Page 76 of Midnight Wishes

‘Yeah,’ Alex said. ‘Me too.’

Abby appeared between their seats, beaming. ‘So glad you two have made up. Now can we change the music to something happier? It’s my wedding weekend, and I don’t need to be exclusively listening to Taylor Swift’s most depressing bops.’ A hand dove for the centre console and grabbed his phone. ‘Oh shit, that’s actually what this playlist is called.’

Keeping one hand on the wheel, Alex reached backwards, plucking the phone from her hand. ‘Can you not? How do you even know my passcode?’

She rolled her eyes in the rearview mirror, and the visceral reaction it would normally have prompted was dampened by sheer fucking affection brought on by the moment he’d just shared with Erik. Because even if he’d felt left out as kids, even if he sometimes felt left out now, he loved them both a frankly stupid amount, and this—Abby needling him, Erik passively enjoying her ribbing and Alex’s responses to it—was the bestversion of them, and if they wanted to show up for him, he could try to let them in a bit more.

Affection aside, a flare of annoyance still shot through his chest at Abby’s next words. ‘It’s the same passcode you’ve had since your first phone, and it’s your birthday. You did not make it difficult for us to snoop on you when we were kids.’

‘You figured that out, but not that his passcode was the alpha-numeric value of your name? Which is nerdy as fuck in addition to being pathetic, by the way,’ he added, in Erik’s direction.

In response, Erik tipped his head back and closed his eyes, smiling softly. ‘Well aware.’ Then he straightened as suddenly as his seatbelt would allow, eyes wide. ‘Wait, you were going through my phone too?’

‘After I walked in on you two cuddling for the seventeenth or eighteenth time?’ Alex snorted, derision evident in every decibel of the inelegant sound. And look at that—he was getting better at letting them in already. ‘You bet. I was convinced you were dating and keeping it secret so you wouldn’t have to deal with all our parents, which honestly would have been less frustrating than the two of you dancing around each other. So I swiped your phone one night to check your text thread. To this day it remains the driest thing I’ve ever read.’

‘Less dry now,’ Abby offered, from the backseat.

‘Gross,’ Alex muttered. Her hand appeared next to him again, the middle finger extended this time. He swatted it away; Erik grabbed her fingers, pulling them to his lips instead. It made Alex want to gag.

Love.

Just thinking the word sent pain shooting through his heart. And upset as he was, he couldn’t help thinking of her. The high-strength medication engineered to help him concentrate had really been no match for those eyes, that skin, that laugh. Or maybe it had somehow sensed that was where his attention should be at all times, sharpening its focus in on her until it consumed him. Now he was wondering what she was doing. If she was enjoying her ride from London to the country house hosting the wedding. The one she was taking without him. If she was safe. If she washappy.

If she’d been offered the job in Barcelona.

But of course she had. Because she was brilliant, and only an idiot wouldn’t have hired her.

One more question bounced through his brain, ricocheting like a quick-release pinball.

How the fuck was he going to face her for the next thirty-six hours?

To her credit,and at great personal cost, Abby came through for him at dinner time.

While most guests would only travel through the following day, the wedding party was staying the night to ensure everything went smoothly with final setup in the hours before the wedding.

After settling in—which for Abby meant dumping her suitcase in the room she’d be sharing with her friends that night before following the boys and spreading out on Erik’s bed, yapping as they hung their suits—they ventured downstairs to find theywere the last to arrive. In the small sitting room where they’d be eating dinner, they found the parents of both the bride and the groomalready a bottle of wine deep. Seemingly they, unlike Alex and Erik, had not needed to work most of the day before driving out.

And there she was. Sitting with Zoe, looking stunning in a black dress that looked so soft he wanted to rub his face over it like a cat. She’d left her hair to dry naturally—mostly straight, save for the single wave two-thirds of the way down that he knew bothered her, having seen her tug on it day after day. Her skin was free of makeup, making her pink cheeks when she looked at him all the more pronounced.

Alex thought about what Erik had said at the gym a few nights before. Thought about his reflection that morning, as he’d consciously decided to allow the slight messiness of his stubble to puncture his otherwise pristine appearance. How when he’d sat in his large, empty house before bed last night, with only a dog who didn’t give a fuck what he looked like for company, he’d decided that maybe his brother was right. Maybe he could let people in a little more.

But not her.

She’d lost her right to him—the access so beyond what he’d offered anyone else—when she’d started planning a life a thousand miles away.

So he smiled, the perfectly balanced, decidedly vapid smile he gave most of the population. The smile that set people at ease, that made them feel liked and interesting. But even that gave too much of him, now that she knew it was bullshit. So he looked away before registering her response, eyes bouncing offthe black sketchbook next to her before landing on Erik, who raised his eyebrows in the universal symbol forYou good?Alex nodded, hesitating as Abby bounded ahead of them to greet her friends. It made more sense for their group to join them. There was more space at their table. But there was truly nothing Alex wanted less than to sit next to her for an hour, pretending every word spoken in her gloriously husky voice wasn’t like a sledgehammer to his heart. He also didn’t care to be the one shuffling away to eat dinner with his slightly inebriated parents and their friends, but it would hurt his ego and his ears more than his heart, and since that had taken enough beatings…

And then, despite how much she could annoy him, Abby reminded him that it was possible he slightly adored her. He’d taken another half step towards the table of iniquity when she slid away from Sarah, whispered something in her ear, then fell into step beside them, grabbing Erik’s hand and leading him towards their parents, taking the decision out of Alex’s control. Out of gratitude, he situated himself as a buffer between her and her mother. While it didn’t stop Susan eventually noting the messy bun Abby had thrown her hair into and the worn sneakers she’d travelled in, she was afforded five minutes of peace while Susan fussed over how handsome he was and how lovelyhishair looked.

‘I appreciate the attempt, but even the night before my wedding was never going to be magical enough that she couldn’t find fault,’ Abby said quietly, standing after their parents made their exit. But the second her fiancé was on his feet, Erik pulled her closer and kissed her cheek, and Alexsawthe stress from her mother seeping out of her body as she got her fill of him.

He was about to reply when he saw Sarah and Zoe walking towards their table, instead shutting his mouth sharply.

‘Come on, lovebirds,’ Zoe said. Sarah hovered a foot behind her, and Alex was at once pleased to have another excuse to look at her—damn her for looking soft and sweet and wonderful, and damn him for falling for it—and desperate to be out of her immediate vicinity. ‘Break it up. You both need a decent night’s sleep.’

’We’ll get a better night’s sleep together,’ Abby countered, a last-ditch attempt he knew she would lose. Erik had already been sulking for a week about their friends’ insistence that they spend their final unmarried night apart. ‘We can be chaperoned to make sure there’s no funny business!’ Zoe merely stared at her. ‘Fine. Can we at least have half an hour to take a walk and just soak up the fact that we’re getting married tomorrow?’

Her final words were paired with a painfully soft look back at Erik, who had his arms wrapped around her waist now, as if daring anyone to take her away from him. Erik nuzzled into her neck and grumbled, ‘An hour.’

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