When I get to their table, Conner and Tess are fighting.

“Why are you being so stubborn?” Con asks, glaring at her over a pint of Guinness. Tess scoffs at him in response. On the table between them is the pale pink envelope Jessica gave her this afternoon.

“You’re kidding, right?” she shoots back, sliding across the booth to make room for me without taking her eyes off him. “You are the poster boy for stubborn.”

Con’s jaw flexes tight. “This isn’t about me, Tess.”

She rolls her eyes. “Are you sure—because everything seems to be about you these days.”

For a second, he looks genuinely wounded. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Tess answers his question with one of her own. “How many times has she called you today?”

Con’s face goes white. “It’s not the same thing.”

“Bullshit.” Tess comes up, out of her seat, to jab a finger in his face. “It’s exactly the same.”

He finally looks at me. “She actually wants to go to this fucking shitshow,” he snarls at me, flicking the invitation with the back of his fingers.

I feel my eyes widen and I look at Tess. She’s got her arms crossed over her chest, eyes narrowed and glaring at the space next to Con’s head. She’s chewing on her lip ring so hard I’m afraid she’s going to rip a hole in her lip. “I think she should.” I say it to her and watch her face change instantly. She’d been expecting me to agree with Con. The truth is, I don’t think she should go within a country mile of Declan’s wedding but it isn’t my decision, and it isn’t Con’s either.

“Fuck me,” Con groans, picking up his pint and taking a gulp. “You’re not helping, Legs.”

“You think I should go?” Tess says. Now that she has back-up, she suddenly looks unsure.

“I think you need to go,” I say, ignoring Con completely. “I think you need to find a hot date, get dressed up and sit your ass in the front fucking row. And after he makes the biggest mistake of his life, I think you need to drink too much on his dime, dance with Mr. Hot Date and show him what moving on looks like.”

Con, set his glass down and sighs. He knows I’m right. “At least let me take you.”

“No fucking way,” Tess says.

“What?” he says, his mouth lifting in a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. “I’m not hot enough?”

Tess opens her mouth, but I rush in before she can say something insulting.

“You’re in the wedding,” I remind him, shaking my head. “We all are. She needs someone who’s going to be there, exclusively for her.”

“Fine.” His jaw goes tight before he slumps back in his seat, the picture of defeat. “But I’m doing a full background check on whatever dickbag you manage to scrounge up.”

“Like I can’t find a decent guy who wants to go out with me?” Now it’s Tess’s turn to look wounded. “Thanks.”

“Christ—” Con rolls his eyes, heaving a put-upon sigh that sounds nothing like him. Hearing it makes me wonder what’s happened to him since I left. “That’s not what I meant.”

“What about the new guy?” I say, casting a quick look over my shoulder. Logan and Patrick are manning the bar, flirting and smiling at the crowd of women around it. Is it my imagination or are there way more females in the place than usual?

“Logan?’” Tess says, craning her neck over the back of the booth. “You think?”

“Yeah,” I say, shooting Con a quick look. He seems mollified by the prospect. Good. That means whatever his questionable past might include, Logan is a good guy. Con never would agree otherwise. “He’s got the hot nerd thing going on.”

Suddenly, my view is blocked by a set of massive shoulders, and I look up to see Declan standing in front of our booth.

“Hi,” he says to me, like he saw me yesterday, before looking directly at Tess. “Can we talk outside?” he says, his gaze leaving her face long enough to catch sight of the envelope on the table in front of her. He doesn’t look surprised to see it.

“Where’s Jess?” Con pipes up slamming his empty pint on the table. “Off, polishing the jar she keeps your balls in?”

“Stay out of this, Conner,” Dec says quietly, barely sparing his brother a glance before re-focusing on Tess. “Please.”

It a few seconds before Tess nudges me with her knee, and I slide out of the booth, Declan stepping back to give me room. He looks wrecked. 3-day beard. Sunken eyes. Dark circles. Like he hasn’t slept in days. Tess grabs the invitation off the table and slides across the seat behind me before pushing her way through the crowded bar, trailing Declan in her wake.

