The Rehearsals Page 4
Now, confronted by Leo for the first time in years, she told herself she wasn’t afraid. That those feelings had been squashed and she wasn’t some monster who still longed for another man.
However, the snappishness in her response said otherwise. “What do you want, Leo? What could you possibly hope to get from me here? Today?”
Instead of growing defensive, Leo covered the flicker of a smile with his hands as he looked up at the sun, then back at her. He brought his hands down to his lap, taking his time with his response. “I haven’t even had the chance to say anything—how are you already annoyed with me? You know what? It doesn’t matter. Because it’s still good to be next to you. It feels like I haven’t heard your voice since the dawn of time.”
He was hitting all the buttons she’d kept hidden—including her weakness for his disarming honesty. It only made her hackles go higher.
“Stop being hyperbolic. I’ve said hello when you’ve been on the phone with Tom.”
“From the kitchen or the living room.” He was teasing her, immune to her cold rebuttals. The conversation was already bringing to the surface bittersweet nostalgia. “You’ve successfully avoided me for, what? Eight years now?”
“I haven’t been avoiding you. You’ve crashed on my couch at least a dozen times.”
“Five times.”
“Six.” Correcting him was an error. He’d know she’d been keeping track.
“But every time I’ve come for the weekend you’ve had to work late, and we haven’t even talked.” He shrugged in a self-deprecating manner. “You really have a way of making a guy feel like he’s not wanted.”
“We haven’t needed to talk. You passed me notes.”
“One note. Which you threw away.”
Yes, she’d thrown it away. Just as she’d deleted drafts of e-mails and filed away her remorse—about things she’d done as much as about things she hadn’t.
Leo’s voice dropped. “So you didn’t try to talk Tom out of making me his best man.”
“Of course not.” The accusation (was that what it was?) snapped her acutely into the present. “What would I have said? ‘Please, love of my life, not him. I secretly slept with him the day we graduated.’”
A breeze smelling of salt and chlorine ruffled their hair. She sensed the shift in Leo before he spoke. His smile faltered, his courage slipping. He rested a hand on the table between their bodies and leaned on it with his full weight.
“So Tom is most definitely the love of your life?” His voice was so low, she almost could’ve imagined the question. And yet he was waiting for an answer.
How could he ask her that on the weekend of her wedding? The day before he was to stand up beside Tom? And how could she sit here and let him do it? She had to end this. Now.
She waved him away in a gesture that reminded her of her mother (making her inwardly cringe), lightly laughing. “Who else would it be? You?”
“Is it so absurd that it would be me? Am I that unlovable? Come on, Givens.” Leo scratched his scalp, standing up and turning to her, his face full of every word they hadn’t uttered. In his eyes, she saw glimmers of the college boy who’d reached out a hand when she was sadder and more uncertain than she’d thought possible.
“You know what? It should be me. Me,” Leo insisted, gaining momentum. “The guy who really sees you, who has never once asked you to be anyone but yourself. The one who’s had to watch all the bullshit John and Carol have put you through, knowing you deserve so much more. The one who sent you encouraging letters all through your master’s in visual arts that you should’ve put to use filming documentaries instead of staging pretty pictures for a men’s magazine.”
She opened her mouth to defend herself, but Leo didn’t let her speak. “Who only once got to love you on that roof the day of your and Tom’s graduation. And has wanted to again for eight years.”
His volume was reasonable, but it felt as though he were shouting at her and sucking the air from the atmosphere all at once.
“I know telling you all this is a long shot. I’m not so cocky that I expect to sweep you off your feet with one conversation.” He laughed bitterly. “And I know it’s your wedding weekend and the worst possible time to come to you with this, and it makes me a pretty terrible person…but I know I’d feel worse if I said nothing. For so many years I thought Tom would do right by you, but every time I talk to him, it’s obvious he’s still bending over backward for his parents.”
“He’s not bending over backward for them,” Megan said defensively. She weakly added, “The Prescotts are demanding, yes. But we make it work.”
The line between Leo’s brows deepened. “Even now, it’s written all over your face. You think I’m not paying attention? We may be in your favorite vacation spot, but this wedding has John and Carol stamped all over it. Admit it—Tom’s still putting them in the driver’s seat of your relationship, isn’t he?”
Megan’s throat was dry. She tried to swallow in order to speak and found she had nothing to say.
“I can’t forgive him for that,” Leo finished. “For not putting you first all the time. Every time.”
Megan’s heart was pounding out a warning to her. There had been good times and bad times with Tom, of course, and during the bad spells, she’d be lying if she said she hadn’t imagined someone, somewhere, sticking up for her. But she had certainly never imagined it happening now. What was she supposed to do with this information? This conversation?
Leo’s voice dropped along with his head. “If you tell me you’re happy, you’re sure, I’ll stand beside Tom tomorrow and wish you both the best.”
Happy. What did that word even mean?
