Find Me (The Found Duet #2)(27)
Author: Laurelin Paige

A moan came from outside the shot. Then JC sat up into the frame, and my stomach began to churn with undefined anxiousness. I already knew he’d gotten married. I’d known he was drunk. Why did he think I wanted to see it? To prove just how wasted he’d been?

Too bad I’d never recorded myself with Chandler. I could send that to him to prove just how lonely I’d been.

Or I could just turn this off. But I didn’t.

“I’m up. I’m up,” JC said. “Is it almost time?”

I studied him as well as I could on the small screen. His hair was rumpled and his tie loose, and his lids looked droopy. I knew the suit he was wearing. He’d had it on when he’d left me in New York City, begging for me to marry him later that day. My chest squeezed at the memory. At the sight of him here, in a chapel, with another woman.

“It’s past almost time. It is the time. It’s the middle of the time.” Her words were slurred and whiny. “We’re in the middle of the thing and you decided to lie on the floor.” She hesitated, her brow furrowing. “Or maybe I should join you.”

The man with the binder sighed. “No, no, please. Why don’t you stay standing? Mr. C? You should stand as well.”

Even drunk, JC hadn’t shared his name. This was strangely satisfying. Like, I may not have been special enough to have learned it, but neither was this woman.

“I’m up,” he said, clutching onto the woman—what was her name?—using her for support as he climbed his way to a standing position.

“What the—are they…drunk?” Laynie asked tentatively.

“Hammered.” Completely blitzed. There was no way a ceremony with two people so obviously intoxicated could be legal. And if they didn’t have JC’s name, he couldn’t possibly have provided proper documentation required for a marriage.

Was this what he wanted me to see? That the wedding wasn’t legit?

Maybe I was jumping to the wrong conclusion.

Once he was on his feet, it took a couple of minutes for the presider to get JC and his bride-to-be into place. “Now. Don’t move,” he said when they were positioned. “We were just at the exchanging of vows, Mr. C. Shall we try again? Repeat after me, I, JC.”

“I, JC,” he repeated, his body swaying.

“My God, he’s adorable,” Laynie whispered.

My frown deepened. An adorable ass.

“Take this woman, Tamara Stone.”

Ah, that was her name—Tamara. Bitch.

“Take this woman.” JC paused, waving his hand at the presider who’d tried to prompt him again. “Take this woman, Gwen.”

My heart stuttered in my chest.

I’d heard him wrong. I had to have.

But then Laynie was nudging me. “He said Gwen! This is right out of an episode of Friends.”

“It’s Tamara, remember?” His bride reminded him. “Ta-ma-ra.”

JC shook his head. “I’m marrying Gwen. I want to marry Gwen.” His eyes widened as if just then realizing where he was or who he was with. He spun around, scanning the room. “Where’s Gwen? She was supposed to meet me at the airport. I thought she’d come.”

His tone was filled with yearning and bewilderment. Sorrow. The mournful adoration he infused in my name—it pulled at me, tugged at something low in my chest. That place inside where I hid my regret for not having said yes. For not having been brave enough to leap and trust he’d be there when I landed.

My eyes blurred and I couldn’t see the screen clearly anymore.

“Maybe we should do this another time,” the presider said, shutting his book.

“Sure, sure,” Tamara agreed. “This was just the practice anyway. Right, babe?”

I didn’t know how or if JC responded because the presider, who had walked toward the camera, reached past the lens and the screen went black.

“Hmm.” I bit my lip, holding back the tears, and stared at my cell long after it went dim, trying to decide how I felt about what I’d just seen. On the one hand, relieved. Because he hadn’t gotten hitched after all. Because even smashed, he’d been thinking of me.

Not just relieved, but touched. Moved by the emotion this man had felt for me.

On the other hand, I was now more confused than ever.

Dammit.

“He was going to get married?” Laynie sounded as baffled as I felt. At least her confusion made sense.

I slumped, setting the phone down on the desk. “I thought he had gotten married. He does stupid things when he’s drunk.”

“Apparently.”

“But I guess this time he didn’t do the stupid thing he thought he’d done.” I leaned back in my chair. “That makes things…”