean ‘shaped like a potato sack.’”

  Wendy considered booting Gia from the room. She didn’t need a peanut gallery, especially not one whose entire membership was made up of a high-fashion model. But instead she changed into a navy dress she sometimes wore to work.

  “Nope. Too conservative. Also the same color as tomorrow’s actual bridesmaids’ dresses.”

  Wendy shot Gia a look. “Are the fashion police going to arrest me?”

  Gia made a face and disappeared into Wendy’s closet. She came out with a gray cocktail dress, a swingy number Wendy had bought for a formal work party a couple of years ago but ended up deciding wasn’t really her. She’d never worn it. She’d meant to return it but something had inspired her to hold on to it even though she’d been pretty sure it would never see the light of day.

  “Is that too dressy, though?” she asked.

  “It’s perfect,” Gia proclaimed, even though she herself was wearing something that looked remarkably like the potato sack she had so recently been disparaging. Wendy supposed that if you were a six-foot-tall glamazon, you could get away with potato sacks.

  So, after wasting way too much mental energy on what to wear, Wendy rushed through a hair and makeup routine. They had to hurry downstairs and grab a cab so as not to be late. Jane’s “key” had, of late, swung as far from “low” as it was possible to be, and Wendy didn’t want to rock the boat by showing up late.

  Once her dress worries were gone—or at least made obsolete by the fact that it was too late to change—she started fretting about what was going on in her uterus. Or fallopian tubes. Or whatever.

  She had talked herself into believing there was no chance she could be pregnant. And, really, there wasn’t. She’d looked at her calendar, and her period was due today. So she was in the clear. Right?

  “What the hell is up your butt?” Gia nudged Wendy as the cab pulled away from her building.

  Wendy’s default was to deny, but Gia already knew she’d slept with Noah again, and she could use some advice.

  “Noah and I didn’t use a condom,” she whispered. “And I’m freaking out that I might be pregnant. But my period is due like any second, so I should be fine, right?”

  Gia sucked in a breath. Wendy had wanted Gia to reassure her, to wave off her fears. Instead, she said, “Probably. But if I were you, I’d be popping the morning-after pill.”

  “The morning-after pill?”

  “Emergency contraception? Prevents fertilization?”

  Wendy knew what the morning-after pill was. She was just repeating after Gia like a dumbstruck idiot because…well, because she was a dumbstruck idiot. Never in a million years had she thought of herself as the kind of person who would need emergency contraception.

  She put her head in her hands.

  “Ah, sweetie.” Gia had been saying that a lot lately. “Do we need to stop at a pharmacy?”

  Without lifting her head, Wendy nodded. “Jane’s going to be annoyed, though. It’s going to make us late.”

  Gia patted her hand. “Better than you being late—ha!”

  * * *

  The restaurant was chaos when they arrived.

  “There you are!” Jane hurried over to Wendy and Gia. “I think I invited too many people!”

  Jane and Cameron had rented out a little Italian place near Jane’s house for the rehearsal dinner. It had great food and a fun, cozy vibe.

  It was also packed with people. They stood shoulder to shoulder at the small bar and milled around the café tables that studded the space.

  Wendy surveyed the crowd. “How many people did you invite?” She’d been expecting the usual rehearsal dinner suspects—the wedding party, Jane and Noah’s mom, Cameron’s mom, and that was pretty much it. You know, low-key.

  “Hi!” Elise bounded over to them. She leaned in to embrace them both—one arm around Wendy and the other around Gia—and whispered, “Help me roofie her drink.”

  “Oh my God,” Jane wailed as she looked at the stuffed room. “They told me that fifty would be too much of a squeeze. But did I listen?” She turned back to the girls, looking truly stricken. “I just thought since the wedding is so, you know…” Wendy forced herself not to look at Gia. “Low-key. I mean, it’s at an amusement park. So I thought maybe people would enjoy a fancy dinner the night before.” She heaved a defeated sigh.

  “And they will.” Wendy took a step forward and grabbed Jane’s hand. “Don’t panic. What was the plan? Do the rehearsal outside and then eat?”

  Jane nodded. “We were going to let people have drinks while we were out back doing a quick run-through, and then come in and eat.”

