I watched him crouch by the first row of chairs, open the box, and pull out one of the glass hurricane candleholders. His shirt stretched across his shoulders, the sun catching his hair, and suddenly I forgot why I was holding a clipboard.
Drew appeared beside me. “You’re staring.”
“I’m supervising.”
“You’re holding that upside down.”
“No I’m—” I looked down.Oh.“Don’t you have Hudson to harass?”
“I would, but he’s arguing with your mom over the chair positioning.”
“The what?” I followed his nod, and sure enough, Hudson stood beside Mom with a measuring tape in hand. She was shaking her head about something, which made him walk over to the first two rows and stretch the tape out between them before repeating the move on the row behind him.
“I don’t get it. Who’s winning?” I said.
“He’s stubborn, but he gets it from her, so…” Drew shrugged. Then his gaze shifted to Beckett and he nudged me with his elbow. “He fits, you know.”
“Who?”
“Uh, the guy you can’t seem to tear your eyes away from. The reason you didn’t notice your clipboard was upside down.”
“Well, he’s my boyfriend. Of course I look at him that way.” The word “fake” didn’t even enter my mind that time.
“You didn’t look at?—”
I slapped a hand over his mouth. “Don’t say it.”
He held his hands up, and I eventually lowered my arm. “I was just gonna say he’s good with you.”
I scanned the pavilion, my eyes catching on Beckett, who’d already started on the next box of supplies. He looked up, catching me watching him, and when he smiled, my stomach went stupid. Butterflies exploded, and I couldn’t deny that Drew was right.The way Beckett checked in with me, the way he stepped in to help and joked with my family like he belonged there…
“Yeah,” I said. “He is.”
Drew didn’t tease me further; he was called over by Mama to help her finish setting up tables, and we all pitched in to get things done faster. Apparently it was usually the resort who set up events, but my parents had a specific vision and preferred to get us all involved.
The rehearsal itself was a blur of Mom trying to pretend she wasn’t emotional, Mama finishing off a box of tissues, and Rome putting his online ordained minister skills to good use. “Just another role,” he’d said, while Hudson and I stood at the altar, Drew took unofficial photos, and Beckett kept getting pulled into helping out whenever someone needed an extra hand.
Straightening the aisle runner. Fixing the wobble from one of the table legs being uneven. At one point, when a string of lights didn’t turn on, he disappeared with a couple of staff. Then, less than two minutes later, they blinked to life, warm and golden, crisscrossing around the pavilion and making Mama gasp.
“Oh, perfect,” she said.
Rome pointed at Beckett with the notepad—what he kept referring to as his script—in hand. “That man is staying.”
Beckett didn’t hear him, though, his gaze caught on something I couldn’t see as he stared out at the lake. Like his mind was a million miles away.
I cocked my head to the side. “Hey. Everything good?”
“Yeah.” He blinked, like I’d just pulled him back from wherever his thoughts had gone. Then he lifted the string of lights in his hand. “Just making sure I didn’t accidentally agree to be the electrician.”
“Too late,” Hudson said as he passed by, following Mom with the measuring tape. “You touched the lights.”
“See?” I told Beckett. “That’s how they get you. One helpful act and suddenly you’re on payroll. You have to learn to do less.”
His smile came easier then, and I chalked his distraction up to the fact that he’d been dragged into manual labor by my family. Hell, he’d already lifted enough boxes to earn a break.
“Don’t worry,” I said, making a note on my clipboard. “I’ll make sure they pay you in extra red velvet cake.”
“You found my weakness.”