He was used to her trying to sum him up, and he knew it was because she was overprotective of her daughter—the woman just had a weird way of showing it.
“You knew I’d be here,” he said.
She tossed her cigarette into a puddle and nodded, avoiding his eyes. He extended a hand in her direction and touched her chilly bare arm. She glanced up and blinked back tears.
“You make her happy,” she said, her voice quivering slightly. “Don’t ever stop making her happy.”
“I promise.”
Before he could dodge her, she was hugging him. Jace normally didn’t do hugs, but he made an exception in this case. He surrounded Tabitha’s slight frame with both arms and embraced her. Gently at first, but then more securely so she’d know that he meant it. Her entire body was trembling, at least partially from the cold.
“Don’t make me cry, damn you,” she said, and then she tugged away to slap him on the chest. “I’m not the emotional type.”
She looked up at him—eyes so similar in shade to Aggie’s that it was a bit disturbing—and then pinched his cheek hard before trotting into the open door of the chapel with her umbrella still in hand.
Had he just had a moment with Aggie’s mother? Maybe she’d stop calling him Maynard now.
Heads turned as he walked up the aisle. He knew he should greet the people in attendance and thank them for flying thousands of miles to witness his wedding, but he was afraid that if he focused on anything but the pulpit at the end of the aisle, he’d either come down with a case of the dry heaves or Eric would get to tease him for the rest of his life for actually fainting at his own wedding. Why couldn’t he be infallibly confident like the other guys of Sinners? None of them had been this nervous on their wedding days. Or if they had, they’d hidden it well.
“You were supposed to come in the back,” someone at his elbow said.
“I was?” He was so light-headed he wasn’t even sure who was talking to him or what the woman meant by “come in the back.” Sounded kind of kinky.
“Are you feeling unwell, Mr. Seymour? You look a bit pale.”
He glanced at the woman and recognized the wedding planner, Charity.
She smiled kindly and took his hand, which he recognized was like ice only when she patted his frigid fingers between her warm palms.
“A tad nervous?” she asked.
He swallowed and nodded.
“You perform music in front of thousands of fans, don’t you?”
He nodded again, and stared at her cream-colored lapel. There was a small ruby flower pinned there, and it gave him something to concentrate on other than the backflips his stomach insisted upon doing.
“How do you deal with that?”
“I hide,” he said, and his mouth twitched in an attempted smile.
“But those are strangers. These are your friends. Would you be nervous in front of them at a gathering?”
“Probably not,” he admitted.
“And that’s what this is, Jace. It’s just a gathering of your friends. It’s just a bit more formal than most gatherings.” She leaned close and whispered, “Some say imagining them all in their underwear helps.”
“I’d rather just not look at them.”
“Whatever gets you through this,” she said agreeably. “But when that wedding march begins, you will look at your bride. Promise me that.”
At the mention of his bride, Jace’s vision tunneled.
“Jace?”
He gave himself a hard mental shake. “I promise,” he said quietly.
“Don’t forget.”
He nodded mutely. He didn’t have long to stand in front of the crowd and perspire. Within minutes, a harp began to play. His head jerked up, and his gaze fixed on the head of the aisle, but he was disappointed to find it wasn’t Aggie standing there. Dare Mills was headed in his direction with Starr on his arm. Jace took a deep breath and watched the pair approach, hoping Dare couldn’t tell that he was freaking out. He craved the man’s respect and owed him a world of gratitude. Perhaps that was why it startled him so completely when Dare slapped him hard in the shoulder.
“Buck up, bro,” he said with a devilish grin. “This isn’t your execution.”
Starr laughed, and Dare shook off her clinging hold so they could separate and go to opposite sides of the pulpit. The rest of the bridal party entered two at a time. Each member of his groom’s party whopped him a good one as they passed. Brian punched him in the gut. Sed slapped him on the back of the head. Trey, with tears-streaming-Tabitha on his arm, gave Jace’s nose a hard yank. Jace was a bit confused by their physical retaliation until the final pair approached. Eric didn’t stop at a slap in the arm or a jab in the ribs; he released his wife’s hand so he could put Jace in a headlock and rub his bony knuckles over Jace’s scalp.
“Feeling better?” Eric asked when he released him.
“Huh?”
“You looked like you were about to pass out there for a minute.”
And he’d been effectively distracted by the mild physical pain they’d each delivered. It had kept him on his feet. So Eric had instructed the guys to knock him around? It had worked. Jace no longer felt like he was going to faint. He’d have to remember to thank Eric later with an equal number of physical blows.
The first chords of the bridal march began and everyone stood to have a look at the bride. With his heart thudding like a jackhammer against his ribs and his knees a bit on the wobbly side, Jace forgot to breathe. Then Aggie stepped into view, and breath didn’t seem to matter anyway.