  “Okay,” Wendy said. “There are tables out back, right? So we’ll just let people be a little tight in here while we do the rehearsal really quick, and then we can disperse some of the guests outside for the meal.”

  “You don’t think it’s better to have everyone together for the dinner? I wasn’t going to seat anyone outside.”

  “Nah.” Gia picked up on Wendy’s mission to calm Jane. “That’s what’s cool about a funky place like this. You can keep the restaurant feel. We can do the toasts at the beginning, with everyone standing—it’ll be cozy, but we can be brief—and then we can move to our tables. If we can get maybe a quarter of the guests seated outside, it will ease the pressure in here.”

  Jane’s shoulders inched down as she appeared to relax a bit.

  “I’ll go do a count of the seating out back,” Elise said, “and let the staff know what we’re thinking.”

  They all snapped into gear, Elise to make the alternative seating arrangements, Gia to round up the wedding party and officiant, and Wendy to go to the bar to top up Jane’s drink.

  “Hey.”

  She felt him and heard him at the same time. Maybe she could have stood one or the other, on its own, but his low voice, the way it stretched to include Jane and Wendy but no farther, plus the steady pressure of his palm on the small of her back. It was too much. It set her blood moving. Without greeting him, she glanced over her shoulder to see if he was touching Jane in any way. He was not.

  Just her.

  “You feeling better?” he asked his sister.

  “Yes. Wendy saved the day.”

  “Of course she did.” He flashed her a smile. She would have expected it to be at least partly teasing, but it wasn’t. It projected only calm certainty. Faith in her.

  What if you could have everything you want?

  She turned to him and smiled. “You look good, Noah.” He really, really did. The man could fill out a suit like no one’s business. This one was blue, but brighter than the conservative navy that would be acceptable in court.

  He looked startled. Ha. Whatever he’d been expecting from her, it wasn’t a smile and a compliment.

  “I’m told we’re to head outside.” He held out both arms. Wendy took one, and Jane the other.

  What if you could have everything you want?

  What if, instead of watching Jane and Noah with jealousy, feeling like no matter how genuinely they welcomed her, she’d always be a little bit of an outsider, she suddenly…wasn’t?

  What if she could have the man she loved?

  She took a deep breath of the heavy summer air when they got outside. She needed to steady herself.

  “You okay, Wendy Lou Who?”

  “Yep.” It was a lie. Wendy was profoundly not okay. But she had a wedding rehearsal to get through, so there was nothing to do but soldier on. Put on her court face.

  “All right,” the officiant called, raising her voice to get everyone’s attention, “bridesmaids and groomsmen, pair up, please, and we’ll do a quick run-through of the ceremony.”

  Wendy looked around for her partner Jay, who was C
ameron’s brother and best man—and, of course, Elise’s husband.

  “Pass her over, dude.” Jay and Elise had arrived at their side and Jay was joking with Noah. She hadn’t realized she was still clutching Noah’s arm. Right. She dropped it. A little too reluctantly.

  “Trade you,” Noah said. Elise was his partner in the wedding, and he took her arm.

  Wendy scanned the crowd for Gia, who was paired with the dreaded Hector. Her friend caught her eye and made a quick gagging motion behind Hector’s back.

  “We’ll go through the ceremony as well as the scripted stuff that will happen at the reception,” the officiant explained. “It shouldn’t take long, either tonight or when we’re really doing it tomorrow. Jane and Cameron want their guests to be free to run around the amusement park, so they’ve kept the formal parts of the evening to a minimum.”

  Really, all the girls’ jokes about it not being particularly low-key aside, this was the perfect wedding for Jane, the pop culture nerd who had recently discovered her inner thrill seeker. And the perfect groom, too, though it had taken Wendy a while to see it. Cameron had his arm casually slung over Jane’s shoulder. He was a bit rough around the edges, yes, but there was something about his posture that exemplified everything about their relationship. He was protective but not possessive. His arm, which she knew was covered with tattoos under his suit, rested lightly, both literally and metaphorically.

  “And then I’ll ask the crowd if anyone objects to this union,” said the officiant when Wendy tuned back in.

  Her face heated. She had never been going to do that, but the prompt made her retroactively embarrassed over all the mental energy she had expended trying to argue—to herself mostly, but also to Noah—against Cameron. From her current vantage point, she could see how obviously all her issues had been just that—her issues.