The Maid of Honor and the Two Groomsmen No One Seated Beside Her novel · Chapter 16 of 24

Chapter 16: The Dock

Jesse's POV

I asked her myself.

I'd like that on the record, because nobody in my family had ever asked me to do a thing.

I had never asked anyone for anything either.

On Friday I sent Lacey a text.

It took me all afternoon to write: Come to the lake with me Saturday. Just me. Colt's on call. Please.

She wrote back: Is that right?

It was my line, and she had stolen it, and I read it in the parking lot of the library with my face on fire.

Colt had been called out at dusk on Saturday to a downed line in Wilson County.

He'd driven off in the F-150 with his hard hat on the dash.

He texted me from the road: Take her. She's yours tonight. Don't be a baby about it.

I drove to East Nashville in the Silverado with the cracked taillight and my pulse in my ears.

She came down her front steps in a long wool coat with her hair loose and a thermos in her hand.

"Hot cider," she said. "And I'm not wearing much under this."

I stalled the truck.

It's a good lake in October.

The marina on Percy Priest closes after Labor Day.

A buddy from school has a father with a slip at the far end.

He'd given me the gate combination for the summer.

I'd kept it in my phone ever since.

We walked out onto the dock at midnight under a full moon with a blanket over my arm.

The boards were wet and gray, and the water slapped the pilings underneath us.

There wasn't a boat in any of the slips.

Cold came up through my boots, and I could see her breath.

She stopped by a thick wooden post at the end, with a coil of rope hung from a cleat, and turned around.

"Okay, Jesse," she said. "Why am I here?"

"Because I asked you."

"That's all?"

"That's the whole thing," I said. "I asked, and you came."

My ears were burning in the cold.

She looked at me for a long time, with the moon on her freckles and her chin up.

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