She talked about Derek finding her sister in the chaos of their lives. Talked about two people who were too busy to fall in love and fell in love anyway. She talked about love being the thing you choose before you know you're choosing it. Malcolm did not look at Vanessa during the toast. He looked at his glass.
Then he looked up and she was already looking at him and neither of them looked away. The moment lasted longer than was strictly explainable. Then Clare said something that made the table laugh and they both turned back to their glasses and the moment dissolved into the rest of the evening. But it had been there. Both of them had felt it.
That was the problem with feelings that survived contact with a moment they left evidence. It was 9:47 when Trent found Malcolm alone. Malcolm had stepped to the edge of the reception to check his phone, a text from his mother. A photo of Lily asleep in the guest room with her mouth open and one arm flung over a stuffed butterfly. And he was standing in the hallway between the ballroom and the corridor when Trent walked up beside him.
Not aggressive, not performing warmth either, just present. She looks happy, Trent said. Malcolm put his phone away. She is. I mean it.
Trent's voice was different. The layer that Malcolm had identified as performance had been set aside somewhere between the dance floor and here. What was underneath it was not as polished and also somehow more real. She looks the way she looked when I first met her. Before everything, he stopped.
Before I made it complicated, Malcolm waited. I'm not going to do what you think I'm going to do, Trent said. I'm not here to cause problems. I'm Derek's groomsman. I'm trying to get through this wedding without making it about me.
A pause. I know I did that enough already. Okay. Malcolm said, "I've been watching you all weekend because I was looking for something fake." He said it directly.
I thought I assumed. I know what you assumed, Malcolm said. Trent looked at him. The smoothness was almost entirely gone now. What was left was a 34year-old man who had made a specific mistake and was aware of its dimensions.
She's in good hands, he said. That's all I wanted to say. He extended his hand. Malcolm looked at it. Then he shook it.
Trent nodded once, then he went back into the ballroom. Malcolm stood in the hallway for a moment. Then he looked at his phone again. Lily's sleeping face, her arm over the butterfly, and put it back in his pocket. He went back to the table.