She loved Tom. When she’d woken up this morning, she’d been nothing but excited. But when you repeat a word too many times, it starts to sound like gibberish, and that’s what was happening to the word happy as it rolled around in her mind. She thought of Carol, of Donna. Of all the times she’d held her tongue. Still, she knew what her response should be.
“I’m happy.” The words didn’t ring true, not even to her own ears, and she couldn’t figure out why.
“Givens.”
“Leo,” she retorted, as though they were still kids and this was a game.
“Are you seriously going to set up house and give John and Carol grandbabies?” Leo said their names with such disdain, she wondered if Tom knew how much Leo hated his family. “Megan?” He waited until her eyes were on him. “Are you going to close up shop on everything you’ve ever wanted and, at the age of thirty, let Tom’s family decide not only who you are but what you do? Your entire future? A future so predictable and derivative of John and Carol’s, I know you’ll be miserable?”
“Why is this any of your business?” she snapped, his words hitting too close to home. Her phone rang and she silenced it without looking at the call display. “What do you care if I become a Prescott and have little Prescott babies? You don’t know me anymore.”
“Yes, Megan, I do.” It came out as a prayer. “We used to see each other every single day. You’re still that same person, the one who’s always looking for the opportunity to do good. Who never lets the world see how exhausted she is from holding everyone else together. Of course I know you.”
The table was growing increasingly uncomfortable and Megan shifted, trying to find a better position. She’d been so confident, so secure before Leo had shown up. Hadn’t she? Resentment at the way he was blindsiding her, pushing her off balance grew. She was ready to push back. “Not anymore, you don’t.” It felt like her lungs were in her throat as she tried to take a deep breath. “You can’t possibly know who I am now.”
“Yes. I really do. You think I haven’t noticed you climbing your way up in one of the most competitive industries in one of the most competitive cities in the world and kicking all that ass with grace? And I bet you’ve been doing all that while still running your family and arranging this wedding on your own.”
Megan tried not to flinch.
How many times had she imagined him saying those words and then hated herself for it? But Leo could barely stay in one city, never mind one relationship. Tom…Tom was steady. He committed to everything. She’d long ago made her choice.
“Well,” Megan began, trying to cut the tension. “Your timing is impeccable, Leonardo. I wonder if anyone had Best Man Tries to Steal Bride on their wedding bingo card.”
He pulled his eyebrows together, his lips parting ever so softly. He stared into her eyes so deeply, she felt like he could put a hole right through her. “My timing’s shit. But this is my last chance to save you—to give you the chance to save yourself from what could be an enormous mistake. I’m asking you to choose me. To choose you. Leave with me.”
He was serious. And more than that, he was the only other person who knew what Tom was like with his family—and he was telling her to leave. She was suddenly too hot and too thirsty to think straight. When had the sun gotten so high?
Megan’s attention was grabbed by someone waving from the distance with one hand, holding her pregnant belly with the other. Her aunt Paulina. The voice of reason and Megan’s favorite family member. Her aunt was flanked by Gran, squinting from under a Roche Harbor hat; Brianna, who was looking at her phone; and Donna, who was looking at Leo as though she knew all his secrets. Never had Megan been so grateful to see her family. “I’ve got to go,” she told Leo and left him without looking back.
Chapter Four
Tom
Can you believe this place doesn’t have a proper clubhouse?” John said for the third time since they’d returned to the course after consuming burgers and pilsners at a nearby restaurant. “It’s one man and a cash register. Where’s the pro shop? Where’s the restaurant? I feel like I’m golfing in someone’s backyard.”
“I also can’t believe it takes two planes and a ferry to get here.” Brody offered Tom another sip from his almost empty flask.
“It doesn’t count if you say it,” Tom muttered under his breath, although he still took a sip. “The drinking game is Mom has to say it.”
“Mom’s not here, Spare Parts.”
Tom didn’t feel like drinking. He also didn’t feel like golfing anymore. Why hadn’t Megs answered his call? He felt a desperate need to make sure she’d be free when he got back so they could talk. Properly. However, when it came to making decisions, his father and his brother were always a quorum, and they’d decided to do the same nine holes with the different tees.
He wished again that Leo had accepted the invitation to join them for the game, but Leo had said he couldn’t get there in time. Leo often felt more like a brother to Tom than Brody did. Tom was sure the day would’ve been better with him around. Leo could talk Tom down from anything. If he had joined them, he’d be cracking jokes right now and helping Tom figure out how to tell Megs about the move.
“Start us out, Broderick.” John patted Brody on the shoulder, then gave him a gentle push. His Ulysse Nardin watch reflected the sun, briefly blinding Tom.
“Aww, let’s let the second fiddle go first this time.”
Brody often joked about being his parents’ favorite. Tom wasn’t sure whether he joked because he believed John and Carol loved them both equally or because he was amused by their obvious bias. Because, when it came down to it, Brody didn’t seem to have to work for their approval. Having a pulse seemed to be enough. John and Carol had attended every one of Brody’s tennis matches throughout his adolescence; they’d sent out engraved announcements anytime he graduated from anything. When Brody started dating, John and Carol basically courted each girl’s parents. Brody got married right out of college, and to this day, John and Carol had a long-standing weekly brunch date with his in-laws. By contrast, this weekend was only the third time John and Carol had met Megan’s mom.
