Page 59 of Sister of the Bride

My nose wrinkles. “What does that mean?”

“It’s just…well, you’ve made great strides getting comfortable with Mackenzie and the wedding. You haven’t spit on a single one of these programs, for example. But I get the sense that you can’t say the same for the sale of Marino’s.”

I let out a huff. “You mean the sale of my family’s legacy and my childhood home, which will also evaporate my job?”

“Yeah,” he says, his voice deadpan. “That.”

“No, I’m not going to do anything weird.” I sigh. “It’s just going to be hard, you know? Trying not to imagine what dad would say while this slick corporate guy eyes the place his family built to see if it’s worthy.”

“I think your dad would be pretty psyched about it, so long as the company is a good fit,” Toby says. “Your dad used to talk about selling the place and retiring all the time.”

I blink at him. “No he didn’t.”

“C’mon, Pip, are you kidding? He brought it up constantly. He loved running Marino’s, but he had plans to retire to the Cape someday. Eat his weight in lobster rolls and fried clams and breathe the salt air until the sun set. You don’t remember that?”

It takes a moment for the image to emerge from the haze. It’s always a bit of a gift when a new memory of Dad comes back. It’s like being visited by his ghost. All of a sudden, Idoremember him talking about retiring, about selling Marino’s and eating lobster rolls and watching the snow fall on the beach in January. And as much as he loved having me help him out at the restaurant, he never talked about passing the place on to me. He talked about me going to college, having my own adventures, charting my own course.

We never got very far into what those wouldbe, unfortunately. But staying at home and running Marino’s certainly wasn’t an option he considered.

I’m suddenly awash in all the things Dad never got to do. Never got to tell me. Things I never got the chance to ask him.

Being in that kitchen is the only way I still have to feel like I’m talking to him.

A lump forms in my throat. “It sucks that he never got to do that,” I whisper, my voice catching. And just like that, it’s time to press the release valve on my tears.

Without a word, Toby leans forward and pulls me into a hug, letting me bury my face in his shoulder, his shirtsleeve soaking up my tears. When I open my mouth for a sob to escape, he pulls me tighter, his fingers trailing up and down my back in a slow, steady rhythm. His other hand threads through the curls at the base of my neck, cradling my head. He lets me stay there until I’ve cried out all my tears, and then I sit up with a shuddering breath, my palms pressing against my cheeks as I attempt to erase the signs of my breakdown.

“It’s okay, Pippin. You can be sad with me,” he says, reaching out to grasp my wrists, pulling my hands gently away from my face. “You can be anything you need to be with me.”

All the breath whooshes out of me at the way he’s gripping my wrists, and then his fingers suddenly thread through mine so he’s holding both my hands. My heart pounds out a symphony in my chest, and when I glance up, smoldering Toby is back.

My lips part, though I’m not quite sure what I want to say. Or ask.

But then Toby lets go. He sits back, giving the slightest little nod.

“Hey, pause the movie will you? I need to run to the bathroom,” he says. I had forgotten there was even a movie on. I glance up at the screen, where Adam Sandler is on the plane befriending Billy Idol in first class.

I glance back at Toby, but he’s already up and halfway to his room, his broad back retreating.

My hands are shaking as I reach for the remote on the coffee table, shaking so much that I knock over one of the three half-empty glasses of water he’s left behind. The puddle starts creeping toward the stack of file folders full of his work for the hospital.

“Shit,” I whisper as I frantically search for something to wipe up the puddle. When I find nothing nearby, I whip off my T-shirt and sop up the liquid. Luckily, because the glass was half empty, it’s not much. I can probably just wring my shirt out over the kitchen sink and put it back on.

I scoop up my wet shirt and the other two glasses and head for the kitchen, gathering another three on my way. In the tiny galley kitchen, I drop my shirt on the counter and dump the glasses, then reach for a the dish soap. Might as well wash them—he’s got to be on the verge of running out of clean glasses with this many dead soldiers left around his apartment.

I’m midway through the first glass when the hairs on the back of my neck stand up, half a second before I feel the warmth of Toby behind me. He leans forward and puts his hands on the sink on either side of me, his arms caging me in.

“What are you doing?” he asks, his voice low, his warm breath raising goose bumps on my neck.

“Dishes,” I say, the word escaping on a shuddering breath.

“Shirtless?”

In that moment, I realize I’m standing at Toby’s kitchen sink wearing only a black bra with a lace overlay. Not my sexiest number, but definitely not my ratty old sports bra either.

“Uh, I spilled water and used my shirt to, uh—” I nod at the sopping heap on the counter. I can’t believe I took my shirt off. I also can’t believe it matters that I took my shirt off. I’ve whipped my shirt off in front of Toby plenty of times over the years, in dressing rooms and on camping trips and while executing a quick change in the back seat of a car.

But this feels different.

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