Blame It on the Bachelor

Mortified, Kylie ignored the smirks of the cousins to either side of her. “I’m not— I don’t—” Dear God, could the evening get any worse?

Mildred smiled and nodded at her. “Take them.”

“Thank you, but no.” She didn’t know what they were, and she didn’t need them. Despite the fact that her head was beginning to pound, Kylie slipped them into her pocket, and took a large, fortifying swallow of wine instead. Then another.

She finished dismembering her steak and washed it down with more wine while the smirking cousins exhausted the subject of the weather and bravely broached politics. Finally, no longer smirking, they gave up trying to make small talk with her, and she with them.

The steak was followed by coffee that burned her mouth and a flan that seemed actively afraid of her, judging by its cowardly quivers.

Before Kylie could take a bite of it, her brother-in-law Richard stood to make a speech.

“I want to thank you all for coming this weekend, especially you out-of-towners, to celebrate this joyous occasion of Mark’s marriage to Kendra. When he first brought her home to meet us, I said to my wife Jocelyn, ‘Kendra’s the one.’ She’s beautiful, she’s smart, she’s a sweetheart. She’s a lot like you, honey.”

Beside him, Kylie’s older sister Jocelyn preened, and all the women in the room sighed.

Kylie found her rage melting into sentiment and girly-goo at Kendra and Mark’s happiness, and Jocelyn and Richard’s, too. But all too soon, the girly-goo spawned a horrifying, shameful self-pity.

It could have been, should have been, Kylie’s and Jack’s wedding before this one.

Oh, stop it. Jack is a jerk. And surely, you are not this small and this mean. Be happy for Mark.

“Two years later,” Richard continued, “here we are. So I was right! Then again, just ask Jocelyn. I’m always right, right, honey?”

The room rumbled with low laughter while Jocelyn lifted her eyes heavenward and said, “Yes, dear.”

“In fact, I haven’t been wrong since 1972, the one and only time I stopped and asked for directions. But I digress. Back to Mark and Kendra and their very happy day …”

Kylie looked at her wineglass as a tide of unwelcome emotion washed from her stomach to her throat and then receded, leaving nausea in its wake. If she could have dived into the wine and drowned herself in it, she would have.

She still remembered the two-foot-high stack of bridal magazines she’d once happily pored over, anticipating the day that she and Jack would celebrate their own wedding.

She also remembered how heavy they were when she picked up the entire stack and staggered outside to the Dumpster. She hadn’t had the strength to throw all of them into it at once, so she’d lobbed them one by one into the big metal bin until her arm ached. She’d pictured all of those glossy, grinning, two-dimensional brides landing with satisfying splats in mounds of coffee grounds, eggshells and putrid leftovers.

Richard, bless him and his fatherly pride, was still talking. “I’ve always been proud of my son, from the moment he was born. I watched him take his first steps and I will never forget the day he wobbled down the driveway on his bike, independent of my guiding hand. Course, I’ll never forget the way he forgot how to use the brakes, either, and plowed straight into our neighbors’ pile of leaf bags …”

“Dad, please,” Mark protested as everyone chuckled.

“But I’ve never been prouder of him than at this particular time, when he takes the hand of this lovely young woman and leads her into their future together.” Richard started to choke up.

Kylie sympathized with him. She really did. Because the tide of emotion was back at her throat, too, and it rose steadily this time. There was no denying it, no pushing it back.

“So may I propose a toast now, to my son Mark and his beautiful bride, Kendra!” Richard raised his glass.

So did every guest in the room, including Kylie.

Then she excused herself politely and ran from the hotel.

5

AS THE FIRST NOTES OF the wedding march sounded the next evening, Dev stood with the other groomsmen, flanking a beaming Mark. The doors of the chapel opened wide to admit a white-clad, veiled Kendra, escorted by her father.

She looked beautiful in the dress, which had a V-shaped neckline filled in with some kind of fancy lacy stuff and short, poofy sleeves. Her waist looked tiny and the back of the dress dragged along the carpet, which women seemed to find romantic for some reason that he’d never comprehend.

Everyone in the church gave a collective sigh at the bride’s stunning gown and radiant face. Her mother, grandmother and even Great Aunt Mildred produced white handkerchiefs and began their eye-dabbing immediately.

As for Mark, his chest swelled and he looked as though he’d died and gone to heaven. His eyes even held suspicious moisture. Once Dev would have made fun of him, but today … today he swallowed a weird lump in the back of his throat.

As the bride made her graceful journey down the red-carpeted aisle, Dev searched for Kylie among the pews. There she was, sitting in the second row back on the groom’s side, with an odd expression on her face. It seemed loving and warm … and at the same time forlorn. Her hazel eyes held a regret that seemed out of place for the occasion.

Dev had noticed her sudden disappearance after the champagne toast the night before, and fought the uneasy feeling that he might be to blame—even though he’d been a complete gentleman. He, Dev, the artist formerly known as Gig, the idiot who’d taken pride in the bra-festooned chandelier over his dining room table, had done his very best to behave.

Kylie met his gaze for the briefest of seconds before she averted her eyes and stared fixedly at the black-robed minister who waited for Kendra and her father to take their final steps to the front of the church.

What, Kylie couldn’t even look at him? Dev’s mild indignation of yesterday grew. It was one thing to use him then deny him her phone number. But it was quite another to pretend now that he didn’t exist. He’d existed, all right, when she’d come for him in the supply closet.

And no matter what she might think, he had not given the guys a blow-by-blow description of what had taken place. So after the ceremony, he and Ms. Kent were going to have a chat, whether she liked it or not.

A naked chat would be better than a clothed one, truth to tell. As the minister droned on, Dev tuned him out and indulged some enticing memories of what Kylie’s smooth, bare thighs looked like. And what that sweet little derriere of hers felt like in his hands. And—

“We are gathered here today…” intoned the minister.

To have impure thoughts in church? To pop a woody in front of God and all the guests? Get a grip, man!

Mark and Kendra held hands as the familiar words of the traditional ceremony echoed throughout the nave. They looked into each other’s eyes. They smiled like a couple of drunk angels. It was—no other way to put it—sweet. And Dev had no doubt that the two of them would not lose that lovin’ feeling. You could tell with these two—they’d make it through anything life lobbed at them.

Dev wondered if one day a woman would look at him like that: as if she’d gladly put her soul into a stew pot and serve it to him with hot, crusty bread. As if nothing would make her happier than simply to make him happy.

And he wondered, too, if he’d look at a girl the way Mark did at Kendra: as if he’d slay any dragon, shoulder any mortgage and work five jobs just to keep her in designer shoes.

Aw, hell. He was getting all whatdyoucallit, that German word for sentimental—verklempt.

“Do you, Marcus James Edgeworth, take this woman …”

Dev found himself staring at Kylie again.

Her gaze flickered over him and she moved in the pew, uncrossing and recrossing her legs. She didn’t acknowledge him in any way, though.

Squirming, honey? If not, you will be soon. Because not only are you going to look at me before this night is over, but you’re also going to dance with me. Up close and personal.

“Do you, Kendra Lynn Kirschoff, take this man …”

He kept staring deliberately at Kylie until he could have sworn she blushed, but he was too far away to be sure.

Dev turned his attention to the ceremony just as the minister said, “I now pronounce you man and wife. You may kiss your bride.”

Up went the veil, down bent Mark’s head, and it was a regular smooch-a-rama up there.

“Easy, boy!” said Kendra’s father, and everyone burst out laughing.