Chapter 5

Wedding of the year was an understatement. Felicity was going for largest ever. I'd never seen so many people at a rehearsal in all my life, and weddings in the South were a big deal. I'd lost sight of Masyn within five minutes of walking through the doors to the sanctuary. Beau's brothers were the only people in the processional I knew, but that was two more than Masyn had on the bride's side.

I stood at the front of the church waiting for instructions when Felicity found Beau to air her complaints in a stage whisper.

"We should have had the wedding in Atlanta. This place is too small and pictures are going to look awful. There isn't enough space for the wedding party on the stairs, Beau."

It was impossible to tune her whining out, and the mention of hicks and the backwoods didn't endear her to any of the locals within earshot, either. Yes, Harden was a small town filled with hardworking residents, but Beau's family and friends didn't lack for class or clout. She'd insisted on inviting everyone this side of the Mason-Dixon Line, and in the process, she'd ended up with his friends he'd grown up with. Simple didn't mean ignorant. And blue collar didn't equate to less important.

"Felicity, there's nothing we can do about it now. Getting married in a church wasn't optional, and you're not a member of one." This had been the one thing I knew they'd argued about since he had proposed. Her family was agnostic, which might as well have meant they worshipped the devil in small-town Georgia. And his were devout Southern Baptists. Even if Beau hadn't insisted on a church wedding, his parents would have.

I reminded him of being unequally yoked as often as possible without flat out telling him not to marry her, but he'd glare at me and ask me to name the last time I had sat through a sermon. It wasn't me that was marrying someone outside of my faith, and my time in a pew had nothing to do with the hag he was about to give his last name.

She finally stomped away to bark at her attendants. All I could do was shake my head.

"Don't start, Lee." My best friend was on the verge of blowing his top. I could see it written all over his face. The splotchy-red cheeks and pink-rimmed eyes gave him away every time.

He had the fairest skin of any dude I'd ever come into contact with, and any time he got pissed off, he looked like he'd rolled around in poison ivy. He closely resembled an albino, or at least he did in my mind. Masyn always said albinos didn't have reddish-blond hair or hickory-colored eyes, but since neither of us had ever seen one in person, I didn't think she could be too sure.

I held my hands up in surrender. "I didn't say a word." Even though we both knew I would. "You give me the signal, and I'll get you out of here faster than you can hogtie a calf."

"One semester of 4-H and you'll never let me live that shit down."

"You are in the house of the Lord. Watch your language." I kept my expression blank, waiting for him to hit me, and half hoping he'd get the humor in my reference to Steel Magnolias.

He did neither, and instead, he rolled his eyes. "Jesus. You're a lost cause."

I pulled him aside-as much to the side as I could with a thousand people packed in here like trash in an overflowing can no one wanted to empty. "Dude, seriously. Why are you doing this? You're twenty-two. You do not have to get married just because you graduated from college."

Our conversation was interrupted by hollering in the distance. "Oh my God, can you please stay put. You don't have to be well bred to stand still." Felicity's voice carried across the altar and to the opposite side of the church. I was shocked she hadn't burst into flames yet.

I stared at my best friend and took a deep breath. "Please tell me that wasn't directed at anyone we know."

"Based on the way Masyn is chewing on her bottom lip and glaring at Felicity, I'd say it's a safe bet that it was."

"You're going to stand for that shit?" A year ago, Beau would have trampled anyone for talking to Masyn that way. Funny what love does to a person. "She's one of your best friends."

He ran his hands through his hair, and the red on his face only got more prominent. "What do you want me to do, Lee? Cuss my fiancée out? Make a bigger scene?"

"You can, or I will." I didn't give a shit who Felicity Holstein thought she was. In Harden, Georgia, she was a nobody without Beau by her side, and even then, I wasn't impressed.

"Just stay put. I'll be back."

Beau's younger brother, Braden, sidled up beside me. "He's going to have his hands full with that one." He wasn't really talking to me so much as next to me. Braden and Bodie were twins, and both cared for Felicity as much as I did. "I'd rather die alone." He shook his head and sauntered off to talk to one of the other groomsmen.

