Page 57 of Knot in the Wedding Cards

She studies me, and I hold still under it, which she doesn't expect, I can tell. She came up those steps braced for the old me; the deflection, the joke that turns a hard moment soft so nobody has to sit in it.

She keeps waiting for me to reach for it and mark this into another comedic act, but I already fucked up trying to explain my emotions properly.

I’m not making this into a laughing matter when there’s nothing to laugh about.

"Fine." She pulls a breath, and the professional comes back over her like a tide filling a print in the sand. "Then here's your clock. If you want in on this wedding, you earn the seat. Forty-eight hours. I want a full hospitality and security proposal on my desk. Not vibes. A professionally laid out document."

Now we're talking.

My whole body changes register, the way it does when a broken party hands me something to actually fix.

"Walk me through the shape of it," I say, and I've already got my phone out, notes open, thumb moving.

"Celebrity couple, hers is the bigger name." She shifts the clipboard, and to my genuine surprise, she gives it to me straight, vendor to vendor. "Famous guests, some of whom travel with security teams that will not want to coordinate with each other. Private transport in and out, which means a choke point at the gates. Restricted alcohol service, because the bride does not want a viral video of anyone. Paparazzi are a when, not an if. Local residents who have lived here their whole lives and will not be treated like a crowd-control problem in their own town."

"And the bride." I look up. "What does she actually need? Not the logistics. The person."

Amber blinks.

It's small. I catch it.

"She's spent her whole life being managed," she says slowly. "Handled. She wants one day that doesn't feel like a set. If your proposal turns her wedding into a compound with guard towers, it's rejected on page one, no matter how airtight it is."

"So it's not security." I'm already seeing it, the whole architecture of the night, the way I see a room. "It's hospitality wearing security's job. Nobody gets wanded at the door. You make the perimeter feel like a party so good nobody wants to leave it, and you make leaving it socially expensive instead of physically impossible. You give every guest a reason to be exactly where you need them. The locals don't get managed, they get hosted — you make them the hardest reservation in town insteadof an obstacle. And the bride never once sees the machine, because the machine is three hundred small kindnesses in a trench coat."

Amber is quiet.

I glance up from my phone, and she's looking at me with an expression I haven't earned and can't keep.

There and gone…

The look of a woman remembering, against her will, why the difficult man was worth hiring in the first place.

"Forty-eight hours," she says, recovering, tapping the pen. "Secure inbox, not my house, not my hand. Golden Hour Vows, the portal, the address is in your packet. You do not come to my door with it. You do not find me on these steps again to hand it over in person and watch my face while I read it."

My heart aches at the reminder of the list of rules and how there’s not one rule that can be broken where I make her realize how much I fucking miss loving her the right way.

The way she caves at my touch. How my jokes would make her laugh and look like she’s on cloud nine. To witness the way I love her just by being myself and know I’ll receive her love in return, tenfold.

I miss our Sweet Apricot, and I just have to be compliant for the sake of our sanity…

For the sake of not pushing her away a second time and never having the opportunity to be in the same orbit as hers…

"Wouldn't dream of it."

"You would. It's your whole nature."

She's already turning, already climbing back toward Main Street, already gone in every way that counts. "Impress me on paper, Mercer. It's the only place you're allowed to."

A reminder of the rules.

Then again…rules are meant to be broken…right?

I let her go up the steps without a single word chasing her, which is the hardest and best thing I do all day.

Watch me, my Sweet. I’ll prove I’m no longer a coward in a better way than with words…

The wanting doesn't hit me until I'm alone.