Page 16 of 4 Weddings and a Feud
Alex’s gaze swept from Michael to Rafe. “I couldn’t trust anyone else with this.”
Rafe sniffed the air. “I smell a liar. Don’t you, Michael?”
“Stinking liar,” his brother agreed.
“Boys, go back to the shop.” Gently, Mary pried the box from Alex’s hands. He cracked his knuckles.
“What’s in the box?” Rafe stepped forward.
The box was less than a foot long on each side and surprisingly light. Mary pushed past her brothers to set it on the counter and lifted the flap. Inside a nest of shredded paper was a bubble-wrapped item about the size of a small teapot. She pulled it out and carefully unwrapped it.
It was a delicate ceramic statuette of a Black couple, the man wearing a suit and the woman in a puffy white gown. The woman’s hair was a 1980s-style mass of coils that reminded her of the cover of Janet Jackson’sControlalbum.
“A cake topper?” she asked.
“Rochelle’s parents’,” Alex said. “She wants to use it, and I thought it might inspire your plans.”
“How sweet.” She turned the statuette in her hands. Wanting to use the topper meant tradition was important to Rochelle. That she remembered her mother and wanted her to have a place in her wedding even if she couldn’t be there in person. Mary got it. She wished she had a memento like this from her parents’ wedding, but they’d done a city-hall quickie, perhaps to hide the fact that Michael was already on the way. Their stern-faced Catholic grandma knew how to count months and, unlike Rochelle’s family, wouldn’t have celebrated an early-arriving grandchild.
If her family had been more supportive, would Mom have worked herself into illness and an early death? Would she still be around to give Mary a hug and tell her she was doing a good job? And someday, in the far-distant future, if Mary finally met a nice man and decided to marry, would she have sat in the front row, tears sparkling in her eyes?
Mary wiped a tear from her own cheek and glanced up to thank Alex. But Rafe was standing practically on top of him.
“I don’t know what’s going on here, but no one makes Mary cry,” he growled.
“He didn’t?—”
Michael spoke over her. “You’ve delivered it. Now get out.” He pulled a socket wrench from his pocket and tapped it against his palm.
Mary stepped between them. “Stop. This is ridiculous. Thanks, Alex, for bringing me this. It’s going to give me a ton of ideas.” An inspiration board started to come together in her head. A white layer cake with frosting flowers, the topper nestled into the top layer. Or a more modern cake, architectural and austere, possibly something textured, with the topper as a throwback element. Eighties and nineties hits sprinkled into the dance mix. And if Rochelle wanted one of those retro ballroom skirts, it would go a long way to hiding her baby bump.
“I’m glad you appreciate it,” Alex said smoothly. “I expect I’ll see a lot more of you all, now that we’re working together.”
“Won’t that be nice, boys?” Mary said. “Like back in high school.” Alex used to come to their house for Sunday dinner after Mass. Then, while Rafe and Michael washed the dishes, Alex, Mary, and her dad would go into the garage and tinker with whatever project Dad had going on in there. Alex’s help was usually limited to handing over the right size socket wrench because he didn’t know a fuel injector from a spark plug, but he seemed to enjoy chatting with Dad. Alex had never come out and said it, but she suspected his father wasn’t nearly as generous with his time.
“This guy was an asshole back in high school,” Rafe said, squaring his jaw. “Still is, only now he’s got fancier suits and manicures.”
“Rafe, be nice.” Where was a bucket of water when she needed it? She’d dump it over her brothers like a pair of angry cats.
Alex pulled his phone from his pocket. “Looks like you aren’t so averse to the idea of a fancy suit yourself, Rafael.” Carelessly, he flicked a thumb over the screen, then turned it toward Rafe.
Rafe’s face went as red as Mary’s Corvette.
She set the cake topper on the desk, then grabbed Alex’s hand to see what he’d shown Rafe. It was a photo of Rafe in a tux, gazing into the middle distance, his hand—the one that still had a splint on it—shoved into the pants pocket. “Holy crap, Rafe,” she gasped. “How’d they make you look so hot?”
Alex cleared his throat and pressed his phone into her hand. “Scroll. There’s more.”
“No!” Rafe’s expression was pure horror. But of course, she had to look.
She flicked through a few more poses. Damn, was his jaw really that sharp? In the suit, he looked almost as good as Alex. As she scrolled, she noticed he lost the tie, then the shirt was unbuttoned at the base of his neck, then at the middle of his chest. Then the jacket was gone. Her fingers froze on the next photo, where Rafe lay on a bed against white sheets, shirtless, bathed in a light that called to mind early mornings, waking up next to someone who’d rocked your night.
“Rafe.” She looked up, eyes wide. “You said you kept your clothes on.”
“What?” He snatched the phone from Mary.
Michael peered over his shoulder. “Holy shit. That looks like porn.”
Rafe put his hand over the screen. “They said they wouldn’t use that one. How did you get these?”
