It Had to Be You, Georgia Clark [phonics reader TXT] 📗

seemed so jazzed about. But the call went to voice mail and only after messaging him twice did he text back that he was leaving for the Hamptons early and they’d meet at the wedding. He didn’t even drive her up.

It was one thing for him to be distant and distracted at the rehearsal dinner, an eighty-person affair at a restaurant in Southampton. Both the Livingstones and the Chois had planefuls of extended family in town, and Zach was expected to charm and circulate and take selfies with distant cousins. But when he elected to stay at his family’s home and not with Darlene in her nearby hotel, she felt confused and disappointed. It was supposed to start in the hotel. She’d booked one with two beds, but she was under the impression they both knew what would happen. Sort-of-moans-sort-of-groans. I love you, Zach.

But now he was backing out.

The rehearsal dinner was over, but the night was still young. Zach caught the eye of someone over her shoulder and called out an inside joke Darlene didn’t get. He turned back to her perfunctorily. “I’ll sleep on a couch. Just feels like I should be with my family.”

A couch? Zach’s hardiness when it came to sleeping rough was on par with the princess and the pea. Something rotten was curdling in the back of her mind. Something she wasn’t ready to look at. Disappointment, bordering on nerves, leaked into her bloodstream. “Well, what about the after-party everyone’s talking about? Should we go?”

“Oliver, you ponce!” Zach called to a disheveled boy about his age. “You’re not even pissed, ya girl!”

“Screw you, mate!” Oliver barreled over and hauled Zach into a headlock. They roughhoused like children, almost knocking Darlene over.

Zach addressed Darlene from the headlock, his face at Oliver’s hip. “See you tomorrow, ’ey, love?”

“Yeah, love, see you tomorrow,” mimicked Oliver. They broke into giggles before shoving each other and hailing a passing taxi.

Darlene tried to enjoy having a huge hotel room all to herself by drawing a bath and putting on some music. Zach had gotten a bit drunk and was excited to see old friends, that’s all. Tomorrow, the actual wedding, would be different.

It had to be.

The day dawned crisp, but by midafternoon had warmed to the midsixties. The shuttle dropped guests at the side garden, which led out to pre-ceremony drinks in the football-field-size backyard. Darlene was in one of the first groups to arrive. She felt proud of how she looked. Zach had seen all the dresses she usually wore to black-tie weddings when they were performing, so she’d gone to considerable effort to borrow a new one for her very first black-tie wedding attended as a guest. The gown was floor-length forest-green silk. Strapless, with a full skirt that rustled when she walked. She’d gasped when she saw herself in the hotel mirror. Now, she was eager for Zach to have the same reaction. She approached a server with a tray of appetizers and was stunned to see it being proffered by Zia. Her shirt was slightly wrinkled. She looked like she hadn’t slept in days. Darlene dragged her to the party’s edge. “What are you doing here? You did not have to work today.”

Zia’s voice was flat. “Being alone is worse. And I need the money.”

Darlene softened, wanting badly to help fix the mistake Zia had made.

The Jungle of Us had to delay their shoot date in order for Clay to work damage control on various late-night shows, where he endured a lot of bad jokes with a big smile. Only those who knew him best could see how much it hurt. This narrative recast the photo as stolen from a hacked cell phone and Zia as a former fling from months ago. Zia was able to convince Clay’s legal team that it wasn’t her intent to post the picture, an act which would’ve constituted revenge porn, a class A misdemeanor in New York. Thankfully, this refocused the legal team’s efforts away from her and her sister and onto suing the site that bought it.

And Clay was four thousand miles away in Brazil.

Darlene touched her friend’s arm. “You’re not serious about running off overseas again, are you?” Zia had mentioned taking another volunteer coordinator position, somewhere far away from everything and everyone. “I’ve just gotten used to having a roommate.”

Zia looked blankly around the party. A sea of men in sharp suits and women in sky-high stilettos or dresses all the way to the floor. “There’s no future for me here.”

Zach’s mother, Catherine, caught Darlene’s eye, gesturing for her with the wave of a diamond-encrusted hand. “Go easy on yourself,” Darlene told Zia. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” Zia replied. “I just wish I was saying that to…” Her words wilted and died.

The backyard started to fill. Fifty guests became one hundred, then two hundred. It was both Korean and Hamptons custom to have a sizable guest list. Darlene was no longer playing the role of devoted girlfriend—she felt like she was Zach’s girlfriend, proud of his accomplishments, grateful to be connected to him. She chatted briefly with Liv, noting how much happier the wedding planner was looking lately. Savannah did not seem as rosy-cheeked. Darlene spotted her gazing at a quartet of cool, gay lady couples, before snapping to, and hurrying inside.

Just as Darlene was starting to think she wouldn’t see Zach until the ceremony, the patio door slid open, and there he was. Her jaw dropped. “Holy Livingstone.”

Zach in a tux? Simply spectacular. Tall, dark, and mouthwateringly handsome. He was James Bond, an ad for Rolex, an argument for dual citizenship. The three-piece tux was the same blue as his eyes. It made his shoulders look square, and his body look strong. His typically floppy brown hair was swept back off his face, exposing clear skin and cheekbones Darlene didn’t even know he had. The entire effect made him look like Prince freaking Charming. How had she ever doubted it? She was, and perhaps