It was a stupid thing to do. Cruel. Mrs. A noted the rings on Kate’s finger before we entered the living room. My wedding band might as well have been a twenty-foot billboard: “I got married and didn’t invite you to the wedding.”
As willing as I am to cut the throat of any business rival in the world, it makes me sick to think I’ve hurt Mrs. A. Mr. A too. He’s just better at hiding his feelings.
“Evan,” Mrs. A says to her husband. “This calls for acelebration. Why don’t you get that bottle of champagne in the fridge?”
I take a step toward the kitchen, willing to help, but Mr. A points me back to Kate’s side. “I’ll just be a minute,” he says. “Don’t leave your bride on my account.”
I glance at Kate, to see how she’s handling all this. I’ve seen her prickly—in every interaction she’s ever had with me. I’ve seen her concerned—whenever she’s visiting her grandmother.
But this Kate is new to me. Part of it is the intriguing expanse of pale skin across her chest, her decision to erase the furious message she scrawled for our wedding day. But part of it is…something I can’t put my finger on. Something I can’t name.
Then I have it.
Shecares. She wants to impress the Andersons. She wants them to like her.
And that fact makes me appreciate my wife more than anything else I’ve learned about her in the past two weeks.
“So,” Mrs. A says gamely. “Tell me how you two met.”
From the widening of Kate’s eyes, she doesn’t know how to respond.I threw champagne in his face in front of a hundred wedding guestswill make her sound unhinged. And she clearly doesn’t want Mrs. A to think less of her.
But here’s the secret Kate doesn’t know yet: The Andersons know how to forgive. Even though I’ve disappointed them more times than I care to remember, the door to this house is always open to me. There is literally nothing I could do that would make the Andersons turn me away.
Now that Kate’s my wife, she gets the same benefit of the doubt.
I take her hand, lacing our fingers together. “We attended the wedding of mutual friends, up in Boston.”
Mrs. A likes that answer. She can trowel in romance to fill all the gaps in my story. She eyes Kate’s ring finger, her gaze lingering over the diamond I put there. It’s a massive extravagance for a guy working an entry level job at HamiltonCorporation. Mrs. A sounds more than a bit concerned when she asks, “And did you have a long engagement?”
Ouch. Just when I let myself think Mrs. A is a sweet little old lady, she delivers a knife-sharp blow. Beneath her polite, smiling question she’s delivered a tongue-lashing worse than anything Shannon ever managed.
I have two possible responses, and they’re both disasters.
Either Kate and I were engaged for a long time and I never told the Andersons, ignoring the nearly twenty years they’ve stood in the place of my parents. Or Kate and I got married on the spur of the moment, ignoring my carefully structured life after prison, my fictitious well-laid plans to keep my nose clean, and my supposed career trajectory.
Kate answers while I’m still weighing my options. “It’s been a whirlwind romance,” she says. “And it all started because I spilled a glass of champagne on Cole.”
Cole. I stiffen like a foxhound on the hunt. Kate has never said my name before.
Mr. A comes in from the kitchen, balancing four juice glasses on a tray. “You spilled a glass at a wedding!” he says, laughing at Kate’s confession. “Maybe we shouldn’t trust you with a toast!”
Kate says, “No worries. I never make the same mistake twice.”
We all laugh as Mr. A distributes the juice glasses. I make a mental note to give them champagne flutes next Christmas.
Mr. A clears his throat before he raises his drink. “Cole, son, you’ve surprised me from the very first day you showed up in coding class. I know I speak for Linda too, when I say this is the best surprise you’ve ever brought us. Welcome, Kate. We know you and Cole will have many happy years together. We hope you’ll never be a stranger to us. Cheers!”
“Cheers,” Mrs. A echoes. All four of us clink glasses.
“So,” Mrs. A says, and I should have realized her questions were only beginning. I also should have expected her to direct her attention to Kate. Mrs. A always wants to make people athome. “Did Hamilton give our boy time off for a honeymoon?”
It takes an effort not to wince. I don’t know if Kate will think Hamilton is a person—my supposed boss—or if she’ll conclude I’m supposed to work for a corporation. Either way, I regret not filling her in on my made-up life before we arrived.
I shouldn’t have worried, though. Kate leans forward like she’s sharing a secret. “You know what they say,” she stage whispers. “No rest for the wicked.”
Mrs. A gives me an appraising look. “And this one is definitely wicked.”
“Wait a second!” I pretend to be aggrieved.