Best Man for Hire (Entangled Lovestruck) (Front and Center) (15 page)

Chapter Fifteen

“I need to state, for the record, that I wouldn’t ordinarily give a client a bridal-shower gift with penises printed on the wrapping paper,” Anna said as she handed the package to Sheri. “Kelli insisted.”

As Anna kissed the bride-to-be on the cheek, Kelli beamed with pride. “I also insisted on a naughty-or-nice theme for the shower, but I may have forgotten to include the nice part. You’re welcome.”

Sheri laughed and hugged them both. “I don’t know what I’d do without you two.”

“You’d have an embarrassingly small collection of sex toys,” Kelli supplied. “Again, I say you’re welcome. Come on already, start opening the damn gifts.”

The thirty or so women attending the shower had arranged themselves in a sort of lopsided circle of folding chairs. Most balanced dainty slices of cake on paper plates, and nearly everyone held a champagne flute. It had been a good party so far, with lots of laughing and good food and happy congratulations for the bride. Anna smiled, grateful she’d been able to go with the flow despite feeling like her heart had been smooshed like a glob of frosting in the tines of a plastic fork. She had to put on a happy face for the bride. Just a few more days and she could fly home to Portland and forget about Grant and his brother and the whole damn Patton family.

Fat chance.

Sheri took her seat in a spot near the window flanked by her mother and Kelli. Anna stationed herself in the corner near the kitchen so she could help refill champagne glasses and gather discarded gift bows to make a bouquet for the rehearsal the next night.

Sheri spotted her and frowned, then waved her over. “Come on, Anna. Don’t stand there like you’re the hired help.”

“I am the hired help.”

“The last hired help in my life is set to be my husband in a few days,” Sheri said. “The Patton family takes a different view of the concept. We’re practically family, Anna. Come on.” She pointed to the empty chair beside Kelli. “Sit with us. That way we can all drink too much champagne and discuss what an ass-hat my brother is.”

“For the last time, your brother’s not an ass-hat,” Anna said as she trudged over to Sheri’s side of the room. She glanced around at the assembled women, most of whom were total strangers. She leaned down to Sheri and lowered her voice. “Can we please not make a public spectacle of the fact that I hooked up with your brother? It’s unprofessional.”

“Honey, please,” Kelli said. “Half the women in this room would give their left nipple to bang Grant, and the other half would give up their right. No one’s blaming you for falling.”

“It’s okay, Anna, I understand,” Sheri said, touching her arm. “I’ll stop bringing it up. I’m sorry.”

“Come on, let’s distract you with sex stuff,” Kelli said, reaching into the pile of gifts at Sheri’s feet.

“Sex stuff,” Anna said. “Always a good distraction.”

Sheri bent down to inspect the packages. “Should I open the one that looks like it’s filled with slutty lingerie, or the one that feels like an exceptionally heavy sex toy?”

“Sex toy,” Anna said, dropping into the empty chair and pulling out a notepad and her favorite clicky pen. “I’ll start a tally of how many batteries you’ll need.”

At the thought of batteries, Anna felt a pang of nostalgia. Christ, this was stupid. She’d only spent a week with Grant, and already she had tainted memories of batteries, coleslaw, and paddleboarding. Good thing the relationship hadn’t lasted longer or she wouldn’t have been left with much that didn’t remind her of him.

“Oooooh!” Kelli cried as Sheri tore the wrapping paper off the first package. “A spinning sex swing. Those are much sturdier than the kind you mount in a doorway.”

“We went in on it together,” called a perky-looking brunette across the room. “That’s from all the Patton cousins.”

“A little different from the playground equipment we enjoyed together when we were eight,” Sheri said, turning the box over in her hands. “Thank you so much.”

“You need to pass the gifts around, dear,” Stella said beside her. “That’s the proper etiquette.”

“I wasn’t aware there was etiquette involved in allowing thirty of my closest friends and family members to fondle my sex toys,” Sheri said, but passed the box toward her mother anyway.

She reached for another box, this one small and rectangular. Some sort of lingerie, Anna guessed, and watched as Sheri unwrapped a surprisingly tasteful white teddy.

Anna felt a stupid pang of jealousy and then wanted to kick herself. Would she ever have the chance to rip pink paper off tasteless gifts while her doting husband-to-be gathered with his buddies at a tuxedo shop in the days before their wedding? She thought about Grant trying on his tux and somehow the thoughts got all mixed up in her mind with Grant standing at the altar beaming while she floated down the aisle toward him.

