The Wedding He Never Attended

After I left the bridal shop, I headed back to the apartment Caleb Grant and I shared.

He was crouched by the front door when I walked in, carefully pressing a blister pad into the heel of a pair of high heels. He did it with the ease of someone who had done it plenty of times before.

The shoes were pale pink, size 6.5, with narrow heels.

I wore a 5.5. Obviously, they weren't mine.

Caleb caught me looking and slipped the shoes back into their box.

"Nina's bridesmaid shoes got delivered here," he said casually. "New shoes always tear up her heels, so I figured I'd put some blister pads in for her."

I gave a quiet "Mm," changed my shoes, and went inside.

There was a cake on the coffee table.

"I passed a bakery earlier and remembered you said you wanted cake." Caleb followed me into the living room and pushed it toward me. "So I picked one up."

"I can't eat it."

He frowned. "Why not?"

"I'm allergic to chocolate."

That stopped him for a moment.

"Sorry. I forgot."

He remembered that Nina Sawyer got blisters whenever she wore new shoes, but he had forgotten that I was allergic to chocolate.

I didn't say anything. Caleb seemed eager to move past it.

"Where were you this afternoon? I called you."

"At the bridal shop."

"Was something wrong?"

"No. I asked them to adjust the measurements for your suit. It doesn't fit properly anymore."

He barely reacted. "Whatever works. As long as it's good enough."

That was Caleb's answer to almost everything about our wedding.

Whatever works.

As long as it's good enough.

When I asked him to look over the wording on the invitations, he'd said, "Whatever works."

When I showed him options for the wedding favor boxes, it was, "Whatever you like."

When I asked whether he wanted a single-breasted or double-breasted suit, he had looked at me like the question itself was pointless.

"Aren't suits all basically the same?"

In the end, Nina had been the one to help me choose.

She'd flipped through the catalog and said with a smile, "Caleb hates double-breasted suits. He thinks they make him look old. Go with single-breasted. He looks best in those."

At the time, I'd actually been grateful. She knew him well, and I thought having her there would save me from getting things wrong.

It hadn't struck me until now how absurd that was.

I was the woman marrying Caleb, yet I needed another woman to tell me what my future husband liked.

His phone rang before I could say anything else. He answered it, and by the time I looked over again, he was already heading out with Nina's size 6.5 shoes in his hand.

I didn't ask where he was going.

I went into the study and started gathering my things instead.

My IDs and other documents were in one drawer, along with several contracts, a few books, and the wedding schedule.

The schedule was packed with notes from beginning to end.

Every single one was in my handwriting.