I'm Still In Love With the Groom novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: A Seat Beside the Groom

At supper for thirty Annie is seated next to Ryan and sets her rule that they have never met, then overhears Kat ask whether Annie hates her.

Supper was at a plank table in the barn, with thirty Salazars and their neighbors and one chair left for me.

It was next to Ryan's.

Kat's grandmother had put the place cards out herself.

She sat at the head of the table in a wheelchair, eighty-four years old, with a black shawl and eyes that missed nothing.

"The maid of honor sits by the groom," she said when I stopped at the chair. "She should know him."

"Yes, ma'am," I said, and I sat.

Ryan passed me the bread without looking at me.

Across the table Ray filled my wineglass to the top and winked.

"Don't let this crowd scare you," he said. "Half of them are only here for the brisket."

A cousin in a rodeo shirt stood up and banged a spoon on his glass.

"Story time," he announced. "Sam, you tell it or I will."

"You tell it," Ryan said.

"Winter of 2021. Blizzard. Kat's truck slides off Poncha Pass with a calf in the back. Out of the snow comes this stranger from the fire crew with a tow strap and no hat." The cousin spread his arms. "He gets the truck out. He gets the calf out. He doesn't say his name. Kat has to ask the dispatcher who the guy was."

The table cheered.

Kat laughed and hid her face in her hands.

I smiled at my plate, because I knew exactly where that man had come from and what he was running from.

In 2021 he had been a stranger without a hat.

In 2019 he had bought me a hat for a ski trip, and I had lost it on the second day, and he had never stopped bringing it up.

"Annie," Ray called down the table. "You owe us a toast. Maid of honor's privilege."

Everyone turned.

I stood up with a wineglass and my knees not entirely working.

"To Kat," I said. "Who has never once let me quit anything."

People laughed, and I kept going, because I didn't dare stop.

"And to the groom. Whoever he turns out to be."

Ryan's head came up.

It was a small joke, and it landed small, and the table laughed again anyway.

I sat down, and under the tablecloth I leaned toward him.

"Until Saturday," I said quietly, "we have never met."

"Fine."

"I'm doing this for Kat. Not for you."

"I know that."

"Good."

He kept his eyes on his plate.

I was angrier at how easy he made it than if he had argued.

After the brisket the women carried dishes to the house, and I took a stack and went in with them.

Within ten minutes the kitchen had emptied, and I stood at the sink with my sleeves pushed up and the water running.

I heard the screen door.

I did not need to turn around.

He took a dish towel off the oven handle and picked up a plate from the rack.

For a while the only sound was the water.

"You texted me," I said. "Three weeks before the wedding."

"Annie."

"I called you half a dozen times that night. I called for a month. I drove to your father's building and the guard wouldn't let me past the lobby."

He dried the plate very carefully.

"Not here," he said. "Not until Saturday."

"Why Saturday?"

"Because I gave Kat my word."

"You gave me your word once, too."

He put the plate down.

It was the first time he'd looked at me since the airport, and it was a bad look, plain and tired.

"I know," he said.

"Do you love her?"

"Kat is the best person I know."

"That isn't what I asked."

"It's the only answer I've got tonight."

I turned off the faucet.

My hands were shaking, and I dried them on my jeans so he wouldn't see.

"I'm going to bed," I said.

I walked out past him without touching him, through the mudroom and onto the dark porch.

I stopped by the railing to breathe.

Voices came from around the corner of the house, low, where the light from the kitchen didn't reach.

It was Kat.

"Does she hate me?" she asked.

"No," Ryan said. "She hates me. It's a different problem."

"I just want her to be okay."

"She will be," he said. "I'll make sure of it."

I stood with my hand on the cold railing, and I did not know what he meant by that.

I only knew that for six years he had never once said it to me.

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