“Mister Teague, may I say it is wonderful to see you again?”
“Good to see you, too, Damon,” I replied as I got in beside Tria. “This is Tria Lynn. Tria, this is Damon, Michael’s driver.”
“Hello, Damon,” she said quietly.
“A pleasure, Miss Lynn.” Damon tipped his cap to her and gave me a wink before closing the back door with a click and taking his position in the driver’s seat.
Damon pulled out into the street and headed for the highway as Tria and I settled back against the luxurious interior. I focused on her face to prevent the familiarity of the scene from bringing back memories. However, Damon was less inclined to avoid the past.
“It’s good to see you looking so well, Mister Teague,” he remarked as he glanced in the rearview mirror. “I haven’t driven you anywhere since you received your temporary driver’s license!”
“You’ve known Liam a long time?” Tria piped up.
“All his life,” Damon said with a smile. “I drove Michael to the hospital when young Liam was born.”
“What was he like as a child?” Tria asked.
“Oh, for Pete’s sake…”
Damon laughed and adjusted the mirror to see Tria better.
“Headstrong, independent, obstinate—my guess would be the same way as he is now.”
Tria snickered.
“I’ll take that as a confirmation,” Damon said. From the view in the mirror, I could see his cheeks raised in a smile.
“Nice,” I muttered.
Damon drove us to Michael’s, where Ryan’s side of the wedding party would be preparing. I continued to watch Tria’s reaction to the surroundings, especially Michael’s house, and wondered if she had ever seen places like it before. Her eyes just about popped out of her head when she took a good look at the floor in the foyer and realized it was marble.
Not long after we got there, Tria was whisked away by three ladies in Carter’s employ, and Ryan dragged me to the den for shots of whiskey and bowtie tying.
“I fucking hate these things,” I said as I pulled the knot out and tried again. It had been way too long since I had worn a bowtie, and I had apparently lost the knack to tie one properly.
Ryan laughed.
“Didn’t you teach me how to tie one?” he asked.
“Whatever,” I mumbled. “I don’t even know what I’m doing here.”
My cousin walked up, smacked my hands out of the way, and tied my tie for me.
“You’re here,” he stated, “because you belong here. You’ve shut everyone out for too long.”
“Don’t you start.”
“Start what?” Ryan said.
“You know exactly what,” I snapped back. I looked in the mirror at his handiwork, and my tie was pretty straight. “I get enough of that from Tria as it is. Besides that, you also know better.”
“And Tria doesn’t?”
I shrugged and fiddled with my platinum cufflinks.
“Christ on a cracker!” Ryan growled softly. “She doesn’t know?”
“She doesn’t need to.”