Stop it,
she commanded herself.
Just because it’ll never be Grant doesn’t mean it won’t be anyone.

“I don’t want just anyone.”

She must have murmured it under her breath, because Kelli turned to look at her. “I hear you, sister. That’s one thing you can say for the Patton men. They’re not your average everyman.”

“Thank you, dear,” Stella said from the opposite side of Sheri, leaving Anna wondering if the woman had radar hearing. She wondered what else she knew about what had happened between her and Grant. Anna hadn’t meant to spill the whole story to Kelli on the phone a few days ago, but once she had, she’d felt better.

“Is this top secret?” Kelli had asked her. “My lips are sealed if it is.”

“You can tell Sheri if you want,” Anna said. “Discreetly, I mean. That way everything’s out in the open and there’s no awkwardness. I want the focus of the party to be on Sheri instead of the tramp who shagged her brother.”

Not that she didn’t feel awkward anyway, Anna thought now as she watched Sheri hand a pair of edible panties to her mother. She jotted the gift down on her notepad, along with the fact that it came from one of Sam’s sisters.

“Open that one next,” Kelli insisted, picking up an oblong box. “I think I heard it buzzing earlier.”

Anna busied herself jotting notes, making sure to provide enough detail to help Sheri write good thank-you notes later. She looked up every now and then when Kelli murmured something appreciative like, “that’s a huge one” or “the strawberry flavor is the best,” but mostly she kept her eyes on her notes as the wrapping paper piled up at her feet.

“Excuse me, Anna?”

Anna turned to the woman on her right, who held out an armload of sex toys and lingerie. “Sorry, I didn’t want to bother you while you were busy taking notes, but we’re backing up here.”

“I’m so sorry,” she said, tucking her pen into the coiled spine of her notepad. She held out her arms to accept the world’s largest assortment of sex paraphernalia. Lubes, crotchless teddies, vibrating panties—all of it toppled into Anna’s lap. She wrapped her arms around the pile, shifting her notebook to her knee. She glanced over at Sheri to see if the bride was blushing.

“Ohmygod, I’ve wanted one of these!” The bride held up a dildo shaped like a handgun, not a trace of embarrassment on her face.

“You’re welcome, dear,” Stella said beside her. “Kelli helped me choose it.”

“Of course she did,” Anna murmured, struggling to wrestle her pen free as she juggled the giant armload of sex toys.

Somewhere in the distance, a male voice echoed in a hallway.

“Anna? Anna, are you here?”

She tried to scramble to her feet, but she couldn’t do it without sending a mountain of sex paraphernalia tumbling to the floor. An instant later, Grant was standing in the doorway looking flushed and disheveled in a tuxedo. He was gripping a bouquet of sunflowers in one hand and something that looked like a cupcake in the other.

“Anna,” he said again, relief washing over his features before turning to mild confusion as he surveyed her armload of booty. He shook his head and drew his eyes back to hers, a look of determination on his face. “I need to talk to you.”

“Does that vibrate?” Kelli asked, squinting at the cupcake.

“It’s orange ginger with lavender-lemon icing,” Grant said, not really answering the question, but thrusting it toward Anna anyway. “I had it custom-made.”

Anna shook her head, wishing the ground would swallow her up. “Grant! What are you doing? You can’t be here, you’ll ruin the bride’s party.”

Sheri raised her hand and leaned across Kelli so she was practically in Anna’s lap.

Not that there was any room left.

“As the bride, I’d like to disagree.” Sheri smiled at Grant. “The floor is yours, baby brother. This better be good.”

Anna watched Grant survey the surrounding army of women in pastel dresses. Every one of them had stopped talking to stare at them. Most looked curious or mildly amused. Some wore expressions of hunger, though most weren’t looking at the cupcake.

She saw Grant draw his eyes back to her and take a steadying breath. He stepped forward, still gripping the flowers and the cupcake. She was eye level with his crotch now, which must have felt as awkward for him as it did for her, because he hesitated, then dropped to his knees in front of her.

“Grant, no. Get up, please—”

“No,” he said, his eyes still locked on hers. “It may not be today or tomorrow or even the next day, but someday—hopefully very soon—I plan to get down on one knee and ask the woman I love to marry me. And I
do
love you, Anna. I’m not making any promises right now, except that I love you.”

