She rolled her lips together as the pink of her cheeks deepened. "We'll talk about that later."
"Um, excuse me? Fiancé? I truly, honestly, sincerely hate to be the one to break up this outpouring of love and sexual tension but I will need my darling Audrey back if I'm going to get married this afternoon."
I closed my arms around Audrey, held her tight to my chest. "Apologies," I said to Emme. "Congratulations, by the way."
"You might not be saying that when the boys are done with you," she replied.
Before I could ask for an explanation on that, Emme retreated into the house. "What does that mean?"
"Hmm? Oh. Nothing. Just Emme's sense of humor," Audrey said. She patted my lapels. "I'll see you later."
I brushed a quick kiss to her lips and watched as she disappeared inside the Victorian with all the other women in blue dresses. I stayed there, staring at the generous wraparound porch and the people bustling in and out of the house. Everyone had a purpose, a part to play in this production.
It felt good to be here. Like I was finally doing something right.
Behind me, a throat cleared. I didn't think anything of it until the throat repeated itself, and then, "Hello. Hi! I take it you're here with Audrey?"
I turned around to find a white guy about my age with a beer bottle in hand and a goofy grin on his face. Tallish, broadish, dark hair with one helluva 'stache. "Yeah. Hey. I'm Jude."
"Jude! Good to meet you, man." He said this like he was already my best friend. I couldn't fight off the twitch of a smile. "I'm Ben. Grace's husband."
"Grace," I repeated. "She's…one of the teachers. Right? Third grade?"
"In on the first shot," he shouted, clapping me on the back.
It dawned on me that, for the first time, I was in Audrey's ecosystem. These were her people, her friends and their partners, and this was the world she'd built for herself. I should've noticed that a few minutes ago when they'd beenright therebut I hadn't been able to focus on anyone but Audrey.
Fuck.I had to get this right.
Ben pointed his beer toward a few men standing about twenty feet away, near the garden. Rather, one of themanygardens. "I'll introduce you to our squad."
I followed him down a stone path, murmuring in agreement as he chattered about the weather or something like that. The wordsgroup chatcame up several times and I wasn't sure what I'd agreed to but I rattled off my number to him regardless.
"The man of the hour," Ben said, motioning to one of the all-time greatest players of college and pro football as if his face wasn't on half the billboards in Boston. "Ryan Ralston, sir, allow me to introduce you to Jude, the lovely Miss Audrey's companion for the weekend."
I'd admit it. I was starstruck. I wasn't obsessive about sports but this guy was a big fucking deal. I managed to clasp hishand, saying, "Congratulations. Thanks for having me here to celebrate with you and Emme."
"Happy to have you," he said easily. "Emme was very excited when she heard you could make it."
"This here is Noah Barden." Ben made a sweeping gesture toward a thick, burly man who seemed to smile about as much as I did. "He and his wife own this farm and the one up the hill that way."
"That's Shay?" I asked. "The kindergarten teacher?"
"My wife used to teach kindergarten." He gave my hand a firm shake. "She's moved up to first grade now."
"Yeah, right, I heard about that." I didn't remember that specific detail but I hadn't spent much time asking Audrey about—well, anything. Most of the time we'd spent together I'd wasted it on empty silences. I could've drowned myself in every tiny detail of her life but instead I'd wanted to prove points. To grab hold of my anger and frustration, and grip them in my fist like shards of glass. And look who had to deal with those consequences now.
"And we've got Jakobi Jones," Ben said, motioning to the other man.
"Hey. How's it going?" he asked, holding out his hand. "I'm Ines's husband."
Ines?I shook his hand a beat longer than necessary as I tried to remember Audrey mentioning someone named Ines.Shit.I had nothing on Ines. "Does she teach with Audrey?"
Jakobi laughed to himself as he ran a hand over the back of his neck. "No, she's in engineering."
"Which field? I'm in aeronautics," I said. "Propulsion testing and development."
"Then she'd love to talk to you about that. She's in robotics," he replied, just as Noah said, "It's interesting how I've known Audrey for years and she visits our home at least once a monthand somehow, the past eighteen hours is the first we've heard of you."
