Bridesmaid for Hire Read online

  I mustered the courage to look at Levi. He wore an unguarded expression, and it felt a little like I was seeing him for the first time.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  It was the most sincere moment that had ever passed between us, but it wasn’t enough for me. I shook my head.

  “I don’t want your pity.” I tipped my head back to finish my drink. “And to answer your earlier question, no, I don’t get tired of being so saccharine all the time. Being happy is a choice, one I make every single day. You should think about trying it sometime.”

  Xavier noticed my empty glass and came back around.

  “Just two bottles of champagne for the road, please.”

  If the older man was shocked by my request, he didn’t show it. He reached down into the fridge and pulled out two bottles of champagne while I looked anywhere other than Levi. The second he passed them to me I was off my stool and stomping back to my hotel room.

  I couldn’t be certain why I’d told Levi everything I had. The most likely answer was that I was a little bit drunk, and I wanted him to feel bad. But, as I walked back to the room, I wondered whether part of it might be a tiny bit of hurt from me reaching out to the hurt in him.

  I banished that thought. It wasn’t my job to fix Levi, and Levi didn’t want to be fixed. There was no need to get sentimental. I had said my piece. As far as I was concerned, there was no reason for us to speak for the rest of the weekend.

  Chapter 13

  Levi

  Frankie sure knew how to make an exit. I turned and watched her leave, head held high, wielding a bottle of champagne in each hand.

  When I turned back, the bartender was still standing there looking at me. From the disapproval in his gaze, I assumed Frankie had told him a little bit about our situation. I wondered if the hotel had another bar I could go to where I wouldn’t be judged all night.

  “What?” I asked.

  The bartender jerked his chin toward the exit. “Aren’t you going to go after her?”

  What did he think this was? An airport scene in a cheesy nineties romance film?

  “No. I’m not going after her.” I lifted my glass, signaling that I wanted another drink and I didn’t want to talk anymore.

  Instead of getting me a drink, he leaned onto the counter and crossed his arms.

  “Why not?”

  I sighed in frustration. “I’m sure you heard her. She doesn’t want my pity. She wants to be left alone.”

  He shook his head. “She never said she wanted to be left alone.”

  “No, I figured that one out myself when she stormed out of here with enough champagne to put herself into a coma.”

  “I’ve spent the past half hour talking to that girl, and I’ll tell you right now, alone is not something she wants to be.” He removed my glass and started wiping down the bar. “Of course she doesn’t want your pity. Nobody wants that. She wants your compassion.” When I didn’t say anything, he looked up at me mid-wipe and paused. “Surely there’s some way you can relate?”

  As I learned today, there was. When Frankie spoke about her ex-husband, I recognized the hurt in her eyes. The betrayal. Much as I tried not to think about Evelyn, I still wondered from time to time what about me was so horrible that she had to leave without even saying goodbye.

  I still hurt.

  I finally stood from my stool, and the bartender nodded approvingly. Not that I needed his approval. I settled the tab before I left, taking care of Frankie’s portion too even though she requested to pay on check out. It seemed fair since I was the one who’d driven her to drink.

  I entered the room and was surprised to find that even though it was getting dark out, all the lights were off.

  “Frankie?” I called, flicking on the kitchen light.

  There was no answer except the icy click of snowflakes as the wind swept them against the window. The door to Frankie’s room was ajar, but she wasn’t inside, and I checked the other rooms too with no luck. If she hadn’t come straight back here, where was she?

  I did another lap of the suite but still couldn’t find her. I was just about to go search the rest of the hotel when I noticed the curtains were drawn in front of the French doors.

  Sure enough, I pulled back the curtain and saw a mass of blankets in one of the deck chairs that I soon recognized as Frankie. She was holding one bottle of champagne, and the other rested in the snow at her feet. The deck was covered and shielded by the sides of the building, but it was freezing still. What was she doing out there?

  I walked back through the living room to my room and rifled through my suitcase for another sweater, grabbed a spare blanket from the closet, and walked back to the French doors, turning off the lights as I went. I wrapped the blanket around my shoulders and slipped out onto the deck.

  “Hey,” I said.

  “Hey.” Frankie raised the bottle to her lips and drank.

  “Mind if I join you?”

  She shrugged. I took that as a yes and cleared the snow from the seat next to her. I surreptitiously grabbed the other bottle of champagne and, when she didn’t protest, popped the cork off and took a drink.

  We sat like that for a while, watching the snow whip through the air, listening to the howling of the wind. The clouds looked brown in the darkness, and I wondered how much snow they had left in them.

  Finally, I did what I came out here to do. “I’m sorry about the things I said to you.”

  “Which things?” she answered dully.

  “All of them.”

  “I don’t want you to apologize just because you feel sorry for me.”

  “I’m apologizing because it’s the right thing to do, and it’s probably about time I started doing that.”

  She glanced over and cocked a brow. “I didn’t think cabin fever set in this quickly.”

  “Look, you’re different than I thought you were,” I explained. “The whole situation with you and Val was weird to me. It was hard for me to understand. It still is, but at least I know you’re not just a leech.”

