Chapter 2

My phone buzzed again.

[Also, Ms. Howell has been pretty busy lately, so she asked Mr. Miller to take care of the rest of the wedding details. He said he'll stop by tomorrow afternoon to go over everything for her. Does that work for you?]

I stared at the messages.

So it wasn't just the vows. Apparently, Martin was handling our wedding now, too.

-

We were supposed to have dinner with Helen's parents at 7 p.m. for her father, Todd Howell's, birthday. When I came out of the study, Helen was already dressed and ready to go.

I held up my phone. "What's this?"

She glanced at the screen. "What?"

"Martin edited your vows?"

"Yeah."

She didn't seem bothered at all. "He writes for a living. Mine sounded too stiff, so I asked him to clean them up."

I pulled up the revision history. "You call this cleaning them up?"

The first paragraph was rewritten, then the second, and almost all of the last two.

I looked at her. "How much of this did you actually write?"

Helen went quiet for a few seconds. "The ideas were mine. He just helped me word them better."

"Did you ever actually sit down and think about what you wanted to say to me at our wedding?"

Her patience started to run out. "Lawrence, are you seriously trying to ruin tonight?"

"I'm asking if you put any real thought into it."

"Do you have any idea how busy I've been?" she snapped.

"My project launches at the end of the month. I'm in meetings all day, then I come home and deal with wedding stuff. I don't have time to sit around rewriting every sentence over and over."

I didn't say anything.

I had rewritten my vows 12 times. She couldn't even put 3 minutes of effort into hers.

Just then, the doorbell rang. Martin was standing outside with a cake in his hands.

"I picked this up for your dad. I'm not late, am I?"

Helen's expression softened immediately. "No. We were just heading out."

The three of us went to the restaurant together.

Halfway through dinner, Helen's mother, Christine Howell, put some food on Martin's plate.

"Thanks, Mrs. Howell. You really don't have to fuss over me like this."

Christine smiled. "You and Helen have known each other since you were kids. After all these years, you're practically family."

Martin chuckled. "Careful, Mrs. Howell. Lawrence might start thinking I'm taking his place."

Everyone at the table laughed.

A moment later, Helen noticed the mushrooms on his plate and moved them aside. "You don't eat mushrooms."

She did it so naturally, like she had done it countless times before.

After dinner, Christine suggested taking a family photo. She and Todd sat in the middle while Helen stood behind them.

Martin clearly knew the routine. He stepped into place beside Helen without even thinking.

I was about to move over when the photographer called, "Everyone squeeze in a little. Eyes on me."

Martin seemed to realize what he had done and shifted aside. "Lawrence, you can stand here."

I was about to step over when Helen glanced at her parents, who were already in place.

"Forget it. There's no point moving everyone around now." She waved me over. "Lawrence, just stand next to Martin. There's room."

She said it like switching places was more trouble than it was worth.

The camera clicked.

No one seemed to think anything was wrong.

A few minutes later, the photo showed up on our phones. Todd and Christine sat in the middle, Helen stood behind them, and Martin stood right beside her.

And there I was, the man who was supposed to marry her in seven days, standing off to the side like I had wandered into someone else's family photo.

After dinner, I headed to the parking lot ahead of everyone else. Martin caught up with me and held out the photo.

"It came out pretty good."

I didn't take it.

He glanced down at the picture, then looked back at me. "You really think marrying her is going to change anything?"

I turned to face him.

Martin gave me a faint smile. "Relax. I'm just saying, you've seemed pretty worked up about me lately."

"Then keep your distance."