As soon as they’re gone, Conner pushes his way after them.

Shit.

I follow him. I’m not sure what I’m going to do, but I follow anyway.

Just when I think I’m going to have to jump on Con’s back to keep him from following them all the way outside, I realize he’s bypassing the front door completely. He’s heading for the back office.

Keying the lock, he pushes his way in, leaving the door open, his only concession to the fact that I’m following him.

“So, they’re actually talking to each other now?” I say from the doorway, still not understanding what we’re doing in here.

The automatic lights click on a second before Conner lowers himself into the chair. “You’ve been gone for almost a year—shit didn’t just stand still, waiting for you to trot your ass home.”

Another jab. Another reminder that Patrick isn’t the only person I left when I went back to Ohio. “But why wouldn’t Tess tell me—”

“Get your ass, over here, Legs,” he says, jiggling the mouse on its pad to wake up the computer. “You’re gonna miss the show.”

By the time I round the desk, his fingers are flying over the keys. A second later, the large screen is split into several different panels, each of them showing a different camera angle of the interior and exterior of the bar. Clicking on one of the windows, its camera view fills the screen pulling Declan and Tess into sharp and sudden focus.

Con uses the mouse to shift the angle of the camera until he can see both of their faces.

“I never wanted this,” he says, his voice oddly void of emotion. “I never wanted any of this.”

“Really,” Con says. “That’s funny because this—every bit of it—is your doing.”

I look from Con to the screen and back again. It takes a second for me to realize what he’s doing.

“Are you reading their lips?”

“You’re being unfair, Tes—”

“Am I? You’re fiance stopped by the garage today.” On the screen, Tess holds up the envelope. “How’s that for un—fucking—fair?”

“I know. That’s why I’m here. I don’t—you don’t have to—” Declan swipes a hand over his face before holding it out to Tess. “I’m sorry. Just give it to me. He drops his hand when she shakes her head at him. Please, Tess... just give it to me. I’ll tell her you can’t make it.”

I’m feeling increasingly uncomfortable. We should not be watching this. We shouldn’t be listening. “This is wrong,” I tell him. “We shouldn’t be—”

“He knocked her up,” he says in a hard, emotionless tone, his eyes never leaving the screen. “He got her pregnant and fucking abandoned her. She had no one. No one.”

I shake my head. “But—”

“She lost the baby. She went through it alone while he went on with his goddamned life like nothing ever happened. Like she was nothing. He doesn’t get to hurt her again. Not ever.” He flicks me a glare. “Now, shut the fuck up or get the fuck out.”

I think of the way I prattled on this afternoon about Grace and Molly. What a blessing Molly is. How lucky we were to have her. How strong Grace was for raising her alone. The way Tess looked like she’d been stabbed in the chest. Like she was bleeding out right in front of me.

I turn away from the camera but I don’t leave. Instead, I sit on the desk and place a hand on Con’s shoulder. He’s tense. The muscles under my hand are shaking like it’s taking everything he has to stay in his chair. He watches the screen intently, eyes flicking over the images in front of him but he doesn’t narrate for me anymore. Probably because he knows I’m right.

“Let’s go,” I say to him, my fingers tightening around his shoulder. “Patrick’s probably wondering what the hell—”

“MOTHERFUCKER!” he roars, shoulder snapping tight under my hand an instant before he lunges up and out of his chair. He looks poised to run, but his eyes are fixed on the screen like he can’t look away.

I turn, letting my gaze fall to the screen and my mouth falls open.

Declan’s got his hands clamped around Tess’s arms, lifting and crushing her against him. He’s kissing her.

And she’s kissing him back.

Before that fact can register, Tess is tearing herself away from him, eyes wide, twisting out of his grip even as her fist comes up and catches him square in the jaw.

Declan’s head jerks back but he shakes it off, unmoved by the assault, so she plants her hands on his chest and shoves him back, putting space between them. When he finally lets her go, he looks just as stunned as she does.