  “Do you know why Val hired me?” Frankie asked.

  “I’ve been asking myself that question for months.”

  She glanced over at me, half her face cast in shadow. “She’s lonely. Her only friends are people she knows through her family, and they’re all just as shallow and vain as you seem to think she is. She wanted to have somebody there for her who she could count on not to talk shit behind her back. Someone every bit as invested in her happiness as she was. Garrick has you for that, but Val didn’t have anybody.”

  “I guess I never thought about it that way.”

  Frankie adjusted herself in the chair so that she faced me, cradling the bottle of champagne in front of her.

  “I don’t know you very well, but to me it seems like your problem is that you have difficulty accepting people at face value.”

  “That’s not a problem,” I replied. “You should never take anything at face value. People especially.”

  “But you did once, didn’t you?” Her lips came together in concern—genuine concern. Maybe we both had a touch of cabin fever.

  “Do you think the fact that the woman you loved abandoned you has anything to do with your inability to trust people’s good intentions?”

  I took a swig and frowned at her. “You don’t skirt around things, do you?”

  “Not my forte.”

  “It’s never too late to learn the art of tact.”

  Frankie scowled. “Hey. We had a brawl over a remote control earlier that devolved into a mudslinging contest. We’re beyond tact.”

  The icy look she gave me went well with the snowflakes peppering her dark locks. She looked like an ice queen.

  “There’s nobody up here but us,” she continued, gesturing around into the blackness. “I don’t know anybody you know except your brother and his fiancé, and the last thing I’m going to do is screw up my relationship with my favorite bride by gossiping about the best man. You’ve got an
opportunity to talk to somebody here.”

  “What? So you expect me to bare my soul to you just because we’re alone for the first time?” I chuckled and took a drink of champagne. “I’m sorry to disappoint you.”

  “It’s no skin off my back.”

  “Good.”

  We sat in silence, and Frankie looked back out at the row of trees in the distance. I thought about everything she’d revealed to me tonight and wondered why she did it. Was it all a ruse to get me to share my own sad story? Or maybe, as she claimed, Frankie was a good deal more genuine than I gave her credit for.

  I released a breath and chewed my bottom lip. “What you said. That probably has something to do with it.”

  Frankie looked back over, cocking an eyebrow. “What I said about what?”

  “About Evelyn. My ex.” I couldn’t believe I was doing this. Screw cabin fever, this was full-on insanity.

  “Her leaving blindsided me. It was easier after that to go heavy on the suspicion anytime I met someone new. At least that way they wouldn’t have the chance to get one up on me.”

  I figured Frankie’s rose-tinted view of the world would make it unconscionable to behave so coldly, but she didn’t condemn me. She nodded.

  “I get that. I haven’t had a best friend since. It’s a shitty way of seeing things, but you can’t help wondering whether the trust fall you’re participating in is going to end with you landing in a snake pit.”

  “Yeah.” I drank.

  She drank. “Yeah.”

  After a minute, Frankie cleared her throat. “Look, you think I’m overly positive and annoying. I think you’re a bit of a snob. None of that has changed. But now that we understand each other a little better, I think we can both agree that we just want what’s best for the bride and groom. You don’t have to like me. I certainly don’t like you. But I want Val and Garrick to have a happy wedding without worrying about us. Do you think we could sheathe our blades and try to get along?” She offered a small smile. “I mean, we’re not that different.”

  We weren’t, were we? I was beginning to see that Frankie couldn’t be fake if she tried. That meant she genuinely cared for Val.

  “Sure.” I reached my bottle across and tapped the neck against hers.

  We both drank. I wasn’t sure where to go from here. I’d never made a truce with anybody before.

  Apparently, Frankie was thinking the same thing. “What are we supposed to do now?” she asked. “It is...tense.”

  I tried to think what Garrick would do. In the process, my mind flashed back to the box of condoms I’d shoved in my closet, and my cock twitched.

  I shook myself out of it.

  What would Garrick do? He would find a way to break the ice.

  I tipped my head back and searched the wall for a light switch. Finding it, I flicked it on and flooded the deck with light.

  “Hey!” Frankie covered her eyes. “Too bright.”

  The light spilled out onto the snow, extending down the back slope. I had an idea.

  Chapter 14

  Frankie

  Levi jumped to his feet. “Come on.”

  “What?” I huddled tighter in my blanket. “Where are we going?”

  Levi rolled his eyes and leaned forward, grabbing my hands and dragging me up out of the chair.

  “I know how to break the tension,” he said. “At least, I think I do.”

  The change in his energy surprised me. He seemed excited all of the sudden. Happy. I didn’t know where it had come from but I didn’t want to jinx it.

  He pushed me toward the door and opened it, gesturing for me to walk through. “Go put on some warm clothes,” he instructed.

  “Warm clothes? What are you planning?”

  “You’ll see.” Levi’s lips turned slightly at the corners, his version of a boyish grin.