Tom wasn’t truly sure whether this marathon he’d been running all his life was to catch up to his older brother or surpass him. He just wanted to finally gain some recognition in the family.
There had been times when Tom had tried not running the marathon. In high school, after a brief period of hanging out with Brody and his posturing buddies, Tom traded in bravado for some friends his own age from the junior volleyball team. They even formed a short-lived and completely ill-conceived garage band. This Lilliputian act of independence went largely ignored. Tom had tried again when he’d applied to be an associate at a smaller firm, one with a more humanitarian business model. But his mother found out and accused Tom of betraying his family name—an indictment that filled Tom with unmeasurable guilt. How could he refuse to work at Prescott and Prescott when his father had invested so much in his schooling and when it would allow him to spend more time connecting with his dad—not to mention his brother?
Neither one of them told either John or Brody about his rogue act, and he entered the doors of Prescott and Prescott without looking back.
“Tom, you’re choking up on the club like it’s a baseball bat,” John called as Tom was readying his stance to take a swing.
“He hasn’t so much as made par on a single hole today, Dad. Maybe he thinks his chances of getting a home run are better.”
Tom pulled back the club while the two men laughed and then swung with a force that—even he could admit—compromised his stance.
“Would you like some ice cream with that slice?” Brody jogged up to the tee and snapped his glove against Tom’s ass.
Brody, of course, walloped the ball beautifully over the fairway, then took a cheeky bow. Their father’s shot was like an instant replay of Brody’s.
“How’s Megan feeling about the move?” John asked suddenly after watching his ball land.
“I haven’t told her yet.” The golf game was doing nothing to help the crick in Tom’s neck, and at the mention of his impending relocation, his chest constricted. For a while, waiting to tell her until the move became official had been a kindness, a way to avoid adding to her daily stress; he’d never imagined it would take so long. Now, telling her in a rushed moment before they said “I do” seemed grossly insensitive. What had he been thinking?
Brody let out a full belly laugh. “You’re getting married tomorrow and you haven’t even told your future wife she’s moving to Missouri? Tom, sometimes you’re the stupidest smart guy I know.”
Maybe Tom was having a heart attack. A copper taste was spreading across his tongue. Of course, it was also possible he’d just bitten it and that was the taste of blood.
John went very still. Intimidatingly so. The more still his father got, the more Tom wanted to move. Go for a jog. Do a tap dance.
“Is there something you’re not telling me?” John scrolled through his phone. “Ian said the meeting went well last night. That he’s glad you’re on board as their in-house counsel and that you’re willing to relocate closer to headquarters.” It was a little unorthodox, but it wasn’t the first time a high-maintenance client had made such a demand. One of Tom’s old friends from law school had moved to Texas last year at the behest of an oil company.
“I’m going to tell her,” Tom said. And he was. He had a plan. A plan that kept getting derailed—and one he couldn’t proceed with if he never got out of this golf game. But something of this magnitude needed to be handled delicately. Tom wasn’t going to spring it on her until they had time to talk.
Really, Tom tried to convince himself, it was exciting that this had become a wedding surprise for her—he could picture jus
t how she’d laugh when she heard what his raise would be. Good news and bad news. That’s how she’d see it. And hopefully, like Tom, she’d understand that the scales were tipping in the good-news direction.
John adjusted his visor. “There are things you can control in this life and things you can’t. You can always, always control how hard you work. There’s pride in that, in a man pushing himself to see who he really is. If you’re not up for this job, Thomas, if you aren’t serious about it…” John’s voice carried a warning. A challenge.
“I’m up for it,” Tom insisted. “Like you said, last night’s dinner was a success, wasn’t it? And they started talking about moving me out there months ago. None of us are changing our minds.”
Not even Tom. He knew saying no wasn’t an option, so he’d never entertained the idea, had allowed himself to think only of the positive: more money in a place with a lower cost of living. It really was an incredible opportunity that would probably mean better hours than he was clocking in New York. He’d have more time to spend with Megs. Plus, they could have a house and an actual yard. He knew there were things she missed about Montana, and a lot of those things she could have in Missouri. She wouldn’t even be giving up that much, because she could switch departments at GQ and work remotely. She’d be excited when the shock wore off, he knew it. He knew her. He just didn’t want her to have to work through that shock during their rehearsal dinner. Why wouldn’t this golf game end?
John’s phone rang. He stepped away from Tom and Brody, plugging one ear with his finger. Tom recognized the sound of his work voice; his father had an uncanny way of making clients feel as though they were the top priority but that John was still the most important person in the room.
“If you don’t want her to leave you at the altar, you’d better tell her quick,” Brody said. “Someone’s bound to slip up and say something. Everyone on our side knows about this and they’re all at the hotel with Megan while you’re here.”