Chapter Six
The gorgeous home that hosted the wedding was situated on a sweeping St. Helena vineyard, which in Emme’s opinion made it an already picture-perfect location for a December wedding. But on top of that, the house was filled to the overflowing with greenery and bow-trimmed poinsettias, which turned everything into a wine country Christmas wonderland.
Emme wondered what her wedding day would be like. If she ever had one.
She closed her eyes and pretended, just for a moment, that today was her’s and Nick’s, that the radiant girl in white silk she’d seen flutter past an upper-story window on the way in was really her.
“You’re going to trip if you keep your eyes closed,” came Nick’s voice from beside her. He squeezed her hand and whispered in her ear, “You look good enough to eat, Gingerbread.”
“You do, too, Bacchus. But you’re more 007 than Roman god tonight.”
“I get the feeling there may be actual spies here for the wedding,” said Nick seriously. “I heard some of the guys talking on the way in. A few of them are FBI or CIA or something.”
“Huh,” Emme said thoughtfully. She’d wondered several times why someone with her co-worker Anna’s obvious high-level computer skills was helping out at St. Paw’s, instead of drowning in venture funding at some fancy startup in Silicon Valley. And Anna seemed…distant. Like something was up.
Emme and Nick tucked themselves into some folding chairs in the back, leaving the front rows for others since they didn’t know the bride and groom well.
Being new to St. Helena, she was honored to have been asked by her co-worker Anna to help celebrate at her best friend Jenna’s Blue Shawl Crawl and at her wedding. Emme got the feeling that Anna and Jenna had both been through a lot in their lives, and that some hardship had occurred before Jenna and Mike’s wedding. Anna kept things pretty close to the vest, but she’d shared that it was really a big deal that folks in the tight-knit St. Helena community were helping celebrate.
And Emme loved that idea. She wanted to be a part of that, a part of helping two people unite and start their lives together in celebration.
Emme wore a silk dress and fringed shawl that she’d borrowed from Presley Baudouin, owner of Coupe and the wife of Luke, who’d built the tiny house on the edge of the Baudouin estate. Nick wore one of his cousin Nate’s suits.
The borrowed clothes added to her feeling that they were playing dress-up – not just at being wedding guests, but at being adults who were in a relationship.
All of a sudden, Emme felt overwhelmed and lost. She ached for Nick, for them to have something real like the couple that was about to take their vows here today.
She realized she was deeply, overwhelmingly in love with him. And had been, oh – for four years now.
His arm loosely draped around the back of her chair now, Nick was so assiduous, perfectly playing the part of her boyfriend. And she no longer sure where the friend part and the girlfriend/boyfriend part overlapped, and which was more real.
They’d made love – more than once now. That had to be real.
It just had to.
Emme wanted to know that she wasn’t just a girl playing dress up, the friend in the steel-toed boots who loved animals who he dug hanging out with.
“Ugh,” she said. “I’m not a Girl-Bro!”
“Oh, you’re not going off on that again!” Nick took her hand, but she shook it off impatiently.
“A bro-chick? I’m in the friend-zone, not the end-zone? Oh, I don’t know what to call it! But I’m not that, all I know is that I don’t want to be whatever that is for you!”
Tears threatening to fall, she turned and looked up at him.
“Nick,” her voice came out as a confused whisper as she gently picked his hand back up from where she dropped it. “I don’t want us to mess this up. To mess us up.”
Suddenly still, he stayed silent beside her.
“Nick?”
He looked at her, straightened. “I’m not sure we should have this talk here.”
“But we haven’t had a chance to really talk.”
“Yeah. I know.” Something in Nick’s tone was off, unsure.
“This whole thing about pretending,” said Emme. “You’re my best friend, and I know we’ve been pretending to keep your great aunt and all the other little old ladies in this town from marrying you off for Christmas. But I feel like we’ve had something real happen.”
She hitched a breath in, searching his face for some reaction. But Nick’s blue eyes were inscrutable.
“I’ve been thinking about this, too. And we’re not pretending right now, Emme,” said Nick, staring at her.
“Exactly. And what I’m trying to say is, I think I have feelings for you. I do have feelings for you. I’m falling for you, Nick. I have been for four years now.”
“I don’t want to hurt you, Emme,” he said, looking past her at the hallway where the first members of the wedding party were assembling for their march.
The music started.
“We need to finish this talk later,” he said, his voice still coming off as odd and stilted to her.
Emme’s eyes glistened with tears as the glowing bride made her way down the aisle to her groom and first moment of the rest of their lives.
She took no solace in the fact that people are supposed to cry at weddings. Because if it were up to her, she would have been smiling for the happy couple. Instead, she was crying – for herself and Nick.