  I took one final swig of my champagne and walked through, leaving the bottle on the kitchen table before shuffling into my bedroom. I shoved another sweater on top of the one I already wore and put on another pair of socks. I didn’t know what Levi meant by warmer clothes so decided to play it safe, grabbing my scarf and a pair of gloves too. I presumed we were going outside.

  A few minutes later I came back out into the living room. Levi was waiting for me. In one hand he held a rectangular laundry basket, and in the other a plastic serving tray. He held them up for my inspection.

  “Which do you want?” he asked.

  “Uh, well I don’t need to do any laundry or carry any drinks...” His plan dawned on me, and I let out an abrupt laugh. “You want to go sledding?”

  “Bingo.”

  “Where the hell are we going to go sledding in this weather?”

  Levi thrust the laundry basket against my chest. “Grab your jacket.”

  He turned and headed into the kitchen, grabbing his coat from the hook behind the table.

  “Levi!” I complained. “It’s dark out.”

  “An astute observation.” He pulled on his coat and buttoned it up to the neck. “Look, I don’t want to sit inside all night, drinking and thinking about all the things that have gone wrong in our lives. Let’s shake the dice.”

  I stood, staring at him, holding my makeshift sled and wondering if I was dreaming. The change in Levi was remarkable. I could never have imagined that a weekend trapped on Mount Hood with him would result in after-dark sledding. I still wasn’t convinced that he didn’t intend to murder me and bury me in the snow.

  “Okay,” I said finally. “Let’s, uh, shake the dice.”

  “That’s the spirit.”

  “I still don’t know what your plan is here. Unless you intend to create a tobogganing hill out of thin air.”

  Levi shoved his hands into a pair of leather gloves and gestured toward the patio doors. “After you.”

  We made an odd pair. He was tall, handsome, in a sharp coat and polished shoes. Next to him, I looked ridiculous in my fleece-lined moccasin boots, stripy gloves and a scarf wound up under my ears. Just when I thought the scene couldn’t get any stranger, Levi grabbed the plastic tray and I remembered what we were about to do.

  I walked onto the patio, Levi behind me. Snow still swirled and whistled through the air, and I pulled my scarf up over my chilly nose. Levi flicked on the light and stepped to the end of the patio, pointing off the edge. “It’s not a big slope, but it’ll do for sledding,” he said.

  I followed where he pointed and was pleased to see he was right. Just behind the patio was a small hill. There were only about twenty or thirty feet of inclination to work with, but it was sufficient. Plus, light from the patio illuminated enough of the hill that we’d be able to see where we were going.

  “You go first,” I said.

  I was still suspicious. As if Levi Wheeler, anti-fun extraordinaire, was going to huddle himself onto a tea tray and take off down a hill. It was too funny.

  But Levi didn’t object. He lined the tray up on the top of the hill with the concentration of an Olympic tobogganer, then folded himself up into a well-dressed pretzel. His lanky limbs jutted out precariously, but he made it work, wedging himself into the snow and pushing off.

  It was a shaky run, but the first ones always were on fresh snow. I watched with delight as he got stuck a couple of times on the way down and had to maneuver his way out of it. He finally made it to the bottom and thrust his fists victoriously into the air, looking back at me.

  “Your turn,” he called.

  I set up the laundry basket and squeezed into it. My legs stuck out at the bottom and the plastic bit into my arms uncomfortably, but I was already so exhilarated that I didn’t care. This was so crazy. No, not crazy- ridiculous. Levi responded to a deep emotional conversation the way other people would a head wound, earning himself a complete change in personality.

  “Go!” Levi called, pulling himself out of the way.

  My basket fit snugly in the tracks Levi had left and followed the same path the whole way down. I even picked up a little speed
, and giant snowflakes whipped me in the face, melting on my tongue when I opened my mouth and laughed.

  Levi was waiting for me at the bottom and held out a hand to help me up. “I haven’t been sledding in years,” I said, still giggling. “Not since I was a kid.”

  “Me neither.” He grabbed the laundry basket and his tray. “Again?”

  I went first the next time around, and Levi gave me a strong push that sent me careening down the hill. He followed soon after, nearly bumping into me as I tried to get out of the way. We climbed the hill together again, and I found myself looking over at him, studying his features like I might be able to read him, even though I’d already failed to do so a dozen times since we’d first met. He seemed more open all of a sudden though, more relaxed. I liked it. I’d seen Levi smile more in the past fifteen minutes than I ever had before.

  Even though my feet, hands, and face were wet and frozen, a warmth radiating out from deep in my chest made all that easy to forget. It was like we were in an alternate universe where the rules of the world no longer applied. I was playing in the snow but didn’t feel the cold. Levi Wheeler was smiling. I was smiling back.

  Levi and I were hanging out, and I was enjoying myself.

  That didn’t seem right.

  It was one thing getting along for the sake of Valerie, but could I allow myself to let Levi in like this when he’d dedicated so much of his time to making me feel unwanted? One instance of kindness didn’t negate the entirety of our relationship, which had been built on Levi’s condescending glares and snide comments. He was a jerk. I couldn’t let myself forget that. The way he was acting tonight almost made me like him, and that was dangerous. I would be crushed when he inevitably went back to being an asshole.