Then she’s upright again and they’re kissing. The announcer invites all married couples to join them on the dance floor so I nod goodbye to Chad, slip away, and head off the dance floor, slipping between elaborately decorated tables and toward the bar.
I have to admit that it’s beautiful in here, not to mention unlike any other wedding I’ve ever been to. The room is high-ceilinged and old, the plasterwork around the two chandeliers intricate and detailed, the crown molding in the same pattern.
The wall is dotted with lights in sconces between the wainscoting panels, giving the room a romantic, pre-electricity feel, and the tall windows are hung with dreamy, gauzy curtains edged in fairy lights.
The really wild thing, though, is the decorations that Vera and Ava dreamed up. The centerpieces of each table are easily five feet tall, elegant towers of evergreen boughs and white flowers that make it feel like I’m walking through a wintertime forest.
But, like, a really fancy forest. Not a regular forest. This forest probably has lots of cozy little cottages and peaceful babbling brooks in it, not abandoned hunting shacks, old fridges, and rusted-out cars.
I don’t necessarily think that dropping half a million dollars on a wedding is a good thing — how many kids could you send to college for that much? Start a scholarship instead, seriously — but since I’m already here, I may as well enjoy it.
A few minutes of aimless wandering later, I find myself in front of the place card table, half-empty glass of champagne in hand. Or rather, in front of the tables, plural, because three hundred and sixty-whatever names don’t fit on one table.
I grab my own place card, even though I don’t really need to. They’re simple and classy, thick paper folded into a tent shape. The front is calligraphied Delilah Radcliffe, and the back says Table Two.
I stick it into my pocket and take another sip of champagne, feeling slightly aimless during the first unstructured moment I’ve had since six this morning.
The champagne gives me an idea, and I oh-so-casually walk to the middle name table. I casually take the last sip from the glass, and I casually stand there, perusing the names on the neatly laid out cards.
Hanson, Hemsfield, nope. Johnson. Closer. Klein.
I step sideways, eyes running down the neat column.
Lee, Lewis, Long —
“You’re not dancing?” he says, suddenly behind me.
This time when I turn, I don’t break anything.
“You do know it’s impolite to sneak up on someone, don’t you?” I ask, even though my heart thuds.
“I said your name twice,” Seth says, leaning over and grabbing his table place card from the column, quickly glancing at the table number on the back. “Maybe trumpets and a town crier next time?”
He’s got a whiskey glass in his hand, and now he raises it to his lips, watching me with that cool, slightly sarcastic expression that he always seems to have.
“It’s the married people dance,” I explain, tilting my head in the general direction of the dance floor. “You didn’t come over here to pick a fight this time, did you?”
Seth glances over in the direction of the dance floor, through a forest of evergreen and white and even in that easy, casual gesture is something that makes me ache. Maybe it’s just the way he’s standing, tall and confident, looking for all the world like not only is he exactly where he’s supposed to be, he’s in charge.
Maybe it’s the suit. Seth would look good wearing a burlap sack — even cargo shorts —but Seth Loveless in a suit is devastating.
The last time I saw him in a suit, it was after one of his brothers’ weddings — Daniel, I think, though I wouldn’t swear to it — and I was doing some light internet research. He looked good in the photo.
He looks better in person, because photos don’t ever capture the way he moves, or the way he looks at you, or the sheer force of magnetism that is Seth Elwood Loveless.
“I didn’t,” he says, and now he’s looking back at me, and I wish this glass were full again. “I just came over to see if you wanted to dance.”
“Your date won’t mind?” I ask, too quickly.
The smallest, slyest smile tugs at his lips.
“Should she?” he asks.
“I can’t speak for her,” I say. “I have no idea what other women tolerate from you.”
“Would you mind?”
“Would I mind dancing with you?”
“If you were my date, would you mind me dancing with you?”
I tilt my head to one side, cock my hip, and examine Seth through narrowed eyes. I don’t think I’m usually this sassy with my body language, but I also haven’t usually just downed half a bottle of champagne all by my lonesome.
“Am I me in this hypothetical scenario, or am I your date?” I ask.