A symphony of gasps echoed in the room, and Anna realized at least one of them came from her. She tried to raise a hand to her mouth, but discovered she was still gripping a bottle of flavored massage oil.

Grant didn’t seem to notice. “I love you,” he repeated. “And I want to thank you for opening my eyes to the fact that I want it all—the wife, the home, the happy marriage—the whole goddamn mess.”

Anna blinked back tears, not sure how the man managed to make a goddamn mess sound romantic, but he was doing a damn fine job of it.

And of filling out the tux. She blinked again, trying to stay focused on his words.

“Look, Anna. When I told you I wasn’t perfect, I meant it. I told you I’m stubborn as hell, but that means I’m willing to fight for what I want. I’m clueless about things like fashion and home decor, but when I pull my head out of my ass I’ve usually got a pretty clear view of other things. Like the fact that I’ve got an amazing woman right here in front of me.” He swallowed, his voice still a little shaky. “I know I told you I care too much what people think of me, and it’s true. But I care most of all what you think of me, and I want to be worthy of your love and respect. I’m willing to learn from you, Anna—your bluntness and your honesty and your ability to grow as a person. I want you to teach me, whether it’s how to tell a Pinot Noir from a Cherry Coke, or how to be emotionally available. Please, Anna, say you’ll give me a chance.”

She couldn’t seem to find any words, but she managed to nod as tears welled in her eyes. Grant smiled and pressed on.

“You deserve sunflowers and orange-ginger cupcakes with lavender-lemon icing. You deserve the damn tea-length dress and whatever the hell a mantilla veil is. But most of all, you deserve happiness, Anna. Let me be the one to give it to you.”

She still couldn’t find her voice, but she’d given up blinking back the tears. They were rolling down her face in earnest now, making big, soggy droplets on her notepad.

Stella seemed to notice, and leaned across her daughter to reach for the paper. “I’ll take that,” she said, tugging the pen and notepad from her fingers as Anna sat numbly. She glanced at Stella’s face to see her smiling proudly at her son.

“And I’ll take those,” Kelli said, scooping the armload of sex paraphernalia from Anna’s lap.

Sheri leaned forward and plucked the cupcake and flowers from her brother’s hands. “And I’ll take these.”

“And I’ll take you,” Anna said, sliding to her knees on the floor in front of Grant as she found her words at last. “All of you. The flaws and the perfection and everything in between. I love all of you, Grant. And I don’t need you to promise to marry me. Just the possibility it
could
happen is enough.”

“It could,” he said, his hands sliding around her back to pull her tight against him. “It definitely could.”

“Stranger things have happened,” Anna murmured as his lips found hers.

Behind her, Stella began to laugh. “In this family? You’re barely getting started.”

…

Grant slid a finger into the collar of his tuxedo shirt and gave a little tug to adjust it.

“Bow tie too tight?” Mac murmured beside him.

Grant shook his head and grinned, feeling himself breathe easy. “Nope. It’s just right.”

The pianist was playing loudly enough to cover their whispers, but Sam glanced over anyway and made a pistol with his thumb and forefinger. Both Mac and Grant saluted him, and Sam grinned, then turned his attention back to the doors of the church. The procession had begun.

Grant watched his new brother-in-law visibly swell with pride as Sam’s stepmom and Stella Patton moved down the aisle shoulder to shoulder, each carrying one of Sheri’s twin boys. Spotting Sam at the front of the church, Jackson hooted and waved a chubby fist in the air, while Jeffrey shouted something Grant could’ve sworn sounded like, “Semper Fi.”

Grant glanced at Mac, who looked pleased with himself.

“You taught them that before they mastered bye-bye?” Grant murmured.

“Shh!” Sam hissed.

The moms took their seats, making way for a parade of flower girls and bridesmaids in brightly colored dresses. Then it was time for the maid of honor.

The instant Kelli came through the church doors, Grant felt Mac stand taller beside him, his eyes locked on his wife’s beaming face. She spotted her husband and blew him a kiss, looking radiant in a bright coral gown with flowers in her hair.

But Grant’s eyes had already drifted to the edge of the door where he could see Anna hovering outside. She was issuing cues, directing traffic, the whole time smiling like a kid at a carnival. She was in her element, and he felt so damn proud to be part of it.