Chapter 3

I turned around. "Ronan isn't one of the groomsmen."

"I'm adding him," Seren said. "It's one extra person. What's the big deal?"

Ronan stood beside her with his hands in his pockets. "If Adrian doesn't want me in the wedding party, forget it. It's not like I'm dying to be a groomsman."

Seren glanced at him. "Stop saying that."

Then she looked back at me. "Adrian, it's just a suit."

Just a suit. Just a few lines in my vows. Just a backdrop. Just a pair of headphones.

Somehow, everything that mattered to me became just something the moment Ronan wanted a say in it.

I unlocked my phone and sent Seren the contact information for the menswear shop handling the groomsmen's suits.

Her expression finally softened. "See? Was that so hard?"

I said nothing.

By the time I got home, the living room was buried in boxes. There were wedding favor boxes, place cards, the guest book, and the thick wedding album I'd spent weeks putting together.

It held our whole history, from grade school to high school and then college. I'd arranged every photo in chronological order myself.

On the first page was a picture of Seren leaning slightly toward me, holding an open textbook upright to shield me from the boys behind us who wouldn't stop teasing me. A breeze had caught a few loose strands of hair by her cheek.

On the back of the photo, I'd written a single line. "She was the first part of the world I learned to hear."

Back then, I'd truly believed that.

The doorbell rang. When I opened the door, Ronan was standing outside with two assistants from the wedding planning company behind him. He lifted the garment bag in his hand with a grin.

"Hey, Adrian. I came to pick up my groomsman's suit. Figured I'd see if there was anything else you needed help with while I'm here."

I stayed in the doorway. "There isn't."

Ronan peered past my shoulder. "Wow. You've got a lot of stuff in there."

Before I could respond, he squeezed past me and walked inside. I reached out to stop him, while the two assistants hovered awkwardly by the door.

But Ronan had already spotted the album on the coffee table. He picked it up and opened it to the first page.

A laugh escaped him. "Wow, look at you two. You were such dorks as kids."

I walked over, took the album from him, and closed it. "Don't touch that."

Seren's voice came from the doorway. "Ronan, didn't you say you were just here to pick up your suit?"

She'd come too. Ronan immediately pulled his hand back. "Hey, I was only taking a look. Didn't realize Adrian would get so worked up about it."

Seren looked at me. "He was just curious."

I held the album against my chest. "I told him not to touch it."

Her expression hardened. "Adrian, how long are you going to keep this up? No one's trying to take anything away from you."

Ronan lowered his voice. "Seren, leave him alone. Maybe because of his hearing, he's always been a little more protective of his stuff. Makes sense he'd get insecure about people touching things."

Seren didn't correct him. For two full seconds, she said nothing.

I looked at her. Two seconds shouldn't have felt that long. But they were long enough for me to understand. She thought so too.

Then Ronan noticed a pair of cufflinks on the coffee table.

"Oh, hey." He picked one up. "Adrian, can I have these? They'd look pretty sharp with my suit."

They weren't spare cufflinks. I'd gotten them specifically to wear with my wedding shirt.

They were black onyx set in silver, each one engraved with the delicate outline of an evergreen branch.

I'd loved that design for years. Seren knew exactly why. When we were kids, I'd once misheard "evergreen" as "everlasting".

After that, every year on my birthday, Seren gave me something with an evergreen worked into the design. And every single time, she'd make sure I could see her lips as she said the same word—"everlasting".

Now Ronan was holding one of them between his fingers, grinning as he asked if he could have the pair.

"No." There was no hesitation in my answer.

Seren walked over. "If he likes them, just let him have them. We can rush-order another pair before the wedding."

I looked up at her. "Seren, you picked those out yourself."

She froze for a second.

Ronan glanced at me, then at her. "Wait, you chose these for him? Now I want them even more."

He held the cufflink against the sleeve of his suit, admiring the effect. "What do you think? Looks good on me, right?"

Seren didn't answer. But she didn't tell him to put it back, either.

Suddenly, the wedding album in my hands felt unbearably heavy. My wrists actually ached from holding it.

I lowered my head and placed the album back inside its box. Then I took out my phone and messaged the wedding planner. "If I want to cancel, I have until 5:00 pm today to confirm, right?"

Her reply came almost immediately. "That's correct."

I hadn't even finished typing my response when Seren suddenly snatched the phone out of my hand. "Who are you texting?"

The screen was still lit. She saw the message. The entire living room fell silent.

Seren stared at me, her voice dropping. "Adrian, what the hell is this?"