happy to be your grief buddy.” I winced. “Not happy of course. But you know what I mean.”
Liam pulled back to look at me. “You okay?”
“Yeah, sure.” I felt bad for downplaying his feelings so quickly. “I just don’t want to rush this—whatever this is. I mean, we haven’t even known each other twenty-four hours.” But I’d be a big fat fucking liar if I pretended it didn’t feel like much longer.
16
Tori was quiet after we returned to the hotel. She made noises about getting her own hotel room for the night, but I told her that she could have the free bed in my room if she wanted—again. I sensed that she needed some distance from me, so I’d make sure to actually sleep in the other queen bed that night. We hadn’t made concrete plans for the following day, but when Nicole and Naomi had hugged her goodbye, they’d discussed meeting us for dinner at a restaurant on the strip the next day. Tori had seemed eager then, but her quiet now unsettled me.
Had I said something that bothered her in some way? I walked back the conversation we’d had in the hallway, when the switch from warm Tori had turned off—but I couldn’t think of any one thing I’d said that had triggered her to be quiet and contemplative.
We slept in separate beds and when I awoke the following morning, the sight of an empty bed and a note on the nightstand made me feel like I’d lost her—just like I had the first night.
I dropped my head back onto the pillow before reading the note, bracing myself for the worst. I hadn’t even gotten her phone number. Again. I knew her name, so I could find her that way. But should I search for someone who didn’t seem to want to be found?
After a solid five minutes mentally berating myself, I finally worked up the courage to slide the note close enough to read.
Liam—
I’ve got some work to get done, and I need a really quiet place to do it. The hotel has a business area so I can work in silence. I’ll be back before dinner.
-Tori
I should have been relieved by her message. I mean, I was. She promised to be back, so she wasn’t lost for good. But her message relayed none of the warmth I’d come to expect from her. It felt like a message one might leave for a coworker, or some other impersonal connection.
Since I’d be spending the morning alone, I decided to pick up my suits for the funeral and the celebration of life.
After that, I walked down the strip for a bit. I never did that—preferring my tiny town south of here to the hustle and bustle and noise of the city. For having grown up in such a big city, I had very few poignant memories of the places that made this city iconic. No, Will and the rest of the guys—we’d spent our weekends and vacations out in the desert, or over in California. The bright lights didn’t have anything on the miles of empty desert.
I stopped for lunch at a restaurant and checked my work email from my phone. Nothing too exciting. But as I scrolled through the messages, one sent early this morning caught my eye.
The subject line said: Your wedding photos are ready for download.
It was hard to believe that it’d been two days since Tori and I had gotten married. Apart from the rings, there were no physical reminders of that night. But as I clicked on the download link in the email, my phone screen filled with photos of Tori and me, out in the grove and inside the chapel during the ceremony. I hadn’t realized they’d captured photos during the ceremony—that showed how much I’d paid attention to my surroundings. Once Tori came into view, everything else fell off my radar.
The photographer had captured her walk down the aisle and my face as I’d looked at her. I decided it was a very intimate and vulnerable thing, to witness your own expression in moments like this one: when I’d seen my bride approaching me.
My face was too transparent, like I was drunk on something other than alcohol. I looked at her like a groom should look at his bride. I tried not to analyze that too much and clicked through to the next photo.
It was Tori and I at the altar, facing one another as we grinned. Damn, we looked happy.