Edward had become one of my closest friends during the divorce. We’d worked in the same department for years, but we’d only really gotten to know each other in the past year. He was the one who noticed when I came back from lunch with red eyes. He listened without trying to fix everything. He brought me coffee, the good kind from the place across the street, on the morning my divorce became final, and he didn’t say anything about it, just set it on my desk with a sticky note that said You’ve got this. And once, he spent forty minutes helping me write an email to Max about holiday custody that didn’t include any of the words I originally wanted to use.
He was also tall, athletic, and irritatingly good-looking. The kind of good-looking that made the interns giggle when he walked past.
In other words, exactly the kind of man Max would notice.
I set one of the coffees on his desk.
“I need a favor.”
Edward looked up from his monitor and eyed the coffee suspiciously. “That sounds expensive.”
“Come to my ex-husband’s wedding with me.”
He blinked. “As… emotional support?”
“As my boyfriend.”
He stared at me.
“Pretend boyfriend,” I added quickly.
“Oh,” he said. “Well, that’s much healthier.”
“Please, Ed?”
He leaned back in his chair. “Why me?”
I tried to joke my way through it. “Because you’re obnoxiously presentable.”
“I’m putting that on my next performance review.”
I laughed. But Edward didn’t. He just kept watching me with that steady, patient look he had, the one that always made me feel like he could see straight through whatever I was pretending.
“Veronica,” he said quietly.
Nobody at work called me that. Everyone called me Ronnie. He only used my full name when he wanted a real answer.
I sighed and stared at the carpet.
“I want Max to see me with you,” I admitted, “and wonder if he made a mistake.”
Edward was silent for a moment. Something passed across his face. I couldn’t name it then. It looked almost like disappointment, but not in me. Something more complicated than that.
Then he nodded.
“Okay.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. I’ll do it.”
Looking back, I should have wondered why he agreed so easily.
Instead, I spent the next week worrying about what to wear.
For illustrative purposes only
Part Four: The Dress and the Box
Max had trained me well.