I couldn't agree with his sentiment more. Even so, I'd been left with either alienating my best friend or shutting my mouth until this was over. At the end of the weekend, Beau and Felicity would leave for their honeymoon in Paris and then move into their newly purchased house outside of Atlanta. We'd go back to seeing him on the occasional weekend and major holidays. All I could hope for was that he'd come home alone from time to time. Otherwise, I'd have to find a way to kidnap him from his parents' house and force him to slum it without his wife.

Felicity didn't single Masyn out. Still, she had nothing nice to say to any one of her bridesmaids. They walked too fast, they stood too close, they weren't holding their ribbon bouquets in the right place, yadda, yadda, yadda. She barked at those girls like a ferocious dog hellbent on ripping a posse of intruders to shreds. On the second run-through, she made one of the girls cry, another one yelled back, and a third stomped out. It didn't appear her friends were any more enthused about this union than Beau's, and most of them didn't really even seem to like her.

"That girl who left is Felicity's sister," Bodie commented from my right. "Her name's Peyton."

I already liked Peyton.

Beau glared over his shoulder at his brother in an attempt to silence him. Either Bodie didn't care, or he didn't see him. Either way, he kept talking. "She thinks Felicity is a gold digger. Felicity says Peyton's an old maid."

With Beau's back to me, I chanced questioning Bodie. "How old is she?" I hadn't gotten a good look at the girl, but she couldn't be much older than Felicity, and she definitely wasn't out of her prime.

"Twenty-four. She's in grad school. Felicity says women only go to grad school when they couldn't land a husband in undergrad."

"Does anybody really believe that crap anymore?"

"The Holsteins do. They're part of the group who marry so they don't have to work."

Bodie was about to say something else when Beau turned not so nonchalantly and snarled under his breath, "Would you two shut up?"

"Dude's going to have a heart attack before his twenty-third birthday married to that shrew." Bodie hadn't tried to lower his voice; half the people here turned to gawk at him, and a handful snickered.

"Seriously, Bodie?" At least Beau wasn't sticking up for Felicity, either. He only tried to silence his brother to keep the peace.

Bodie simply shrugged, as if what he'd said hadn't been ugly, just true.

"Please tell me this is almost over." Masyn came out of nowhere to stand by my side.

I extended my arm to escort her out of the door and to my truck. "Just getting started, sweetheart."

Smack.

I winced and ignored the playful slap to my stomach. "Did she really yell at you?"

"No more than she did everyone else. It's not a secret she doesn't want me in the wedding, Lee."

"She probably doesn't want you to look better standing next to her." Masyn could have worn a potato sack and flip-flops and outshined Felicity on her best day. Because no matter how pretty you are on the outside, ugly shines through.

"Well, since she has everyone in the free world standing as an attendant, I'll be in the next county over at the end of the second line. She's safe if that's what she's worried about."

We'd reached the doors to exit the building when Felicity stopped us. "Marilyn. You need to be in limo four."

"Masyn," I corrected her.

"Whatever. Limo four." She flipped her hair dismissively and went after her next victim, but I grabbed Felicity's forearm.

"Masyn's riding with me."

"Beau..." Felicity called out in a whine that would get an alcoholic drunk. "Why can't they cooperate?"

I waved, leaving Beau to deal with his girl. "You okay?" I curled my fingers on top of hers, now clinging to my bicep.

"Fine." That word was a lie, regardless of when it came out of a woman's mouth. She was anything other than fine.

"You want to talk about it?" I helped her into the truck and stared at her rich-brown eyes.

She quickly refused, and I let it go. We had less than forty-eight hours until Beau and Felicity were heading to the airport. Surely, we could make it through one weekend without one of us committing a felony like attempted murder.

Masyn studied something out the window and didn't even reach for the radio. I changed it to her station, hoping to drag her out of her melancholy mood in the few blocks we had to drive. When I cranked it up, she finally turned her head and leaned over the center console to kiss my cheek.

"Thank you."

I didn't need to ask what for. I already knew. Masyn was well aware I had her back, even against Beau. After that shit with Alex in tenth grade, I'd promised her I'd never stay silent again. I'd always give her the chance to fend for herself first-she wasn't helpless-but then I'd go in for the kill. Whether it was getting her out of the limo from hell or turning the music up loud enough for it to vibrate her teeth, it didn't matter because she knew both were for her. One day, she might realize everything I did was.